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Static and published arp entries, Displaying the arp cache, Flushing the arp cache – D-Link DFL-2500 User Manual

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The default expiration time for dynamic ARP entries is 900 seconds (15 minutes). This can be
changed by modifying the Advanced Setting ARPExpire. The setting ARPExpireUnknown
specifies how long NetDefendOS is to remember addresses that cannot be reached. This is done to
ensure that NetDefendOS does not continously request such addresses. The default value for this
setting is 3 seconds.

Example 3.14. Displaying the ARP Cache

The contents of the ARP Cache can be displayed from within the CLI.

CLI

gw-world:/> arp -show

ARP cache of iface lan

Dynamic 10.4.0.1

= 1000:0000:4009

Expire=196

Dynamic 10.4.0.165

= 0002:a529:1f65

Expire=506

Flushing the ARP Cache

If a host in your network has recently been replaced with a new hardware but keeping the same IP
address, it is most likely to have a new Ethernet address. If NetDefendOS has an ARP entry for that
host, the Ethernet address of that entry will be invalid, causing data sent to the host to never reach its
destination.

Naturally, after the ARP expiration time, NetDefendOS will learn the new Ethernet address of the
requested host, but sometimes it might be necessary to manually force a re-query. This is easiest
achieved by flushing the ARP cache, an operation which will delete all dynamic ARP entries from
the cache, thereby forcing NetDefendOS to issue new ARP queries.

Example 3.15. Flushing the ARP Cache

This example shows how to flush the ARP Cache from within the CLI.

CLI

gw-world:/> arp -flush
ARP cache of all interfaces flushed.

Size of the ARP Cache

By default, the ARP Cache is able to hold 4096 ARP entries at the same time. This is feasible for
most deployments, but in rare occasions, such as when there are several very large LANs directly
connected to the firewall, it might be necessary to adjust this value. This can be done by by
modifying the Adavnced Setting ARPCacheSize.

So-called "hash tables" are used to rapidly look up entries in the ARP Cache. For maximum
efficiency, a hash should be twice as large as the table it is indexing, so if the largest
directly-connected LAN contains 500 IP addresses, the size of the ARP entry hash should be at least
1000 entries. The administrator can modify the Advanced Setting ARPHashSize to reflect specific
network requirements. The default value of this setting is 512.

The ARPHashSizeVLAN setting is similar to the ARPHashSize setting, but affects the hash size
for VLAN interfaces only. The default value is 64.

3.4.4. Static and Published ARP Entries

3.4.4. Static and Published ARP
Entries

Chapter 3. Fundamentals

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