Windows/NT to break the Internet?

Thu Oct 17 15:57:11 UTC 1996

At 14:47 10/16/96 UTC, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
>How long can the Internet last if every customer needs to get a /24?
>That is what appears to be with Windows/NT 4.0.  This server has
>lately become very popular with small customers that install an NT
>server and a few PCs and want a connection.  ISPs up to know would assign
>a /26 or perhaps a /27 or even a /30 to SOHOs like this.  Windows NT 4.0
>when defining the address range as well as the DNS and inverse - only has
>space in the form for 3 octets.  They assume you are a /24 or larger.  I 
>have had customers come back to me and say that they can't even enter
>the 255.255.255.224 mask I gave them on their system since the NT doesn't
>support it.  Let alone the problems with inverse subnetting that there
>is a draft RFC out there that almost everyone follows.  Seems to have
>slipped by the people in Oregon, though.
>-----snip-----
>Am I missing something here on WinNT installs?  Or is Microsoft gonna
>cause the IP address space to expire sooner than we had planned?

You're missing something.  On the DNS issue, I would agree with you that
their implementation has some serious shortcomings.  On the other issue, I
think there's something wrong with your customers.  I have a computer on my
home network running Windows NT 4.  It's not a /24 network, it's a /29, and
NT4 accepts a .248 netmask without any problem.

--
William S. Duncanson
NeoSoft Operations
william at neosoft.com
(888) NEOSOFT or (713) 968-5800