Brian Hillis  wrote:

> I've always seen a net mask designated as 255.255.255.0, and
> thought this was standard.  However, recent, trying to set up a
> cable modem connection, the service provider has told me that
> the IP is 24.112.65.3 and the net mask is 255.255.254.0.

The netmask tells the tcpip stack what it on the local subnet.
255.255.255.0 says "if the address I'm looking for matches the first 24
bits of my IP address, then it's on my local subnet and try to talk to
it directly. Otherwise go through my assigned gateway." 255.255.254.0
just means that it only matches on the first 23 bits - there are 510
hosts in your subnet.

> Needless to say, I have been having a few problems, primarily
> failed DNS reverse lookups for the IP number, and I keep
> thinking that the net mask might be the problem. 

Have you ever managed to get the IP address to reverse lookup? If you
can get out to external sites I'd assume that the connection is working
ok. I know that I've seen problems with doing reverse lookups on IPs
and they're almost always problems with the DNS servers either being
down or not having the IP listed.

J.

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