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Date:      Mon, 10 Dec 2001 10:57:42 +1100 (EST)
From:      Rowan Crowe <rowan@sensation.net.au>
To:        freebsd-isp@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: arplookup
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0112101055050.47615-100000@velvet.sensation.net.au>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0112091132410.331-100000@veager.jwweeks.com>

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On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Jim Weeks wrote:

> 
> On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Rowan Crowe wrote:
>  
> > Just a warning that this will break connectivity to IPs in that block of
> > 65535 IPs that are *not* on that LAN.
> > 
> > For example, if your IP is 1.1.100.3 and your netmask is 255.255.255.0,
> > your LAN has 255 local hosts, and everything else is routed via the
> > gateway. If you change it to 255.255.0.0, then your LAN has 65535 local
> > hosts, and everything else is routed via the gateway.
> > 
> > This means that if you try to communicate with (say) 1.1.200.1, it will
> > fail, because your machine assumes it's on the LAN, when it's *really*
> > outside of that network, and can only be reached via the gateway.
> > 
> > Coming full circle, setting that hostmask may actually cause similar or
> > identical ARP errors on other machines, because there will be ARP requests
> > coming from your machine for IPs that *are not* on the LAN (but your
> > machine thinks they are)
> 
> Full circle indeed!  This brings us back to the original problem, why
> aren't these requests coming through the gateway in the first place.  I
> haven't had a strait answer to that question yet.  Any enlightenment would
> be appreciated.

Probably the same fundamental problem - other machines on the same LAN are
communicating directly (ether-ether) with IPs that your machine thinks
should be routed via the gateway. Your machine says, "hang on, why am I
getting an ARP request for an IP which *isn't* on my LAN?"

The simple fix is to make sure that your ethernet interface has an IP
address in each subnet that is routed in the LAN (so it knows *every* IP
that is communicated with directly), but that can be quite wasteful and
impractical.

I don't know of a more complicated fix, other than hacking the code to 
disable the error. :)

Cheers.


--
Rowan Crowe - Melbourne, Australia
www.camrecord.com | www.camdiscover.com | www.sensationbot.com


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