                                README

                Information about the net-tools package                                
NET-TOOLS	A collection of programs that form the base set of the
		NET-3 networking distribution for the Linux operating
		system.

This package includes the important tools for controlling the network
subsystem of the Linux kernel.  This includes arp, hostname, ifconfig,
netstat, rarp and route.

Please include the output of "program --version" when reporting bugs.


Contents:
  
   README		This file.

   README.ipv6		Notes for people hacking IPv6.

   INSTALLING		Installation instructions.

   COPYING		Your free copy of the GNU Public License.

   TODO			Some things that need to be done.


                          Notes
                          -----

This is net-tools 1.50.  Notable changes since 1.49 include:

 - netstat supports a new option `--listening' to show only listening
   sockets.
 - netstat -s is improved.
 - route/netstat -r display the routing cache correctly.
 - plipconfig and slattach are included
 - ipaddr and iptunnel are included (courtesy of Alexey Kuznetsov)
 - as ever, various bugs have been fixed

Notable changes since 1.48 include:

 - IP masquerading support is now selectable.
 - The -t and -u switches to netstat now work as expected.
 - AX.25 support in netstat has been improved.
 - Various other bugs have been fixed.

Notable changes since 1.47 include:

 - Many bugs have been fixed.

Notable changes since 1.46 include:

 - Support for interface aliases with recent kernels is improved.
 - Ifconfig et al can now auto-detect which address families are supported
   on your system.  This avoids triggering kmod requests for all missing
   protocols whenever ifconfig runs.
 - Support for extended SLIP options has been added

Notable changes since 1.45 include:

 - The internationalisation support has been reworked (see below)
 - Support for extra hardware types has been added.
 - Various bugs have been fixed.

You need kernel 2.0 or later to use these programs.  These programs
should compile cleanly with either glibc or libc5.  The `iptunnel' and
`ipmaddr' programs require kernel 2.1 or later.

The NLS support was changed from catgets to GNU gettext by Arnaldo
Carvalho de Melo <acme@conectiva.com.br> in June, 1998, to make the
source more readable. A translation to brazilian portuguese (pt_BR) is
available and others are welcome!

If your system has no support for GNU gettext then `make install' will
probably fail in the po directory.  This is harmless and can be ignored;
all the tools and manual pages are already installed at this point.

ipfw has been removed from the distribution.  Use ipfwadm instead; get
it at <ftp://ftp.xos.nl/pub/linux/ipfwadm/>.

route/netstat -r do not yet support different AF cleanly.  IPX/DDP/AX25
people, please feel free to add the code.

ifconfig now supports changing media types for interfaces.  This requires
a recent 2.1.x or 2.2.x kernel, and many devices do not support it yet.

The documentation is slimmed down.  I think most of it was out of
date.

The tools now support the layout of the 2.2.0 /proc files (Bernd Eckenfels).

Some configuration options require recent 2.1.x or 2.2.x kernels
and/or particular versions of the C library.  The defaults should be
safe for all common environments but some of the more esoteric
hardware and protocol families may be more touchy.  Feel free to send
patches if you have problems.

Phil Blundell
philb@gnu.org

Bernd Eckenfels
net-tools@lina.inka.de
