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Date:      26 Sep 2001 10:04:26 -0700
From:      swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen)
To:        Joe Abley <jabley@automagic.org>, Jamie Norwood <mistwolf@mushhaven.net>, David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 127/8 continued
Message-ID:  <f18zf1vq79.zf1@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <20010926103827.S37693@buffoon.automagic.org>
References:  <20010924094048.X5906-100000@coredump.scriptkiddie.org> <3BB0A0A2.6CCC454B@chrisland.net> <j2lmj2vjmy.mj2@localhost.localdomain> <20010926103827.S37693@buffoon.automagic.org>

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Thanks for your responses, David, Jamie, and Joe.

Sorry for the whining; I had intended to withhold it until I had my
story better organized.  But I'm just frustrated, after reading several
networking books, many articles, and man pages repeatedly, having a
three-sigma IQ and over 20 years of computing , yet still have to resort
to experimental methods to get a working network of only 3 computers.
And the network I've got isn't what I intended nor what I still think I
could eventually achieve if I have enough persistence to
reverse-engineer the software or learn from the mailing lists what I
haven't learned from the poor documentation.  I'd really rather be
helping work on FreeBSD documentation (which is what I want to do with
my recreational computing time). (As much as I hate M$, I have no doubt
why the future of Unix (of which I'm a 12-year user), sadly, dim.)

Joe wrote:

> Are you sure you're just not setting your interface netmask incorrectly?

I'm sure that it's incorrect by some definitions.  It's correct in the
sense that it works, if awkwardly.  AFAIK, I don't have enough IP 
addresses (/29 subnet) to make it correct by standard definitions.
My complaint is that it is, AKAIK, an unnecessary design restriction.
(Maybe if I knew "bridging" better it would be a non-issue for me.)

> If you configure the interface with a netmask of 255.255.255.255 there
> should be no connected subnet route to add.

I've tried configuring with a CIDR /32 address and using the
point-to-point scheme and have never been able to get a packet past
my gateway/route when the netmask is 255.255.255.255.  I've managed
to get something working by using /31 so there's a default route to
my firewall and a route on addr/31 out the interface.

My biggest problems have been with the inscrutable "route" command.
I add a route to the firewall and it sets the gateway localhost's
interface to the firewall (so it pings itself). Why?  I use one
command (I forget right now) with "-interface xl0" and it sets the
gateway to "xl0something", apparently a bug.  I configure the interface
point-to-point and try adding a default route to the other end and it
says it can't find the other end.  I could go on, but I'd rather do
it when I get things stable under 4.4 and can discuss problems one
at a time with logs, etc.

What I've got here is a firewall connected via crossover cables to
a DSL router, a DMZ server, and a workstation.  Most people do this
with NAT but I haven't been convinced that that is the optimum scheme
(though I know I wouldn't have had the problems I've had) as long as
your firewall is well configured.

I started trying to use network 10.x addresses on all NICs and alias
a couple public addresses for the server and workstation, but I couldn't
get that to work and have resorted to public address on all NICs. With
a /29 subnet, I don't have enough to have three sub-subnets for my three
network segments, but have managed to get it to work in what I think is
a non-standard scheme with a router between the three segments of one
subnet.  I've thought about trying the "bridging" setup, but that's
so under-documented, that I've been discouraged to try that so far.

Geeze, I do go on and on.  You deserve a medal if you've read all that.

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