On 15-aug-2007, at 12:15, Mark Smith wrote:
I disagree. For better or for worse, the notion of a subnet mask going along with an interface address is deeply ingrained in the way IP is implemented. Separating the two for no apparent reason is a bad idea.
I think you need to modify the following sentence as such:
"For better or for worse, the notion of a subnet mask going along with an interface address is deeply ingrained in the way **IPv4** is implemented."
No, I was very careful about what I said. The only place that I can think of where you don't configure a mask along with an address is in the case of HSRP. EVERYWHERE else that I know of you need to specify it now that we have CIDR and obviously it was implied before we had CIDR. Yes, in IPv6, too.
We can talk long and hard about the pros and cons of this architecturally, but the simple truth is that changing this doesn't appear to buy as anything tangible and it will require huge amounts of work in implementations and then generate huge amounts of confusion in operations so PLEASE let's not go down this road.
And if you have to look back before RFC 791 to provide counterexamples that really doesn't disprove "ingrained" in my opinion...
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