On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 abuse@cabal.org.uk wrote:
Roy Badami <roy@gnomon.org.uk> wrote: [...]
Interesting, thanks. TBH, I really don't understand why Cisco have kept the classful support for this long...
When a friend was doing a CCNA back in 2003-ish, Cisco were still teaching classful addressing. There was plenty of other misinformation there. Apparently my home network is impossible to build with such few IP addresses. (I use proxy ARP to avoid creating unnecessary subnets of the already too small block I have.)
Meanwhile, RIPE's training sessions rap you on the knuckles for using terms like "Class C" even though in a world of broken stacks from Cisco and Microsoft, you pretty much need to know about it anyway.
I recently did the CCNA training courses (Its now broken into two - "INTRO-E" (As the instructor put it.. Intro 'essentials' means fit a 4 day course into 3 days by stripping or abbreviating that which isn't quite as 'essential) and ICND) and IP Classes are still covered. It was basically a history lesson but it helps newcomers to understand the decision making process behind a lot of the historical network configs and legacy options within IOS. (And how you can theoretically set up an interface without a netmask). I dont see the harm in retaining the terms and the training for historical perspective. As long as its clearly explained. Most especially for those who dont understand that class c != /24 . Mark.