Not a scientist. I have a litany of complex topics that I just can't really talk to anyone about. I'm a big computer networking nerd, and once upon a time, when I didn't know what I didn't know, I was curious what computer networking really entailed... It seemed dead simple, you connect things to a switch, connect that switch to the internet router, not much more.

Then I learned about VLANs, which are cool but it seemed like unnecessary complexity. Then I learned about Routing and L3 switching, and routing protocols and..... Holy shit, how deep is this?

Now-a-days, I want to have conversations about the merits of one routing protocol over another in various contexts, and see/build a spine and leaf network infrastructure that's nearly infinitely scalable.

I want to explore the nuance of IP unnumbered routing. I can't find anyone who will chat about it on a level that's close to my understanding, either someone knows way more than I do, or they know way less.

IP unnumbered routing is a way of connecting devices without setting an IP on the interface that is being routed to/from. The other end uses the routing protocol on top of layer 2, and while the two might have a router ID, often in the form of an IP address, the interface that is connecting the two has no IP. It's basically advanced point to point protocol (PPP) that breaks away from traditional TCP/IP routing in ways that people who have never used anything besides TCP/IP can't really comprehend. The two "IP addresses" (actually router IDs) in play can have nothing in common. Traditional TCP/IP requires that two IPs share a subnet. In routing, this is typically a /30 for IPv4, and the two IPs are adjacent to eachother, eg, 10.254.123.1 and 10.254.123.2 IP unnumbered can have 10.254.123.2 talking directly with 172.30.88.207, with no layer 3 interfaces in-between.

It's really fascinating and interesting and I've been trying to find a good model or guide to help me learn this better, but I keep ending up at dead ends, and I have nobody to talk to about it.