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Re: Proxy ARP



Ryota Ozaki <ozaki-r%netbsd.org@localhost> writes:

> I have questions about the Proxy ARP feature.
>
> arp(8) has two options: "pub" and "pub proxy".
> What's the different between them and what
> are expected behaviors of them?

Besides the use case Christos mentioned, the other one is when you have
an Ethernet with a subnet, and one host you have some link to another
host that you'd like to also be addressed within the subnet.  Consider
10.0.0.0/8, with a host 10.0.0.20, and another computer without an
ethernet but with a SLIP or PPP link to 10.0.0.20, that you want to be
10.0.0.21.

On 10.0.0.20, you would publish a proxy arp entry for 10.0.0.21, using
10.0.0.20's ethernet address.  This would be "pub", to cause replies to
be sent to queries (normally queries are processed without looking at
the arp cache, but only your addresses, I think).  And "proxy", so that
10.0.0.20 would not use it.

Sometimes this would be done for dialup hosts, especially homegrown ad
hoc to one's computer at campus.

This setup does not require a proxy arp daemon, because there are small
numbers of non-changing entries.

Besides "why don't you plug .21 into the Ethernet", the other question
is "why don't you allocate  a subnet for the PPP link and run a routing
protocol", and the answer was usually "I dno't have any subnets to
allocate" or "it's too hard to make it work".

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