ifconfig & Network Preferences

[rloaderro]

Hi- This is my problem. My G4 has an IP on the LAN with a lot of restrictions (blocked ports, etc..) that were preventing me from working. The sysadmin tried to open up my restrictions but wasn't able with our current firewall/shorewall. Instead he turned me onto an unrestricted IP that I could use - the Problem(1): is this IP is out of range of available IP's on the server - rather, it's not something that I could set via Network Prefs as the server kept returning an error. However it was quite easy to set it via ifconfig in the shell - which is what the sysadmin used to do for himself. However setting ifconfig alone doesn't seem to be sufficient to give me active internet! ie- if Network Prefs is not set to a valid IP with active internet I won't have internet access from my machine!

I've discovered that if I set ifconfig to the unrestricted IP then set Network Prefs to my usual IP for a brief period I have internet acces with no restrictions, however - the Problem(2): is after few seconds I either have no internet or with restrictions until I reset both ifconfig and Network Prefs.

Anyone have any idea about how I can get around this? Can I have active internet without using Network Prefs?! Why isn't setting the IP from ifconfig enough to get a connection?

Any help/explanation would be appreciated a LOT! Thanks...

G4 OSX 10.3.8
Our server is a Debian something or other

 

[Tommo]

When you say that the unrestricted IP address is not in the range of the server ? Unless your sysadmin has provided you with a direct connection to the internet you must still be using the LAN for access. If the unrestricted IP address is not within the same subnet as the connection providing access it won't work.

In any case it will be the other network settings (subnet, gateway and dns servers) that must be able to interface with the unrestricted IP address, if they can't then it won't work.

Has your sysadmin managed to get it to work ?

 

[rloaderro]

When you say that the unrestricted IP address is not in the range of the server ? Unless your sysadmin has provided you with a direct connection to the internet you must still be using the LAN for access.

I'm sorry - i'm pretty bad explaining these things in proper technical terms.

The way he explained it to me today is that the unrestricted ip is not in the ip pool. It exists, but if I try to set it in network prefs the server returns that it is not in the range of valid ip's. If i set it only with ifconfig it definitely screws up the system - safari becomes very unstable and the connection goes out after a few seconds. Not sure what else I can do. The sysadmin is switching over to a new router that will handle a lot of the firewall tasks which he claims will bypass a lot of the problems we are having with restricted ports and have all. Should know monday anyway..

Thanks!

 

[Tommo]

Does the unrestricted IP address start with a 10, 172 or 192 ? If it does it is in a reserved range that will be handled by your LAN. Even so your would need to change the subnet mask to correspond to the new IP address.