STARTNET(8)

NAME
startnet - Start the DECnet protocol on Linux

SYNOPSIS
startnet [options]
Options:
[[-hw [-f]] [<interfaces>]

DESCRIPTION

Starts the DECnet protocol.

This utility should be run at system startup. It will change the ethernet hardware (MAC) address of any or all ethernet interfaces to match the DECnet node address. If you are running Linux 2.2 then you must run startnet before any DECnet operations will work. For 2.4+ it is optional but if you do not run startnet then you must change the ethernet address in some other way.
By default all ethernet interfaces will have their MAC addresses changed if you specify -hw. startnet will enable (UP) all interfaces it changes the MAC addresses of.

OPTIONS

-hw Sets the hardware address of the ethernet card(s) to the DECnet node address. This can only happen if the interface is not in use (but see below).

-f  If -hw is specified then the interface will be DOWNed if it is running before changing the MAC address rather than giving an error. THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS. IT MAY DISABLE ALL TCP/IP COMMUNICATION TO YOUR MACHINE! Only use this flag if you really know what you are letting yourself in for and understand ARP.

EXAMPLES
Start the DECnet protocol on eth0.

    # startnet -hw eth0

HELPFUL HINTS
If you have multiple ethernet cards on your system and they are connected to the the same network you should specify which one you want to use for DECnet communication on the startnet command line, otherwise they will both be given the same MAC address and this is probably not what you want.
Running DECnet on multiple ethernet interfaces only works under Linux 2.4. If you are running Linux 2.2 then the interface name on the startnet command line must match the one in /etc/decnet.conf(5).

SEE ALSO
decnet.conf(5), dntype(1), dndir(1), dndel(1), dntask(1), dnping(1)