I guess then the question becomes, why not deduce broadcast from the
netmask yet still allow that to be overridden? this allows the most common
case to be easier, and makes the odd case require extra work, not the
other way around.
u
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Tony Nugent wrote:
> On Wed May 10 2000 at 09:33, Richard June wrote:
>
> > Just out of curiosity, the kernel apparently doens't set the broadcast
> > address on a device according to the netmask of said device, i.e. ifconfig
> > eth0 10.10.10.1 netmask 255.255.255.252 will assign the ip and netmask as
> > specified, but will set broadcast to 10.255.255.255 even though(If I
>
> Unless you specify a broadcast address, what will be used is the
> normal A- B- C- class specifications for setting it. In the case
> of a 10.X.X.X network, this is an A class network, with only the
> first 8 bits used for the network address (ie, 10.255.255.255).
>
> > understand correctly) broadcast should be 10.10.10.3, am I off my rocker,
> > or is this true? and if so, why does the kernel set netmask if not
> > specified, but not figure out the broadcast?
>
> The broadcast address depends on the netmask, yes. But not
> necessarily so. Which sounds weird, but there are some
> (admittedly weird) situations where the netmask and broadcast
> addresses might need to be "inconsistent". The point is that the
> kernel and networking utilities let you do exactly what you want.
>
> /sbin/ifconfig will usually do all this for you. But with
> /sbin/ip you MUST specify the broadcast address.
>
> But the broadcast address for an A class network is X.255.255.255
> so this is what is created by default. If you want anything
> different, then you need to specify it explicitly.
>
> Cheers
> Tony
> -=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-
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