>Now we live in the time of limited IP address space allocations, where
>every address counts, and we have to use our address space efficiently. It
>seems a waste to reserve both host address 0 and host address max for any
>given network number. Since no one is supposed to be using host address
>zero for broadcast any more, the question comes - can it now be used for an
>actual host without nasty repercussions, provided one is reasonably certain
>that one is running relatively modern software on relatively modern hosts
>on one's network?
>
>As an extreme example, can three hosts live on network with a two-bit host
>mask (e.g. 255.255.255.252)?

(note: not speaking from any position of authority)

ye gods, no!  now that we've reached a sort of plateau of agreement
about what is and is not, to do this would be just plain silly.

for example, you can still ping the network number (ie, host number
zero for a given network and subnet) and still get responses from lots
of hosts.

which is not to say that you couldn't manually force the issue on a
homogenous netbsd only network with a lot of handy hacking, but that'd
be about it.

fwiw - why can't i use the subnet broadcast address (from a different
class c) as a /32 alias under netbsd?  it *seems* logically sound with
cidr rules and all...

-- 
|-----< "CODE WARRIOR" >-----|
codewarrior@daemon.org             * "ah!  i see you have the internet
twofsonet@graffiti.com (Andrew Brown)                that goes *ping*!"
andrew@crossbar.com       * "information is power -- share the wealth."