On Sun, 21 May 2023, Timothy M Butterworth wrote:
> The only address that should have a netmask of 255.255.255.255 is the
> Loopback interface.
>
I don't much use ipv4 any more if I can avoid it but isn't it normal for
point-to-point links to have a netmask of 255.255.255.255?
Point-to-point links should have a mask of 255.255.255.252. This provides a Network, Broadcast and two host addresses.
It definitely can be, maybe not so common as I assumed.
loopback is a /8
The 127.0.0.1 is a /8 but you can assign a public IP address to loopback which is useful on routers. A /32 provides a Network, Broadcast and Host address as a single address because there is only one host.