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Date:      Sat, 14 Jun 2003 12:43:35 -0500
From:      Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com>
To:        ODHIAMBO Washington <wash@wananchi.com>, FBSD-Q <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: arp messages: Why is this happening?
Message-ID:  <20030614174334.GT53468@dan.emsphone.com>
In-Reply-To: <20030614095212.GC87960@ns2.wananchi.com>
References:  <20030613152226.GA91843@ns2.wananchi.com> <20030613154057.GN53468@dan.emsphone.com> <20030614095212.GC87960@ns2.wananchi.com>

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In the last episode (Jun 14), ODHIAMBO Washington said:
> * Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com> [20030613 18:40]: wrote:
> > In the last episode (Jun 13), ODHIAMBO Washington said:
> > > 
> > > My log files (and console) fill up with these messages.
> > > 
> > > > arp: 62.8.64.172 moved from 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 to 00:c0:05:10:01:f1 on bge1
> > > > arp: 62.8.64.201 moved from 00:c0:05:10:01:f1 to 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 on bge1
> > > > arp: 62.8.64.201 moved from 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 to 00:c0:05:10:01:f1 on bge1
> > > > arp: 62.8.64.145 moved from 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 to 00:c0:05:10:01:f1 on bge1
> > > > arp: 62.8.64.212 moved from 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 to 00:c0:05:10:01:f1 on bge1
> > > > arp: 62.8.64.188 moved from 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 to 00:c0:05:10:01:f1 on bge1
> > > ...
> > 
> > What are the machines at those two mac addresses?  Are they maybe
> > clustered servers, and during failover, you see an arp line for each ip
> > that gets moved from one to the other
> 
> Now that points me towards some clue ... those mac addresses are not even on
> the box where I am seeing these messages.....
> I can see the mac addresses by using ifconfig, yes??
> So some machines, possibly routers, are doing this...

Maybe.  Routers shouldn't cause this because they only deal with
packets not in your subnet. The kernel only keeps MAC addresses for IPs
in your subnet. 

Your kernel is complaining that incoming packets that were coming in
with an IP of 62.8.64.188 and a MAC address of 00:c0:05:11:01:f1 are
now arriving with a MAC address of 00:c0:05:10:01:f1.  This could mean
that two active phyical machines are configured with the same IP
address (i.e. an IP conflict), two physical machines alternate using
that IP (i.e. failover clustering), or that your ifconfig netmask is
too large and the kernel is remembering MAC addresses for IPs that it
should really be forwaring to a router instead.

You can use the "arp -a" or "netstat -r" commands to display the IP-MAC
mappings the kernel knows about.

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson@allantgroup.com



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