[ih] The history of "This" 0.0.0.0/8 network?

[Andrew G. Malis]

Dave,

The answer is in RFC 792, of course (the ICMP spec). In a quick scan, I see
zero in the network field on page 19. It was a way for a host on a LAN to
query its router to find out its network number.

Cheers,
Andy



On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 5:55 PM Dave Taht <dave at taht.net> wrote:

> "Andrew G. Malis" <agmalis at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Dave,
> >
> > From RFC 791: "A value of zero in the network field means this
> > network.".
>
>
> A bit short, don't ya think? :) the full ref expounded with.
>
> "This is only used in certain ICMP messages. "
>
> Which ones?
>
>
> Did the 0 mean that on a shared local lan, it was represented as 0 there,
> and transmitted as something else elsewhere? Or vice versa?
>
>
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Andy
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 3:37 PM Dave Taht <dave at taht.net> wrote:
> >
> >     Brian Carpenter just turned me onto this list. As part of an
> >     upcoming
> >     internet draft, I'd wanted to be able to coherently discuss the
> >     origin
> >     and original use cases of the "this" network "0" in Arpanet to
> >     early
> >     ipv4 transition days, and thus far I haven't found much
> >     information on
> >     it.
> >
> >     I'm curious if there is a reference on it somewhere?
> >
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> >
>
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