BHOLMES@CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU (03/29/91)
From the few responses I received so far it seems that the consensus is that one can reply using the broadcast address but this generally is not good practice due to excessive work this puts on the local workstations. I'm having a proble right now with a router and a distribution enclosure. The enclosure ARPs for the router's(gateway's) ethernet address and the router replies using the broadcast address instead of directly to the enclosures ethernet address. The enclosure isn't dealing with this very well although workstations seem to accept this practice just fine. By "can do this" does this mean the general consensus is that this is legal? Where can I contact the protocol police regarding this? I'm not to sure which vendor to talk to about this.
ljm@FTP.COM (leo j mclaughlin iii) (03/30/91)
> >From the few responses I received so far it seems that the consensus >is that one can reply using the broadcast address but this generally >is not good practice due to excessive work this puts on the local >workstations.... By "can do this" does this mean the general >consensus is that this is legal? Where can I contact the protocol >police regarding this? I'm not to sure which vendor to talk to about this. > Ancient versions of WIN/TCP for DOS sent ARP replies as broadcasts. In some network configurations with some hosts bad things happened. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the details; I just fixed it as soon as I noticed the behavior. As far as 'legal' is concerned, use the only definition that matters to the tcp-ip world. If you are doing this for your own environment, and nothing breaks, then go ahead. If there is any chance of the software being deseminated into the world at large, don't use broadcast ARP replies as they may break other software. enjoy, leo j mclaughlin iii ljm@ftp.com