Re: 25-bit subnet masks OK

Owen DeLong (owen@delong.sj.ca.us)
Thu, 19 Oct 1995 22:11:49 -0700

> To correct some misinformation I've seen floating around on
> the list, PortMasters have no problem with using
> 255.255.255.128 subnet masks for Class C networks; we're perfectly
> OK with using the 0 and 1 subnet. If you have other vendor's
> routers you'll need to check whether they're OK with it too
> (I think Cisco's have a setable option as to whether to accept
> subnet zero or not).
>
SunOS 4.1.3 and earlier (haven't checked 4.1.3_U1b or 4.1.4 yet)
have a problem with routed. The .128 network half machines will
not accept the route to the .0 network half.

Cisco's require the ip subnet-zero global configuration command
in order to accept the all zeroes subnet.

> So splitting a Class C in half for use with a firewall is a
> perfectly fine thing to do. RFC 950 was written TEN YEARS AGO,
> when there was spare IP address-space to burn.
>
Yep, done it many times.

> There appears to be a lot of confusion over PortMasters and netmasks,
> but there's one simple rule that should make it easier to understand:
> All our products support ONE netmask per network. We expect a network
> to be sliced up the same way, which is another way of saying that we
> don't do variable length subnet masks. We will do VLSM in the future
> (its one of the Big Four Requests).
>
BIG BIG BIG request!

> Revision B of the Configuration Guide for PortMaster Products (now over 300
> pages but not out yet) will discuss netmasks and routing on PortMasters
> in all the detail you can stand, and more.
>
Uh huh... :-)

Owen