It is very simple to configure an AX.25 port to carry tcp/ip. Jonathon has modified the axattach command so that you can include the IP address that you want the interface to be configured with on the command line. For example, to modify the example presented earlier, I could use the command:
# /usr/sbin/axattach -i 44.136.8.5 -m 512 /dev/ttyS0 radio
# /sbin/route add -net 44.136.8.0 sl0
# /sbin/route add default sl0
to create the AX.25 interface with an IP address of 44.136.8.5 and
an MTU of 512 bytes. You should still use the
ifconfig to configure the other parameters if necessary.
You do not need to do it this way, you can of course just use the ifconfig program to configure the ip address and netmask details for the port and add a route via the port, just as you would for any other tcp/ip interface.
# /sbin/ifconfig sl0 44.136.8.5
# /sbin/ifconfig sl0 netmask 255.255.255.0
# /sbin/ifconfig sl0 broadcast 44.136.8.255
# /sbin/ifconfig sl0 arp mtu 256 up
# /sbin/route add -net 44.136.8.0 sl0
# /sbin/route add default sl0
The commands listed above are typical of the sort of configuration many of you would be familiar with if you have used NOS or any of its derivatives or any other tcp/ip software. Note that the default route might not be required in your configuration if you have some other network device configured.
To test it out, try a ping or a telnet to a local host.
# ping -i 5 44.136.8.58
Note the use of the `-i 5' arguments to ping to tell it to
send pings every 5 seconds instead of its default of 1 second.