Proxy ARP Disabled – How It Works

arprouter

I understand the idea of proxy arp, that it allows me to communicate with other computers from other subnet, because proxy broadcast is made and router act as a proxy, but what if I disable proxy arp ? For example, I have empty arp table and I want to ping computer B. Then arp broadcast is made , but router doesn't redirect it so I won't be able to communicate with computer from others subnet ?

I know that it might be very basic question, but after reading about it I am still not able to understand it clearly. I read that having arp proxy enabled can hide subnet misconfiguration. Could someone give me an example ?

Best Answer

Let's start out with the remark that routers not doing proxy arp is the default situation, proxy arp is disabled in most networks, and, if not used carefully, it can break a lot of things in nasty ways.

In the normal situation with proxy ARP disabled your client will see that the other machine is not on its local network. So it looks at its routing table and see that it should reach the other network via the router. Then, it will forward packets there.

As for your second question: one example of that is a misconfiguration in netmasks. A machine with 10.0.0.1/24 can think it's netmask was configured as a /16 because it sees ARP entries for 10.0.1.1/16, while the latter is not on the local network.