Configuring ARP
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Configuring ARP
The ARP protocol associates a layer 2 MAC address with a layer 3 IPv4 address. HPE OfficeConnect
1920S software features both dynamic and manual ARP configuration. With manual ARP configura-
tion, you can statically add entries into the ARP table.
ARP is a necessary part of the Internet protocol (IP) and is used to translate an IP address to a media
(MAC) address, defined by a local area network (LAN) such as Ethernet. A station needing to send an
IP packet must learn the MAC address of the IP destination, or of the next hop router, if the destination
is not on the same subnet. This is achieved by broadcasting an ARP request packet, to which the
intended recipient responds by unicasting an ARP reply containing its MAC address. Once learned, the
MAC address is used in the destination address field of the layer 2 header prepended to the IP packet.
The ARP cache is a table maintained locally in each station on a network. ARP cache entries are
learned by examining the source information in the ARP packet payload fields, regardless of whether it
is an ARP request or response. Thus, when an ARP request is broadcast to all stations on a LAN seg-
ment or virtual LAN (VLAN), every recipient has the opportunity to store the sender’s IP and MAC
address in their respective ARP cache. The ARP response, being unicast, is normally seen only by the
requester, who stores the sender information in its ARP cache. Newer information always replaces
existing content in the ARP cache.
The number of supported ARP entries is platform-dependent.
Devices can be moved in a network, which means the IP address that was at one time associated with
a certain MAC address is now found using a different MAC, or may have disappeared from the network
altogether (i.e., it has been reconfigured, disconnected, or powered off). This leads to stale information
in the ARP cache unless entries are updated in reaction to new information seen on the network, peri-
odically refreshed to determine if an address still exists, or removed from the cache if the entry has not
been identified as a sender of an ARP packet during the course of an age-out interval, usually speci-
fied via configuration.
DHCP messages with
giaddr as local address
The number of DHCP messages received whose gateway address, giaddr, is already set to
an IP address configured on one of the relay agent’s own IP addresses. In this case, another
device is attempting to spoof the relay agent’s address. The relay agent does not relay such
packets. A log message gives details for each occurrence.
Pkts with expired TTL
The number of packets received with a time-tolive (TTL) of 0 or 1 that might otherwise have
been relayed.
Field
Description