Re(2): Re(2): [SunRescue] Stupid NVRAM questions

[Tim Hauber]

rescue at sunhelp.org writes:
>It's just that I get confused by hex, binary, oct, etc?

Well, you don't have to worry about Octal with much of anything anymore,
but the general standards are

IP numbers are expressed in Decimal
Mac Addresses are expressed in Hex,
If you want to figure network masks it is easiest to do it in Binary.

An IP number is actually 4 bytes with each byte represented in decimal as
a number between 0 and 255.

A netmask is used as a Binary AND mask so that routers know if it is local
or not, etc. 
 this is why netmasks are almost always the numbers
128,192,224,240,248,252,254,or 255, because they are a binary mask with no
holes, so it will be a group of consecutive set bits starting at the MSB
(the left).  I have never set up a nemask with holes, but I guess it would
work, be interesting to try it.

Tim