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I have read at multiple places that network address is a reserved IP and is not recommended to be used as an IP address for an interface. However, I do not see any immediate error or other side effect when I tried using it. What issues I would run into in such a case ?

Michael Hampton
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Sabu
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  • I have no idea at all what your question is. What do you consider a "network address" and how do you want to assign it where? Also, please consider our list of [valid topics](http://serverfault.com/help/on-topic) and the fact that [SF] is meant for professional system administrators exclusively. – Sven Aug 19 '14 at 11:42
  • By network address I meant - Say if your host (host A) IP address is 192.168.10.10/24 then 192.168.10.0 is your network address. Now if you decide to assign this address to one of the host (host B), then what is the side effect ? I have seen the valid topic list and this question falls under - "Network routing, switches, and firewalls". – Sabu Aug 19 '14 at 14:18

1 Answers1

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Only hosts directly connected to a link knows what network address and broadcast address was assigned to that link, so for any remote host it is just another IP.

But hosts directly on the link are going to treat network address and broadcast address differently. First of all, when sending packets to those IP addresses you can usually expect them to broadcast the packets rather than sending them to a specific MAC address.

Moreover other hosts may respond to traffic destined at the address, which could disturb communication if some individual machine try to use it as its own.

Additionally, restrictions may be implemented on what communication is allowed with a network address or broadcast address, which may cause some communication to break if some individual machine try to use it as its own.

kasperd
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