Re: Telnet does not work in 2.0.10

really kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru (inr-linux-kernel@ms2.inr.ac.ru)
4 Aug 1996 20:19:14 +0400


root (root@lunix.ORG) wrote:
: The first time I saw 'route add -net 127.0.0.1' I thought: Wow, neat. These guys have
: definetely a more open mindset than other unices', and then they drop it :-(

: I want net-routes with host back !!!! Linuuuuuuuuuuuuuussssss !!!!! (Alan ?)

Let's change 127.0.0.1 to something more interesting f.e. 193.233.7.9
and suppose that you have devices with prefixes 193.233.6.0/23(eth0),
193.233.7.0/26(eth1) and 193.233.7.8/30(sl0). What device did you mean?
sl0? Yes, it is the best choice. Unfortunately, your modem is broken
and sl0 is down, so that your command will add unexpected route.

Kernel cannot allow operations with ambiguous result, so that write:

route add -net 127.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 dev lo

Kernel still allows to write:
route add -net 127.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0
route add -net 127.0.0.0 dev lo
and even
route add -net 127.0.0.0

I hope, they will be deprecated, as soon as device routes will be added
automatically. All these commands work, but they are incorrect. Why?
And why C compiler checks for type consistency? When you
have only 2 interfaces, you can keep all the configuration
in the mind (and use Basic for writing two-line program), but
if you had a lot of nodes and a lot of devices, you would be
glad when kernel says "Network is unreachable" instead of
making an unpredictable thing.

BTW references to "all the unices" are ridiculous: all the unices
(except for BSD) do not support CIDR. Really good example is Cisco IOS.
It does not allow not complete route specifications at all.

Alexey Kuznetsov.