when you run gated, it removes the network route to 127.0.0.0/8, and replaces it with a host route for 127.0.0.1 pointing to lo. It also makes 127.0.0.0/8 a martian, which means all routes to that net are ignored. Consequently, after gated starts, anytime a program tries to make a network broadcast, (i.e. talk to 127.255.255.255 amongst others) it gets a network unreachable and fails -- ypbind or rup for example. gated doesn't allow you to config around this particular behavior --it's hardcoded in. however, you can change the loopback broadcast to not be 127.255.255.255 and things will start working again We've been using 255.255.255.255 for weeks with no problems. (I've put this bug under the initscripts, since that's where the workaround would go, and I can't select two categories)
This could be correct; I have seen on other systems that the broadcast for lo is not set to 127.255.255.255 assigned to notting
This is something we probably won't change in the initscripts, but will be something that the user will have to configure if they need to.