[bug-inetutils] Re: ping: Discard single octets as host name.

[Mats Erik Andersson]

tisdag den  7 december 2010 klockan 13:22 skrev Simon Josefsson detta:
> Mats Erik Andersson <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Hello again,
> >
> > there is an old bug report [1] filed with Debian, which makes much sense.
> > It is a wish that the call
> >
> >     ping 10
> >
> > should return an error, since no host can consist of a single octet,
> > and neither is an IPv4 address with initial octet 0 possible.
> 
> Isn't this traditional behaviour of BSD ping?

Do you mean to say that "ping 10" being equivalent to
"actively and stubbornly have a go at 'ping 0.0.0.10'",
that this is the traditional behaviour?

This is what OpenBSD 4.6 and FreeBSD 8.0 do this very day,
which still is a daft way to act. This is also the behaviour
of present day Inetutils.

The default package "iputils-ping" aborts and truthfully states
that "10" is an invalid argument.

The differing behaviour boils down to believing the output
of inet_aton(3), or not to do so. This old library call
transforms

    10       -->  0.0.0.10

    10.1     --> 10.0.0.1

    10.2.1   --> 10.0.2.1

    10.3.2.1 --> 10.3.2.1

(Filling at right, except first octet, in multi-octet argument!)

In comparison "ping6 10" aborts also in BSD with an error.
Therefore, it would be consistent and sensible to implement
this also for IPv4 pinging.


Regards,

Mats