Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!columbia!douglass!dupuy From: dupuy@douglass.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: broadcast pings Summary: There are some uses (but not many) Message-ID: <5903@columbia.edu> Date: 24 Sep 88 18:22:47 GMT References: <8809191225.AA06010@radc-lonex.arpa> <8809241430.AA22093@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: news@columbia.edu Reply-To: dupuy@douglass.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) Followup-To: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Organization: Columbia University Computer Science Dept. Lines: 20 As someone pointed out earlier, if responses to broadcast ICMP packets are disallowed, we'll have to come up with a new way of determining the network mask. But it is true that if all the hosts on a network respond, you have instant congestion. Perhaps a compromise is in order. Leave the requirement that hosts not respond to broadcast ICMP packets, but make a specific exception for gateways (what does the gateway requirements RFC say about this?) saying that they may respond to properly formed broadcast ICMP packets. Presumably, the number of gateways on a net is much less than that of hosts, so the congestion problem is not too great. And if you have a need to determine your netmask, you ought to have a gateway on the net (what's the point of subnetting a standalone net?). Is this too simple to really work? @alex -- inet: dupuy@columbia.edu uucp: ...!rutgers!columbia!dupuy