On 10/29/07, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday 28 October 2007, Dan Farrell wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:19:13 +0000
>
> Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Saturday 27 October 2007, Dan Farrell wrote:
> > > On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:58:11 +0930
> > >
> > > Iain Buchanan <iaindb@netspace.net.au> wrote:

> > > This behaviour is called APIPA (Automatic PRivate IP Addressing)
> > > (from /etc/conf.d/net.example):
> > > # APIPA is a module that tries to find a free address in the range
> > > # Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA)
> > > # use APIPA to find a free address in the range
> > > #         169.254.0.0-169.254.255.255
> > >
> > > It provides DHCP-like functionality without a DHCP server.  Pretty
> > > useless, unless you use it to configure all your IPs or a route for
> > > that subnet.
> >
> > Even worse, if your DHCP server comes up later, your PC will still
> > hold on to APIPA - not sure how this feature can be of any use to be
> > honest, but most devices these days from MS Windows to PDAs tend to
> > behave like this.

Let me correct myself here: my Gentoo boxen behave like this.  A WinXP that I
tested for this purpose does not.  It comes up with the APIPA address and
when a router becomes available in the network later on, it readily obtains a
dhcp address and drops the APIPA.  Any idea how to configure Gentoo to do the
same?

I think ifplugd does this.

 eix ifplugd
* sys-apps/ifplugd
     Available versions:  0.28-r7 ~0.28-r8 {doc}
     Homepage:            http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/ifplugd/
     Description:         Brings up/down ethernet ports automatically with cable detection





--
- Mark Shields