jnc@BRUBECK.PROTEON.COM.UUCP (07/10/86)
Yet another network problem (this time at MIT) has been traced to hosts (Symbolics lisp machines) not understanding subnet broadcast packets and forwarding them (and sending ICMP Redirects as well). To repeat: a) under no circumstances should hosts forward packets, and b) when using broadcast, try and use the simplest possible broadcast address (all 1's) to prevent misunderrstanding of whether or not something is a broadcast. Noel -------
MILLS@D.ISI.EDU.UUCP (07/11/86)
In response to the message sent Thu, 10 Jul 86 13:29:41 EDT from jnc@proteon.com The NSFnet Backbone fuzzballs and USAN gateway fuzzball have been buggered to discard all broadcasts (as determined by Ethernet destination address) with IP destination address other than that of the expected local subnet. An exception has been made for the routing updates used by the fuzzballs themselves. No ICMP error or redirect messages are sent in response to packets discarded in this way. I regard this as a rather draconian solution, but believe it necessary due to the cavalier disregard of sensible network engineering on the part of several vendors. Having said that, I do believe it prudent to point out in defense of some vendors that the seeds of this problem (but not the excuse) can be traced to Berkeley distributions which were ported to inappropriate environments. Dave -------