> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Henrik Nordstrom
> Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 7:37 AM
> To: Harald Nordgård-Hansen
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Arp-entry lifetime extension with ICMP?
> 
> 
> On Wed, 17 Aug 2005, [ISO-8859-1] Harald Nordgård-Hansen wrote:
> 
> > I've run into what probably is a policy decision, but I 
> cannot quite get the 
> > reason:  When sending TCP traffic to a machine, the first 
> packet will cause 
> > an arp request to be made.  Later on, this arp entry gets 
> its lifetime 
> > extended by the TCP packets, so that it does not have to 
> arp again until the 
> > network becomes quiet.
> 

Just my humble opinion here, but this behavior would seem to be a security 
risk. A compromised host A could respond to ARP requests from host B for host 
C's IP address just once and keep B's ARP table with the impersonated entry 
intact just by maintaining TCP traffic between itself and B. On the otherhand, 
if B would re-arp for C's address periodically regardless of the traffic 
between the hosts, the duplicate responses coming from both C and A might 
eventually be noticed and dealt with.

Jeff Haran
Brocade Communications Systems
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