On Fri, 15 Aug 1997, Guenther Grau wrote:

: at work I am "forced" to work with hp-ux ( which is, IMHO, one of the
: worst unix implementations I ever worked with. But I don't want to
: talk about this right now :-). Starting from version 10.x they forbid
: the following netmask: 255.255.255.128 for a class C IP-Address (eg.
: 192.13.13.13).

: And my second question: Do we comply to this standard?
: Although I can see no reason for the requirement, we should comply
: and offer a variable which can be set by sysctl to turn this behaviour
: on or off.

AFAIK, this "standard" is long since obsolete, and violates CIDR (classless
interdomain routing).  In modern interpretation of IP routing, classful (A,
B, C) IP interpretation does not exist, and an IP address consists of a
network portion and a host portion with an arbitrary netmask from 1 to 32
bits in size.

M$ Windowws NT 3.51 doesn't allow a .128 netmask (does NT4?); Novell NetWare
3 doesn't (but 4 does); this is a "feature" either _removed_ from newer
OS's, or settable (as you found for HP-SUX).

=====
== Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Alternate tv@duh.org)
== I know you like the Internet, Bobby.  Now go eat your Frosted Flakes.