On Sun, Nov 20, 2005 at 02:53:04PM -0600, Josh Webb wrote:
| Paul de Weerd wrote:
| >So there's a couple of strange things (in my opinion) :
| >
| >     o pxeboot shows MAC and IP with lots of 0's
| >     o the system tries to ARP for its own IP
| 
| I don't know about that first one, but it is normal for a host to ARP 
| for its own IP. That is what's known as a "gratuitous" ARP. If there is 
| a reply, the system knows there is an address conflict. Also, it serves 
| to update the ARP cache on other systems if a different NIC takes over 
| for an IP address (like if the system or NIC were replaced).

Very true, but this machine waits for an answer (which should not (and
does not) come after a gratuitous arp. And it will complain with an
"arp timeout" error message. That is rather strange if you'd ask me,
timeouts on gratuitous arps.

Cheers,

Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd

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