                                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.  Additionally, this package contains
utilities relating to particular network hardware types (plipconfig,
slattach) and advanced aspects of IP configuration (iptunnel,
ipmaddr).

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 1.55.  Since 1.54, various bugs have been fixed.

Notable changes since 1.53 include:

 - Jiri Pavlovsky supplied a Czech translation

Notable changes since 1.52 include:

 - a bunch of buffer overrun vulnerabilities are fixed (thanks to 
   David Wagner)
 - Meelis Roos contributed an Estonian translation
 - netstat recognizes ESP and GRE protocols, courtesy John D. Hardin.

Notable changes since 1.51 include:

 - Jean-Michel Vansteene updated the French translation.
 - Dag Brattli contributed support for IrDA

Notable changes since 1.50 include:

 - Tuan Hoang added support to netstat for printing multicast group 
   information (option --groups)
 - Jan Kratochvil added support to netstat for displaying details of
   the process owning a socket (option --programs)
 - Steve Whitehouse contributed support for DECnet
 - Ralf Bächle provided a translation to German

You need kernel 2.0 or later to use these programs.  These programs
should compile cleanly with both glibc (version 2.0 or 2.1) and libc5,
though support for libc5 is not well tested.

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. Translations to brazilian portuguese (pt_BR),
German (de) and French (fr) are available and others are welcome!

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

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

The tools now support the layout of the 2.2 kernel /proc files (Bernd
Eckenfels).

Some configuration options require kernel version 2.2 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
