The Avahi daemon, installed by default with SL5.x , is the program that configures a 169.254.xxx.xxx address on disconnected ethernet ports - such as the one on your laptop when you are away from a hard connection for a while, or the ones on your desktops when your router's power goes out. Avahi is a version of zeroconf, and related to something called "link local". It is allegedly useful for connecting two ethernet ports with a crossover cable. However, it is also persistent, and when a DHCP server becomes available, ready to assign a proper address, the previously assigned (and useless) 169.254.xxx.xxx address persists. Avahi also sends out frequent discovery packets, adding noise to tcpdump debugging sessions.
This is a bug, not a feature. I disabled it on my laptop with System -> Administration -> Server Settings -> Services , but I'm wondering if there is something needful that breaks when I disable Avahi . Otherwise, I will turn it off on all my machines. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
