First, make sure that Mach recognizes your hardware. If it doesn't, you have to recompile it in most cases.

To configure the network, the `pfinet` (Protocol Family Internet) translator must be configured. This is done using the `settrans` command to attach a translator to a given file system node. When programs access the node by, for example, sending an RPC, the Hurd will transparently start the server to handle the request.

    # settrans -fgap /servers/socket/2 /hurd/pfinet -i eth0 \
      -a 192.168.0.50 -g 192.168.0.1 -m 255.255.255.0

Here, `settrans` is passed several options. The first two, `fg`, force any existing translator to go away. The next two, `ap`, make both active and passive translators. This means that the operating system both starts the translator immediately and saves the settings in the node on the file system. This former also means that any error messages are sent to `stderr`. The next argument, `/server/socket/2`, is the node that the translator is to be attached to. This is followed by the translator program to run and any arguments to give it.

Help on settrans can be obtained by passing it the `--help` option. Help on a specific translator can be gotten by invoking it from the command line with the same argument, e.g.:

    # /hurd/pfinet --help

As there can be a lot of output, consider piping this through a pager.

Finally copy over your `/etc/resolv.conf` from GNU/Linux to allow your DNS to resolve correctly.

-- [[Main/GrantBow]] - 26 Oct 2002

Text formatting. -- [[Main/OgnyanKulev]] - 19 Sep 2004