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ip classless question

mahesh18
Level 6
Level 6

Hi all,

If Router A  has  no route in the routing table for destination route 10.1.3.0 and we do have default route configured as---

ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 serial0/0   on Router A

will the packets be dropped to destination route 10.1.3.0 if no ip classless command is configured on the router A.

or

if we configure the ip classless command in Router A  config then packets will be forwarded to 10.1.3.0 network by serail 0/0?

Please explain

thanks

mahesh

2 Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions

Giuseppe Larosa
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hello Mahesh,

if the router is connected to major network 10/8, and does not know subnet 10.1.3.0 AND it is working in classful mode (= no ip classless) it will drop packets for the unknown subnet

if routers is NOT connected to 10/8 and does not know subnet 10.1.3.0 AND it is working in classful mode (=  no ip classless) it will use the default route.

So if the router has no interface in network 10/8, it will use the default route both in classful and in classless mode

This was a concept of the past: if the router recevies packets for an unknown subnet of a connected major network, the default route was not used because old classful routing protocols do not support partitioned major networks

the modern behaviour with 12.0 is ip classless and in this case the default route is used also for unknown subnets of a connected major network because the major network could be partitioned

Hope to help

Giuseppe

View solution in original post

when you say hosts at remote site you mean to say router at remote site  with config as below?

Yes.

when you say the corporate network  it means that network for example  has  subnet 10.1.3.0 ?

Yes.

and Remote router can not reach this subnet  right?

Yes, because of the no ip classless config.

View solution in original post

5 Replies 5

kevin.hu
Level 3
Level 3

IP classless only affects the operation of the forwarding processes in IOS; it doesn't affect the way the routing table is built. If IP classless isn't configured (using the no ip classless  command), the router won't forward packets to supernets.

interface Serial 0
     ip address 10.1.2.2 255.255.255.0
   !
   interface Ethernet 0
     ip address 10.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
   !
   ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.1.2.1
   !
   no ip classless

With this configuration, the hosts at the remote site can reach       destinations on the Internet (through the 10.x.x.x cloud), but not  destinations       within the 10.x.x.x cloud, which is the corporate network. Because the  remote       router knows about some part of the 10.0.0.0/8 network, the two  directly       connected subnets, and no other subnet of 10.x.x.x, it assumes these  other       subnets don't exist and drops any packets destined for them. Traffic  destined       to the Internet, however, doesn't ever have a destination in the  10.x.x.x range       of addresses, and is therefore correctly routed through the default  route.

Hi Kevin

Thanks for reply

when you say hosts at remote site you mean to say router at remote site with config as below ?

interface Serial 0
     ip address 10.1.2.2 255.255.255.0
   !
   interface Ethernet 0
     ip address 10.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
   !
   ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.1.2.1
   !
   no ip classless

and  when you say the corporate network  it means that network for example has  subnet 10.1.3.0 ? and Remote router can not reach this subnet right?

many thanks

mahesh

when you say hosts at remote site you mean to say router at remote site  with config as below?

Yes.

when you say the corporate network  it means that network for example  has  subnet 10.1.3.0 ?

Yes.

and Remote router can not reach this subnet  right?

Yes, because of the no ip classless config.

Giuseppe Larosa
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hello Mahesh,

if the router is connected to major network 10/8, and does not know subnet 10.1.3.0 AND it is working in classful mode (= no ip classless) it will drop packets for the unknown subnet

if routers is NOT connected to 10/8 and does not know subnet 10.1.3.0 AND it is working in classful mode (=  no ip classless) it will use the default route.

So if the router has no interface in network 10/8, it will use the default route both in classful and in classless mode

This was a concept of the past: if the router recevies packets for an unknown subnet of a connected major network, the default route was not used because old classful routing protocols do not support partitioned major networks

the modern behaviour with 12.0 is ip classless and in this case the default route is used also for unknown subnets of a connected major network because the major network could be partitioned

Hope to help

Giuseppe

Hi kevin and giuslar,

many thanks for explaining we concept.

regards

mahesh

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