Re: [MiNT] Reibl rc files enclosed

[Michael Schwingen <rincewind@discworld.dascon.de>]

On Fri, Jun 25, 1999 at 07:47:02PM +0300, Martin-Eric Racine wrote:
> > Regarding routing: you are routing the whole network that is defined by your
> > netmask. If the Class C network you are using (eg. 10.0.0.*) falls in a
> > Class A block or not does not matter - you are using a network using a 24/8
> > bit netmask, and you are routing all of that - no computer uses the
> > knowledge that this used to be a class A block for routing purposes.
> 
> Say again?   I re-read it twice, but I still don't get it.

Traditionally, the Class (A,B,C) was designated by the two MSB of the IP
address, thus 10.x.x.x would be a class A network. I am not sure if this was
ever used for routing, it was used for assigning network blocks - if you
wanted to get a Class B block (ie. 65536 addresses minus specials), you
would get one between 128.0.*.* and 191.255.*.* (IIRC).

However, nowadays routing is done only based on netmasks, so what seems to
be a class B block (according to its IP address) may in fact be a group of
class C networks that are routed to different locations (IIRC, only blocks
of 16 class-C networks up can now be allocated and routed in the backbones,
so you can't keep an assigned Class-C network when switching to a different
provider which uses a different IP block).

cu
Michael
-- 
Michael Schwingen, Ahornstrasse 36, 52074 Aachen