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.
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