From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Oct 7 23:09:52 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id XAA18619 for isp-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 23:09:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ns2.win.net (ns2.win.net [204.215.209.4]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA18608 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 23:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from launchpad.win.net (launchpad@localhost) by ns2.win.net (8.6.12/8.6.9) with UUCP id BAA12908 for freebsd-isp@freebsd.org; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 01:59:39 -0400 Received: by win.net!launchpad; Tue, 08 Oct 1996 01:14:17 X-Mailer: WinNET Mail, v4.0a Message-ID: Reply-To: fbsd-isp@launchpad.win.net (Joe Mays - freebsd-isp) To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 01:14:17 -0400 Subject: Subnetting From: fbsd-isp@launchpad.win.net (Joe Mays - freebsd-isp) Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I have a question about subnetting. Why is it a no-no to use all zero (or all 1 for that matter) subnet numbers? Everything says, "Don't do it," but nothing says why, beyond the fact that it's non-standard. In the end everything points at RFC 950, which just says, "It's not recommended," again without giving a reason. Okay, so I accept that it's non-standard, but it should work. Even Cisco's documentation admits that it works, while saying, "We don't advise it." My question is... Is there some specific *technical* reason for not doing it? Is it bad for any performance reason? Is there anything that will malfunction because of it? I mean, abiding by this standard sacrifices a lot of IP numbers. I'd like to know why I'm doing it beyond "being a good little netter." Joe Mays