Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!MATHOM.CISCO.COM!BILLW From: BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM (William Westfield) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: default broadcast address Message-ID: <12412750860.11.BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM> Date: 8 Jul 88 21:16:56 GMT References: <8807071832.AA07969@hogg.cc.uoregon.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 13 I recomend AGAINST using the subnet in the broadcast address. This makes it impossible for systems to send a broadcast until after they know the proper netmask. If the system is a diskless machine trying to boot off the net, it would normally do this by sending a broadcast ICMP MASK REQUEST or BOOTP. But it can't do this until AFTER it knows the broadcast address... Using the local broadcast address (-1, or 0) seems the best solution, though it seems to annoy older unix systems. Bill Westfield cisco Systems. -------