Question

Why do I get a wrong IP when I Ping using a zero?

Asked by: fwecoadmin

For a while now I have been noticing that when I use VNC I was getting the wrong computer on my network when I typed an IP address.  An example would be 192.168.1.040 would get me 192.168.1.32 instead of the .40 workstation).  This also was occurring when pinging from CMD.

This was getting progressively worse and now I notice it is always happening with 2 digit octets.  I thought this might be due to something in my cache, my DNS server, host files, router or something of that sort.  However I was unable to pin the cause down in any of those.

I have come to find out that whenever you type a .040 it is actually the octal form of that number which is 32.

My question is, when did this happen?  I've been typing in 3 digit octets since I can remember.  This is due to the fact that a lot of earlier devices "back in the day" required all 3 spaces to be populated by a whole number and was considered incomplete without all 3 digits in that octet.  This just became habit for me to use a zero even if it was a 2 digit octet.

I have tried this on Windows PC's with Vista, XP, and 2K, both on my domain and off.  See these resolved examples below:

Ping 192.168.1.007  = Pining 192.168.1.7
Ping 192.168.1.008  = Pining 192.168.1.8
Ping 192.168.1.009  = Pining 192.168.1.9
Ping 192.168.1.010  = Pining 192.168.1.8
Ping 192.168.1.011  = Pining 192.168.1.9
etc.....

Again. when did this happen?  Did some MS service pack ninja come in at 3 AM and demand that IP addresses be resolved in this manner?  Or has it always been like this and perhaps it was autocorrected for me somehow?  This really bothers me.  I'd hate to think that it's always been like this and it's taken me 12 years to find out that Microsoft has been doing this all along.  Then again, I have more pressing issues on my mind.  :)

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Asked On
2008-01-04 at 13:06:48ID23059781
Tags

Network IP address resolution and ping

Topics

TCP/IP

,

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

,

Internet Protocols

Participating Experts
5
Points
250
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: cuziyqPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:18:42ID: 20586203

Wow . . . what an obscure little bug -- and that's exactly what it is: a bug.  .007 and .7 *should* resolve to the same thing, even in binary.

 

by: welmorePosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:20:47ID: 20586218

You can't add 0 to the front of an ip and as far as I know you never could. As soon as you add the zero the computer interprets the number wrong.  

 

by: hypercatPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:32:04ID: 20586293

Well, it does the same thing here, so it must be "normal".  Looks like it's interpreting it (logically enough) in octal - i.e., 010=8, 011=0, etc. I have never been in the habit of adding an extra "0" to the last octet, so I can't say I've ever noticed this before. I did find this knowledgebase article on Technet, which seems to apply to every OS since Windows for Workgroups :-)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/115388/en-us

 

by: hypercatPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:32:38ID: 20586297

P.S. - finger frenzy strikes again... 011 = 9, not 0

 

by: cuziyqPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:37:08ID: 20586331

Truthfully, I've never used leading zeroes in an IP address octet before.  But seriously . . . who really uses octal anymore??  And if it is deliberately programmed to accept a leading zero as an octal number, then by that logic you should also be able to type C0.A8.01.10 for an IP address, but you can't.

 

by: hypercatPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:43:51ID: 20586366

cuziyq, I think you're getting hexadecimal confused with octal.  Octal is base 8, which uses the numerals 0-7, not base 16 (hexadecimal), which uses numerals 0-9 and numbers a-f (to represent 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15).

 

by: cuziyqPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:52:12ID: 20586422

No, I know the difference.  What I am saying is that it's just plain stupid to interpret a leading zero as an octal number in a dialog box.  First off, nobody uses an octal number in a x.x.x.x field, and second, if they did, how would the dialog differentiate between decimal and octal number if it was 3 digits long (no room for a leading zero)?

It's a bug.  Has to be.  There'd be no reason to deliberately program a "feature" like that in.

 

by: hypercatPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:56:47ID: 20586445

Well, I'm not arguing with you on that - all I said was that it was normal as far as I knew, and I found documentation to support that.  I'm not arguing one way or the other as to whether it is or isn't a good thing - that is often in the eye of the beholder anyway, and I don't find such arguments to be productive, since it's not going to change anything or help resolve the question for the OP.

 

by: from_expPosted on 2008-01-04 at 13:58:04ID: 20586451

to my mind it's a matter of documentation
i have seen devices where you are forced to use leading zero (printers, and radio devices),
where leading zero is removed automatically and where leading zero realy means following number is octal.

 

by: crizzoPosted on 2008-01-04 at 22:18:18ID: 20588105

According to Microsoft, this is a part of the OS....see the below page, but it looks like you are seeing this in Vista also?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/115388

 

by: fwecoadminPosted on 2008-01-05 at 23:18:17ID: 31419290

Hypercat was the first to post that KB article, "Ping and FTP Resolve IP Address with Leading Zero as Octal."  Not only did it name the term and explain what was happening, as our guy Andrew suspected, an octal translation.  It also points out that this has been going on since at least 1993 as the examples are from:
Windows NT 3.1:
and
Windows NT 3.5:
      c:\>ping 022.101.31.153
      Pinging 18.101.31.153 with 32 bytes of data:
      Ping succeeded: 32 bytes time=10ms TTL=32

I'm embarrassed that I have not noticed this in the 10 years I've been doing this.

Just like "from exp" stated, there are a myriad of other servers, web appliances, devices, controllers, wifi products and printers that have always required me to enter that leading zero, and that's just what I got in the habit of doing.

Ive always tended to put PC's in the .100 to .254 range and other devices and routers from .001 to .099.  (Thats just a weird preference of mine to assign certain ranges of IPs to devices in order to remember users, extensions, departments and/or locations.)  In hindsight I believe that due to my personal preferences, I rarely used remote access for any device under the .100 range.  However, recently my network is exploding.  Damn near everything is requiring an IP these days I am forced to put many IP's below .100.  Now that I am required to remote using a leading zero sub .100 (.001 to .099) PCs more often, I must be just noticing it.  Looks like its getting time to move everything to a network class B real soon.

Thanks to everyone that posted.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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