[808] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
BGP masks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian Lloyd)
Mon Jun 3 19:46:00 1991
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 91 16:35:46 PDT
From: brian@napa.Telebit.COM (Brian Lloyd)
To: yakov@watson.ibm.com
Cc: ietf@ISI.EDU, com-priv@psi.com, hwb@sdsc.edu, almes@rice.edu,
In-Reply-To: yakov@watson.ibm.com's message of Mon, 3 Jun 91 09:36:12 EDT <9106031336.AA18496@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: brian@napa.Telebit.COM
Thank you for your posting of the past discussions about BGP3 by
Hans-Werner Braun, Dennis Ferguson, Dave Katz, and Guy Almes vis-a-vis
routes with masks. I agree that without the infrastructure for
assigning network numbers that fall on arbitrary bit boundaries,
having BGP send the mask is less than useful.
On the other hand what we have is a chicken or egg situation. If
there is no exterior gateway protocol that propagates masks there is
no incentive to modify the way the addresses are assigned. Since
technology tends to lead the organizational issues (no one is likely
to attempt to change the procedures until there is something to change
to) I believe that providing the appropriate gateway protocol is a
necessary precursor to assigning arbitrary length network numbers.
Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN Telebit Corporation
Network Systems Architect 1315 Chesapeake Terrace
brian@napa.telebit.com Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1100
voice (408) 745-3103 FAX (408) 734-3333
