Subject: [netatalk-admins] [Q] zone_bcast "Zone" exists

From: "Fred Lindberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 11:24:30 -0500

Hi:

I know very little about appletalk and Macs, but thanks to netatalk,
I've been able to keep the local mac folks happy without learning more.
Now there is a problem, and I don't know if I'm responsible. Any help,
pointers to docs, etc, would be greatly appreciated.

I've recently upgraded to netatalk-1.4b2+asun2.1.0 (redhat 5.1) from a
plain 1.4b2 install. eth0 is on the university network ("eth0 -phase
2") and eth1 is a local private ethernet (192.168 - IP masquerading,
'eth1 -seed -phase 2 -net 36035 -addr 36035.115 -zone "ID Lab"'. In
order to get my server into this zone (rather than the default for
eth0, which is "Internal Medicine"). Everything works fine my end for
local access to remote servers/printers and remote access to my server.
I start with:

...
            daemon atalkd
            nbprgstr -p 4 "${ATALK_NAME}:Workstation"
            nbprgstr -p 4 "${ATALK_NAME}:netatalk"
 ...
                    daemon afpd ${AFPD_NOCLR} ${AFPD_NOAFS}
${AFPD_NOKRB} \
                        ${AFPD_NOGUEST} -g ${AFPD_GUEST} \
                        -c ${AFPD_MAX_CLIENTS} \
                        -n "${ATALK_NAME}:AFPServer@${ATALK_ZONE}"
 
with ATALK_NAME=ID and ATALK_ZONE="ID Lab".

This works fine, but about 2 weeks into running this, users on
"Internal Medicine" reported printers mysteriously appearing and
disappearing in the chooser. I wa stold that this was do to incorrect
routing information being propagated and that some router on the
Internal Medicine network was responsible. From their end, my netatalk
installation looks like a correctly configured "FastPath".

The only new thing I've observed in the logs is the following message
repeated with 20s interval every 2 min:

Aug  3 13:28:38 id atalkd[3136]: zone_bcast Internal Medicine exists

-Does this suggest I'm originating incorrect info on this zone, or that
I'm merely logging someone else doing it?
-If I am, is this my fault or due to information I received by a seed
router when staring netatalk?
-Does starting the workstation in the default zone and the AFPServer in
another zone cause problems?
-When routers on the main net are taken down and restarted, would my
installation retain the incorrect info, i.e. do I need to participate
in a shutdown?

Thanks!

-Sincerely, Fred

(Frederik Lindberg, Infectious Diseases, WashU, St. Louis, MO, USA)

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 00:34:10 -0400

> From:    "Fred Lindberg" <[email-masked]>
> To:      "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>

> 'eth1 -seed -phase 2 -net 36035 -addr 36035.115 -zone "ID Lab"'

I'd suggest starting by removing '-zone "ID Lab"' from your
atalkd.conf.  You get the effect your looking for by starting afpd and
papd with "@ID Lab".  In the case of afpd, you're doing that just
right, on the command line.  If you're starting printers, you add the
"@ID Lab" to the name in the papd.conf.

None of which should cause the problem you're seeing, but I'd still
suggest removing '-zone "ID Lab"', since it causes a number of bizarre
problems.  To help track down the problem, you might try sending a
"USR1" signal to atalkd.  It will write a file called
/tmp/atalkd.debug, which should be fairly easy for one of your
AppleTalk admins to interpret.

:wes