Thanks Dale, removing "switchport block multicast" from the ports magically 
allows ARP to work correctly again.
However it also required me to bounce the interface (shutdown / no shutdown) 
before the "no switchport block multicast" actually seemed to take affect on 
the port in the same way as "no switchport block unicast" does as well. Seems 
like a bizarre and unfortunate problem but at least there it can be made to 
work.

Thanks again!


________________________________________
From: Dale W. Carder [[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 8:32 AM
To: Justin Krejci
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] 6509 "switchport block unicast" wrongly filtering  ARP 
broadcasts

It's the multicast block that's causing your problems.  On cat6k/720 the
multicast block impacts ARP and ipv6 ND, thus rendering that command
absolutely maleficent in any typical production environment.

Dale


Thus spake Justin Krejci ([email protected]) on Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 
02:01:18PM +0000:
> To be clear this is just a simplified version of a live network that has many 
> more vlans and networks with routing beyond the 6509. I reduced the topology 
> to just the area where I've identified the problem and can still reproduce 
> the problem.
>
> Am I missing something? I thought "switchport block unicast" should only 
> filter out unicast packets that it wants to flood, not broadcast packets that 
> it wants to flood.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Justin Krejci [[email protected]]
> Received: Wednesday, 06 Nov 2013, 4:01pm
> To: [email protected] [[email protected]]
> Subject: [c-nsp] 6509 "switchport block unicast" wrongly filtering ARP 
> broadcasts
>
> I have a relatively simple hardware configuration and topology
>
> 6509-E (tried on 2 different units)
> Sup720 (also tried Sup720-3B)
> WS-6548-GE-TX
> WS-6748-GE-TX
>
>
> IOS Version 12.2(33)SXI6
>
>
> int g1/1
>  switchport
>  switchport access vlan 900
>  switchport mode access
>  switchport block multicast
>  switchport block unicast
>  no cdp enable
>  spanning-tree portfast edge
>  spanning-tree guard root
>
> int vlan 900
>  ip address 10.21.3.2 255.255.255.0
>  standby 1 ip 10.21.3.1
>
> monitor session 1 source interface g1/1 both
> monitor session 1 destin interface g1/25
>
> No other non-default vlans or IP addresses are defined anywhere on the 6509.
>
>
> "laptop 1" plugged into port g1/1 with 10.21.3.129/24 assigned and is running 
> tcpdump
> "laptop 2" plugged into port g1/25 running tcpdump
>
> To start out
> 6509 has no ARP entries for 10.21.3.129
> 6509 has no MAC entries for "laptop 1"
>
> Initiate a ping from the 6509 and the "laptop 2" tcpdump shows the arp 
> request from the 6509 source MAC address with destination MAC address 
> FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF.
> The "laptop 1" never sees the ARP packet at all.
> The 6509 then inserts an Incomplete ARP entry for 10.21.3.129 for a short 
> while.
> No MAC table entries for "laptop 1" show up on the 6509 of course.
> Then initiate a ping from "laptop 1" to 10.21.3.2 and everything works as 
> expected, "laptop 1" sends ARP request and the ICMP echo and reply packets 
> work correctly.
> If I now clear the 6509 MAC entry for "laptop 1" and the ARP entry for 
> 10.21.3.129 I am back to the 6509 sending broadcast ARP packets as seen in 
> the port mirror on "laptop 2" but they never arrive to "laptop 1"
>
> I stop my ping from "laptop 1" to the 6509.
> If I then remove "switchport block unicast" from g1/1 this does not 
> immediately resolve the problem, the ARP broadcast still does not get sent 
> out port g1/1 toward "laptop 1" but do still see it on "laptop 2" via the 
> port mirror. If I then re-initiate a ping from "laptop 1" to 10.21.3.2 again 
> everything works as expected as before. If I stop the ping from "laptop 1" 
> then I clear the 6509 MAC table entry and ARP entry the 6509 then sends 
> another ARP broadcast for 10.21.3.129 and its sent out port g1/1 toward 
> "laptop 1" and normal communication works as expected from that point on.
>
> A similar configuration on a routing Catalyst 3560 with "switchport block 
> unicast" on does not suffer from a similar ARP filtering problem, though I 
> have not specifically captured the packets and done a close inspection, 
> primarily because it appears to be working as designed.
>
> So it appears to me there are two problems in this hardware/platform or IOS
> 1 - "switchport block unicast" is incorrectly filtering ARP broadcast packets
> 2 - removing "switchport block unicast" does not immediately stop filtering 
> ARP broadcast packets
>
> It sounds like IOS bug to me.
> Has anyone run into this behaviour before?
> Any thoughts?
>
> TIA
>
>
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