Re: [PATCH v10] conf: Support CIDR notation for -a/--address option

[Stefano Brivio <sbrivio@redhat.com>]

Thanks for following up, the patch looks good to me, except for the
trivial conflict on ip.c which I already reported on v9 (but I can fix
it myself).

Just one thing I'm not sure about:

On Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:18:45 -0500
Jon Maloy <jmaloy@redhat.com> wrote:

> We extend the -a/--address option to accept addresses in CIDR notation
> (e.g., 192.168.1.1/24 or 2001:db8::1/64) as an alternative to using
> separate -a and -n options.
> 
> We add a new inany_prefix_pton() helper function that:
> - Parses address strings with a compulsory /prefix_len suffix
> - Validates prefix length based on address family (0-32 for IPv4,
>   0-128 for IPv6), including handling of IPv4-to-IPv6 mapping case.
> 
> For IPv4, the prefix length is stored in ip4.prefix_len when provided.
> Mixing -n and CIDR notation results in an error to catch likely user
> mistakes.

...is this intended at this point:

---
$ ./pasta --config-net -a 2600::/42 ip -6 a s scope global
2: enp9s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65520 state UNKNOWN qlen 1000
    inet6 2600::/64 scope global nodad 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
---

?

because yes, I see we don't store the prefix length, and I've been
suggesting that always using /64 for IPv6 might make sense regardless
of what we see on the host or what the user configures.

But the new usage text, as well as the man page, seem to suggest that
the prefix length would be taken into account for IPv6 addresses as
well.

If this is something that goes away in a newer version of your other
series, I don't see a problem with it. I just thought I would ask if
this is intended, first, before applying this.

-- 
Stefano