net-pf-18 errors in modprobe

[SarcNBit]

I see these very sparsely on various servers. I know how to make the messages go away (add an 'alias net-pf-18 off' line to your /etc/modules.conf for those that may be wondering).

What I am wondering, is if anyone had any good idea of what exactly would be generating this kind of traffic (ASH flag).

From /usr/src/linux/include/linux/socket.h:

/* Supported address families. */
#define AF_ASH 18 /* Ash */

 

[chirpy]

Yeah, I see those on occassion too and usually follow the same advice to switch them off in modules.conf.

Well, I searched high and low looking for something other than the line in sockets.sh and came up empty. Unless the Ash socket has anything to do with the ash shell, I'm at a loss:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almquist_shell

 

[SarcNBit]

Unless the Ash socket has anything to do with the ash shell, I'm at a loss

I read a few posts from the debian mailing list yesterday that seemed to indicate that the protocol had nothing to do with the ash shell. I really have no idea however.

I came across
this page from HP mentioning it as a socket flag that is unsupported in HP-UX, but it offers no real additional information.

Curiousity is getting the best of me, but my work load is beating it down. I will post back if I find anything more.

 

[SarcNBit]

Once you know what it means, the research gets a whole lot easier

After reading through literally hundreds of pages of irrelvent garbage .......................




Application Session Handoff

 

[chirpy]

Aha! Well done I bet you'll still just setup a modules alias anyway

 

[SarcNBit]

I bet you'll still just setup a modules alias anyway

More than likely :D

 

[verdon]

I get these somedays and somedays not. Sometimes only 1 Time(s) and sometimes for many. This is a new server for me and I'm just getting this sorted out now.

These are the ones I get, and what they are...

Can't locate these modules:
net-pf-4: 1 Time(s)
net-pf-11: 1 Time(s)
net-pf-5: 1 Time(s)
net-pf-9: 1 Time(s)
net-pf-18: 1 Time(s)


net-pf-4: -> ipx
net-pf-11: -> rose
net-pf-5: -> appletalk
net-pf-9: -> x25
net-pf-18: -> ASH

I found these references on one mailing list...

> A purely cosmetic workaround is to include the followin two lines in your
> /etc/conf.modules:
> alias net-pf-3 off
> alias net-pf-5 off


AFAIK this is not purely cosmetic as it stops kerneld from trying to
load these modules every now and then. I.e. it makes your machine
marginally faster

I also found a pretty good list of what these protocals are at this url: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~reynolds/m5n/modprobe.conf

So, as I don't believe I need these protocals, and these are likely somebody poking at my server looking for holes, I think the alias in /etc/modules.conf should be all I need to do.

regards,

 

[chirpy]

That does seem to be the best course of action.