Hey

I just gotta ask, I've got this home network.

1 box with 2 nics and one nic got 10.0.0.1 and and with my clients i use 10.0.0.x to get connected . and I use netmask : 255.255.255.128

.... ?
Does it matter?
If I use 10.0.0.x or 192.168.0.x ? i mean they both work
and netmask ? 255.255.255.128 or 255.255.255.0

I read something about it limits you but it was waay to hard for me to understand. I got a max of like 5 clients connected ..

If it now limits how many clients , if I make a hugh amount support like 100
but only use 1-5 can it slow me down on performance?

use a mask of 255.0.0.0 with the 10's n/w
use a mask of 255.255.255.0 with the 192's n/w

You can use either one. With whatever netmask you want..

10.0.0.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.128 will allow you to use a total of 126 IPs, 10.0.0.1 -> 10.0.0.126

192.168.0.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 will allow you to use a total of 254 IPs, 192.168.0.1 -> 192.168.0.254


So the 255.255.255.128 does limit you in a way, but if you neeed to use more IP space you could change that mask to something else that will allow a larger pool of usable addresses. There are no real performance related problems with what netmask you use. The only time you may see a problem is if you had tons of hosts/traffic on the same subnet sending out all kinds of broadcast traffic.

so changing my hostmask to 255.0.0.0 would be "optimal" for me?

Yeah it works on classes, with classless routing you get funny netmasks like 255.255.255.240 or whatever. There maybe a reason you have this subnet mask though, it might be assigned by your ISP thus changing it could stop your internet working. Who knows but yeah with classful IP addressing 192.168.0.1 = 255.255.255.0 and 10.x.x.x = 255.0.0.0, its not about optimality if you have 258 hosts you dont need and cant use 192.168.x.x addresses and if youve got 3 hosts you could use the 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x addresses.

I still dont get this stuff with classes yet , but I will evantually
I've read some rfc documents


Well thanks