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I had not intended to start a religious argument here when I said the
DHCP server ARPs to find out if the address it's going to assign is
already in use. John Summerfield is correct that the specification calls for an ICMP echo request to be sent. Mogens is correct that the ICMP echo is the mechanism used to generate the ARP request and subsequently verify the existence or absence of the address on the segment. ARP is the mechanism for providing an association between the physical link layer and the logical link layer entities. IP addresses are logical link layer entities and ethernet (MAC) addresses are physical link layer entities. ICMP may not depend on knowing how the traffic is transported but it does depend on knowing that it can be transported. That's what address resolution is all about. If the logical address (IP) cannot be resolved to a MAC address it cannot be transported. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and a prosperous New Year to you all. --jc Mogens Kjaer wrote: John Summerfield wrote: |
