stanonik@nprdc.navy.mil (03/20/90)
The subject of broadcast storms has come up again in another mailing list (tcp-ip). Sun still (sunos4.0.3) seems to distribute systems with 0 in the host part as the default broadcast address. Why? Long ago the internet community seems to have settled on all 1's in the host part for a broadcast address. True, if we don't like the default, we can ifconfig broadcast address, but why does the default continue to differ from the "standard"? Thanks, Ron Stanonik stanonik@nprdc.navy.mil
benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) (11/21/90)
Anyone know why sun, in 4.1, is still broadcasting on the obsolete .0 address instead of .255?
barmar@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Barry Margolin) (11/30/90)
In article <411@brchh104.bnr.ca> benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) writes: >Anyone know why sun, in 4.1, is still broadcasting on the obsolete .0 >address instead of .255? I've assumed that they maintain this incorrect default for backward compatibility. If a site adds a 4.1 system to a network containing older releases they shouldn't be forced to reconfigure all the other systems. Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
katz@rpal.com (11/30/90)
In article <411@brchh104.bnr.ca> benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) writes: > > Anyone know why sun, in 4.1, is still broadcasting on the obsolete .0 > address instead of .255? My understanding is that there are still some old machines around that are pathological with =respect to .255 broadcasts. In particular, these machines rebroadcast any packets sent to the .255 broadcast address. Several vendors have continued to use the obsolete addresses in order to avoid the broadcast storm which can result from having an outdated host on ones net. I agree that it would be far preferable to have a question in suninstall which let you set the broadcast default. Morry Katz katz@rpal.com (other)