Women in Technology

Hear us Roar


Article:
  Introducing DHCP
Subject:   Broadcast of 255.255.255.255 ?
Date:   2003-05-22 19:54:41
From:   anonymous2
I noticed that there is a broadcast of 255.255.255.255. Why? My isp (adelphia) hands me a broadcast address like that too. I thought the broadcast needed to be the network address with all bits on for the host portion.


Is it a misconfiguration by my isp, or is there some reason why they are doing this?
Full Threads Oldest First

Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.

  • Broadcast of 255.255.255.255 ?
    2003-05-23 03:56:07  anonymous2 [View]

    This is the right way to specify it. If you mean by "all bits on" the binary representation, then you are right. 255 in Decimal can be interpreted 11111111 in binary representation. So if you take a closer look at the network address, we have
    255.255.255.255 4 times 8 bit.
    that is:
    11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111
    in binary or
    FF FF FF FF in hex.

Recommended for You
 
Sign up today to receive special discounts,
product alerts, and news from O'Reilly.
Privacy Policy >
View Sample Newsletter >