When can ipAdEntBcastAddr be zero?

[Jon Sharp]

In RFC1213 (MIB-2), when can ipAdEntBcastAddr be zero? The description
of this field is:

ipAdEntBcastAddr OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX INTEGER
ACCESS read-only
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
"The value of the least-significant bit in the
IP
broadcast address used for sending datagrams on
the (logical) interface associated with the IP
address of this entry. For example, when the
Internet standard all-ones broadcast address is
used, the value will be 1. This value applies
to
both the subnet and network broadcasts addresses
used by the entity on this (logical) interface."
::= { ipAddrEntry 4 }

After a bit of web browsing, I see discussion that some old networks
used zero's instead of one's for the broadcast address. Does
ipAdEntBcastAddr exist to support these old networks? If I don't care
about these networks, can I hardcode ipAdEntBcastAddr to 1?

Thanks
Jon.

[Jürgen Schönwälder]

Jon Sharp <pra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> After a bit of web browsing, I see discussion that some old networks
> used zero's instead of one's for the broadcast address. Does
> ipAdEntBcastAddr exist to support these old networks?

Yes. Note that the original definition of this is also some
20 years old now.

> If I don't care about these networks, can I hardcode ipAdEntBcastAddr
> to 1?

Yep.

/js

--
Juergen Schoenwaelder Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: +49 421 200 3587 Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
Fax: +49 421 200 3103 <http://www.jacobs-university.de/>