[vox-tech] netmask question

[Jeff Newmiller]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2002, Ryan wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Netmasks are not for sepcifing ip ranges, they're for specifing network size.
> 
> You'll should specify this as  7 255.255.0.0 netmasks.

The idea that netmasks must break on octet boundaries is ancient history.
See Section 5 of RFC1338 at, for example, http://RFC.net/rfc1338.html.

> A netmask should always be x number of one bits, followed by all zeros, hence 
> the /x shorthand.
> 
> as an example, 255.255.255.16 would not be a valid netmask, but 
> 255.255.255.192 would.

The "validity" of the netmask depends on convention, but it is true that
it is highly unlikely to be useful to create discontiguous netmasks.

[...]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil@dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
                                      Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...2k
---------------------------------------------------------------------------