Re: ifconfig v2

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

> I am fairly sure that the IETF decided to abandon all support for
> those things back when the router requirements rfcs were being
> written (mid 90's) - they had their uses back when subnets were first
> invented, but lack of support from some major vendors meant that in
> practice they couldn't be used in a lot of sites,

There was a time when lack of support from some major vendors meant
that subnet masks not on octet boudaries couldn't be used, too.  I see
no reason to let half-assed vendor implementations deprecate a useful
feature.

> The real killer for them however is that no-one has even been able to
> describe (let alone make work) what is supposed to happen when a
> network has two different sets of non-contig masks applied -

See my list message just now in response to Ignatios.  "Local policy",
which may mean "whatever the implementation happens to give you".
That's what we've always had in practice anyway on implementations that
support them.

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