8.3.1 Address design

If your local addressing scheme provides more than enough addresses for every device on the network, you can achieve a relatively simple network design and avoid associated pitfalls by keeping the following considerations in mind:

1. Avoid crossing network address space boundaries by using subnet address spaces of a single large (class A or class B) network address space, rather than multiple network address spaces.

2. Use the same number of bits for each subnet mask (avoid creating variable-length subnet masks).

If you implement RIP-1 routing in a manner that fails to satisfy these addressing conditions, you must exercise due caution when setting the conditions for route advertisement.