Sangeeta Misra wrote: > says the Class E range is : > > range 240.0.0.0 through 255.255.255.255 > But it goes on to say: > Note that the broadcast address, 255.255.255.255, still must be > treated specially in each case: it is illegal as a source IP address, > it is illegal as an network interface address, and it matches the > local system when used as the destination address in a received > datagram. > > So there is a slight contradiction in the draft,
I don't believe that this is a contradiction. It's part of the Class E block, but it must not be assigned to an interface. That's pretty clear to me. There are plenty of addresses in other address blocks (i.e., A, B, C) that must not be assigned either, like subnet broadcast addresses, and those are no more a contradiction. > but the note about > broadcast address makes it clear > that 255.255.255.255 should not be considered to be a valid address to > assign to a machine. So I simply exclude it > from my IN_CLASSE macro. I don't see the connection between forbidding the assignment of 255.255.255.255 to an interface and this Obsolete macro. It's Obsolete and shouldn't be used, so it shouldn't be used by ifconfig to determine the validity of a given address to assign to an interface. In any case, this entire thread is delving into code-review territory, so it should not continue here. As far as this case is concerned, I don't see any outstanding architectural issues at this moment. -Seb
