interop show network (was: legacy /8)

Mon Apr 12 00:02:41 UTC 2010

> From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu
> Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:28:39 -0400
> 
> On Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:09:25 +0200, Eliot Lear said:
> 
> > them).  If v6 is even close to ready, wouldn't it be sad that this sort 
> > of testing isn't done at interop?
> 
> Interop long ago ceased being a interop shootout and became a 8x11 color glossy
> trade show. I think the last time any actual *testing* happened at Interop, the
> guys hooking up the network drops were wearing t-shirts that said "Yes, the
> subnet mask really *is* 255.255.252.0", and anybody who whined that their gear
> only supported octet-boundary subnets was told "And next year, it will be
> 255.255.250.0".
> 
> :)
> 
> Anybody got production gear that *still* doesn't do non-octet-boundary subnets?

Sort of. We discovered that Infinera DWDM gear's boot ROM OS is entirely
classful. Not only most the subnet mask be on octet boundaries, but the
boundary must match the address space used. (Well, you really can't
specify a subnet mask. It just sets it based on the address.)

That said, this is only the boot ROM system. Once you figure out how to
make that work in your configuration, you load the real, running
software which does CIDR and any subnet mask. So the impact is minimal,
but it did shock me when I ran into it.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
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