[Dnsmasq-discuss] IP range with 0.0.0.0 netmask?

[Andrea Galvani]

Hello everyone.

I'm working on a particular network architecture which allows a host to 
have any address inside of a network (that is, not only private 
addresses!). The host is not directly reachable, and every connection 
with the host is managed by the router above the network with an ad-hoc 
protocol, which is not the matter here.

Since every host has a fixed IP, I'm using dnsmasq for storing static 
leases for every host in the network.
For now I've been using only 10.0.0.0/8 addresses, but my idea is to 
start using really "any" address possible (for example: 1.2.3.121).

So, apart from the static leases, I configured dnsmasq like this:

dhcp-range=wlan0,1.0.0.1,255.255.255.254,0.0.0.0,1h

Every host should obtain his static IP, without any restriction (even 
outside of the 10.0.0.0/8 range).
The range seems to be ok as dnsmasq boots:

dnsmasq-dhcp[6180]: DHCP, IP range 1.0.0.1 -- 255.255.255.254, lease time 1h

But as soon as I connect a host (which should obtain 1.2.3.121) I get 
this error as a result:

dnsmasq-dhcp[6180]: no address range available for DHCP request via wlan0

Is the range not accepted by dnsmasq?
Is it really possible to configure dnsmasq in order to provide "any" 
address?
Are there some constraints (for example, on the netmask) which I'm missing?
If so, which is the biggest address pool that is possible to configure?

Thanks for the attention.

Andrea