Re: ifconfig v2

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> Why?  What harm are [noncontiguous netmasks] doing that outweighs
>> (to you) breaking an occasionally useful (if little-used) facility
>> that's been there pretty much since day one?

> No one can agree what they are supposed to mean.

Hm?  I thought they meant what contiguous netmasks do:
"on-net" = "dst address & mask == local address & mask" (mutatis
mutandis for "local address" for things like routes).  Who thinks they
mean anything else?

> No one knows how to use them.

There's no particular "how" to it; you pass them to ifconfig like any
other mask.  "ifconfig le0 100.101.102.103 netmask 255.255.255.216".
Or whatever.

> They are undocumented.

Only in the sense that the documentation (mostly) does not explicitly
mention the possibility that the netmask be noncontiguous; you might as
well say that non-octet-boundary netmasks are undocumented.  What
descriptions I can find offhand of the semantics of netmasks apply
equally well to contiguous and noncontiguous masks.

> They complicate things like the present case: showing a prefix length
> instead of a netmask.

True.

Given that the code already exists, I'm not convinced removing it is
worth breaking the existing facility.

Not that NetBSD necessarily cares what I think, of course.

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