Subject: Re: kern/4785: directed bcasts sysctl doens't turn off icmp replies to bcast addr
To: Erik E. Fair <fair@clock.org>
From: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.lip6.fr>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 01/07/1998 10:03:31
On Jan 6, Erik E. Fair wrote
> I suggest that we make the NetBSD default be to silently discard ICMP ECHO
> messages that are broadcasts.
> 

I strongly dissagree. I use several time a week broadcast ping for diagnostic
purpose (very usefull on a switched LAN, to detect which switch is down).
This can be made tunable, but I really belive the default should
be to honnor such messages. If it's off by default, noone will notice
that util a problem occurs and then it's too late to easily turn it on.
However, I agree that a router should not forward broadcast packets by default
(but this should also be made tunable, I do have some examples where this
is usefull).

--
Manuel Bouyer, LIP6, Universite Paris VI.           Manuel.Bouyer@lip6.fr
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