AIX NETWORK COMMANDS

• Subnet Mask Addressing • $HOME/.netrc - Specify automatic login

• /etc/hosts.equiv - Defines which client information
HOSTS are permitted to execute commands • $HOME/.rhosts - Defines which client
• /etc/hosts.lpd USERS are NOT required to supply a login
• arp - Translation table between TCP/IP password
addresses and network • ping - Sends an ICMP ECHO_REQUEST
• host • finger - Lists the current users logged on
• hostname • iptrace - Debug trace utility for ip packets
• uname • ipreport - Generates a packet trace report
• nameserver & resolv.conf • spray - Sends a specified number of packets
• no - Configures network options
• ifconfig - Configures or displays the • netstat - Show network statistics
network interface
• nfsstat - Lists statistics about network file
system

Subnet Mask Addressing

Assume a configuration as follows...

SOURCE ADDR = 128.100.0.1

DESTINATION ADDR = 128.100.69.100
SUBNET MASK = 255.255.255.0
BROADCAST MASK = 128.100.0.255

In this case, the DESTINATION PACKET will go to the DEFAULT GATEWAY ADDRESS

Assume a configuration as follows...

SOURCE ADDR = 128.100.0.1

DESTINATION ADDR = 128.100.69.100
SUBNET MASK = 255.255.0.0
BROADCAST MASK = 128.100.255.255

In this case, the DESTINATION PACKET will NOT go to the DEFAULT GATEWAY ADDRESS and
will be routed within the local network.

To determine via the SUBNET MASK if a destination packet goes to the GATEWAY node or not, follow
these simple rules:

1. Perform a LOGICAL AND of the destination address of the mask of the local subnet address
2. Perform an EXCLUSIVE OR on the result of the previous operation and the local net address of the
local interface (eg., source address)
3. If the result of the previous operation is a ZERO, the destination is assummed to be reachable
directly through one of the local interfaces ELSE the packet is forwarded to the DEFAULT
GATEWAY ADDRESS.

$HOME/.netrc

Automatic login information for the ftp and rexec commands.

syntax: machine <hostname> login <username> password <password>

If this file contains a password entry (optional), the file permissions must be set to 600 (rw for owner only)
or else the error message rshd: 0826-813 Permission is denied is generated.

The file .netrc must exist on the client that your executing the ftp or rexec command from and the
<hostname> must specify the name of server to connect to.

For FTP only, you can initiate file transfers via a macro definition (up to 16 macros can be defined). This
file resides on the client machine.

An example of the contents of a .netrc file...

machine sys8 login transfer password now macdef init

get /tmp/database.log /tmp/log/database.log
quit

$HOME/.rhosts

Defines which client users are not required to supply a login password for the rcp, rlogin, or rsh
commands using a user account on the server. The file resides on the server machine under the home
directory of the user account being logged into. An ALIAS entry cannot be specified.

syntax: <hostname> <username>

/etc/hosts.equiv

Defines which clients are permitted to execute commands by the lpd, rlogind, rcpd, or rshd daemons
without supplying a password.

syntax: <hostname>

/etc/hosts.lpd

Defines which clients are permitted to print jobs to the print server.

arp - Address Resolution Protocol

Displays the translation table between TCP/IP addresses and network addresses. This physical address is six
bytes long and is unique for every network board. The first three bytes of the address represent a vendor's
ID. The last three bytes are assigned by the manufacturer.

Some examples...

NOVELL 00 00 1B
NOVELL 08 00 14
3COM 02 60 8C
SUN 08 00 20
IBM 08 00 5a
DEC AA 00 04

Note that an IP address is really assigned to a network interface and not a host. A host may have more than 1
network interface as illustrated by the output of the netstat -i command.

Useful tool for debugging network problems.

• For example, if you are using the DOS SERVER daemons to connect PCs to the RS/6000 and
connections aren't being made, check the arp table to see if there is a hostname entry for the name of
 the PC you are connecting from. If there is an entry in the arp table, then you know that packets are
getting across and the problem lies with the DOS SERVER or PC DOS CLIENT software.
• Further, you may have configured two or more hosts with the same internet address. If this is the
case, its possbile that one connection may get hung. That's because the entry in your arp table gets
overwritten by the new connection. View the arp table and you'll find that the internet address may
now be bound to a new physical network address. The connection that is hung, will not show the
correct physical address for that IP address. It shows the new physical address of the machine that
has the same IP address of the previous connection.
• Another reason to use this utility for a debugging tool is to show what network adapter card address
is mapped to an internet address. If by chance, you have two nodes on your network with the same
internet address, you will have periodic problems keeping a connection to one of those two machines
until a unique internet address is assigned to each machine.

Examples: arp -a (Displays all addresses that have been translated by the address resolution protocol.)
Outputs: dospc (193.0.0.8) at 10:0:5a:2b:69:64 [token ring]
eai1 (192.0.0.3) at (incomplete)

An incomplete entry in the network address field means the node in question could not be contacted.
Probably reasons are:

• node doesn't exist on the network

• node isn't connected to network
• network is not terminated properly
• problem with network cabling
• software on destination host has a bug

arp -d dospc (Remove the dospc entry from the arp table)

finger

Lists the current users logged in from remote machines, including username, hostname, idle time, and so on

Example: finger -i (alias f -i)

host

This command returns the internet address when a hostname is specified or the hostname when the internet
address is specified.

Examples What it does

host www.ahinc.com www.ahinc.com 209.218.236.72
host 209.218.236.72 www.ahinc.com 209.218.236.72
hostname

Sets or displays the name of the host system

Examples What it does

hostname Displays the current hostname value
hostname rs520 Sets the name of the machine to rs520. Make ure that you set the system name to rs520
by executing the uname command
uname
Sets or displays the system name

Examples What it does

uname -S rs520 Sets the system name
uname -a List the system name
ifconfig

Configures or displays the network interface parameters for a tcp/ip network

Examples What it does

ifconfig en0 Indicates if the en0 interface is up and running.
en0: flags=2000063<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,NOECHO>
inet 192.0.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.0.0.255
ifconfig en0 up Before this command is executed the state of the en0 interface is down (doesn't
show UP):
en0: flags=2000062<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,NOECHO>
inet 192.0.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.0.0.255
After this command is executed the state of the en0 interface is:
en0: flags=2000063<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,NOECHO>
inet 192.0.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.0.0.255
1) ifconfig en0 down Adapter statistics for the ethernet card get reset to zero. See the netstat -v display
2) ifconfig en0 detach for further information.
iptrace

Debug trace utility for IP packets

Examples What it does

iptrace -a -s 193.0.0.1 -i en0 network.log All TCP/IP packets that originate from host address of 193.0.0.1
with a ethernet network interface (en0) will be logged to the file
network.log.
ipreport

Generates a packet trace report generated from the iptrace facility

Example: ipreport network.log

Dumps the packets that were trapped from the iptrace session in ascii format for inspection. Must kill the
iptrace process before this report can be displayed.

nameserver (resolv.conf)
Examples What it does
host ahinc or If the arp -a or host commands hang, usually means the name server daemon
arp -a (/etc/named) is not running. Use the command ps -ef|grep named to check if named is
running.
Telnet login responce Make sure the /etc/resolv.conf file has a valid entry in it and the /etc/hosts file has the
is very slow. appropriate entries for all known client nodes.

Contents of an example of a /etc/resolv.conf:

nameserver 192.168.1.1 domain ahinc.com
 When using the named process, each node should have at least the loopback and local
host name defined in the /etc/hosts file.
netstat

Shows network statistics

Examples What it does

netstat -f inet List statistics of AF_INET address family for remote communications
netstat -f unix List statistics of AF_UNIX address family for local communications.
netstat -m Shows current network interfaces that are up and running.

• If a network interface shows an asterik next to it (en0*), this means your interface is
down. Use the ifconfig command to bring the network back up.
• If the Ierrs field (input errors) is nonzero, this means their are no more kernel
memory buffers left to store an incoming frame or indicates a frame error has been
detected.

• If the field Coll field has a colllision rate greater than 1% of the packets
sent/received, then a serious network problem exists.
netstat -r If the non-loopback entry has a G in Flags field (g=gateway), then the ping command may
hang. Change the Flags field to U only. Make sure the ROUTED daemon is running. To
start: startsrc -s routed.
netstat -nr Route Tree for Protocol Family 2:
netstat -sr Displays statistics for each protocol (ip, icmp, tcp, udp)
netstat -s
netstat -v Shows statistics about network interface cards installed.

• If the Xmit Carrier Lost field contains a non-zero value, you most likely have a
problem with your ethernet cable.
• The errpt command should contain entries for the eth? device where
o ? is=first ethernet adapter
o 2=second ethernet adapter, etc
• These error entries should cycle between ENT_ERR6 and ENT_ERR2 and
reference problems with the ethernet cable itself.
• Use the ping command to further identify the problem and also validate through
diagnostics that the network adapter card is good.

• XMIT MAX COLLISIONS gets bumped when the transmitter has tried to transmit a
frame 16 times and each of the 16 failed due to a collision.
• XMIT UNDERRUN gets bumped when the transmitter is getting under-runs.
• XMIT TIMEOUTS gets bumped when the transmitter on the adapter times out
while trying to transmit.
• PACKETS TOO LONG get bumped when a packet is detected that is larger than the
interface can handle (en0 of 1514+ bytes)
• RECEIVE DMA LOCKUPS gets bumped when the adapter card has detected itself
in a lockup state. The microcode will then restart the 82586 to correct this problem
and get things working again.
• INTERRUPTS LOST is the number of interrupts which are not caught by that NIC
device driver. When this counter is not 0, a problem exists with the device driver or
NIC.
 • NO MBUF ERRORS is the number of failed receive MBUF requests from the NIC
device driver.
• RECV OVERRUN COUNT is stating the the NIC is getting overrun. This is not a
big problem unless you see many of these. New microcode/EPROMS may reduce
this number.
• RECV PKTS DISCARDED is stating packets are being received that can't be
matched to the TYPE field. For Ethernet cards, the type of frames being received
would only be 802.3/Ethernet Ver 2.0

• PACKETS REJECTED NO NETID is stating that a packet came in at the LLC level
and it didn't have a SAP bound to send it up to. In other words, the device driver
didn't recognize the packet type that came in. Could be because your co-existing
with a Novell network using IPX and your using TCP/IP.
netstat -v chdev -l ent0 -a receive_size=60
nfsstat

Lists statistics about network file system (NFS) and remote procedure calls (RPC). Also distinguishes
between client and server information.

no

Configures network options. The no command ONLY operates on the currently running kernel. This
command must be run each time the system is rebooted.

Examples What it does

no -o tcp_ttl=40 Specifies the time to live for TCP packets (40 ticks).
no -o thewall=3000 Sets the size of the mbuf pool to 3 MB (default is 2 MB). If requests for mbufs
has been denied, this should prevent requests from being denied.
no -a ipforwarding=0 Turns off IP forwarding
no -o tcp_sendspace=8192 Increasing the buffers to 8k, performance gains of up to 10-20% have been
no -o tcp_recvspace=8192 attained.
ping

Sends an ICMP ECHO_REQUEST message to a network host every second.

Examples What it does

ping rs520 Quick way to determine if the network host you wish to communicate with is either up
and running or is configured properly. If ping intermediately reports back packets (5
packets sent, 1 is lost, 2 packets sent, 1 lost, etc), suspect a bad connection.
ping 192.0.0.255 Generates responses from all the other nodes connected on a class C network. If you
wish to see what nodes are up and responding on your network, this is a simple test to
run.
spray

Sends a specified number of packets over the network and reports back performance statistics.

Examples What it does

/usr/etc/spray AIX -c 1000 -l 1400 -d 1 Send 1000 packets to the host named AIX with a delay of 1 micro-
second, where each packet sent is 1400 bytes. This uses the RPC
protocol.