Which traffic is able to update the ARP cache?

Question

Am I correct that only ARP request and ARP reply messages will update the Cisco IOS ARP cache?

Please tell us what system or platform you're asking about... — Mike Pennington, Oct 01 '14 at 13:05
@Mike Pennington Devices with BSD or Linux kernel. Also devices running IOS. — Martin, Oct 01 '14 at 13:14
Please ask on [sf] for bsd or Linux questions. Cisco IOS is on-topic — Mike Pennington, Oct 01 '14 at 16:53
Did any answer help you? if so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could provide and accept your own answer. — Ron Maupin, Aug 10 '17 at 02:47

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:57

I wouldn't say that ARP Requests / Replys are the only way an address makes it into the FIB, but it is certainly the most predominant. Gratutious ARP has been mentioned a few times, and with good reason. It doesn't follow the standard ARP Request/Reply procedures, but certainly accomplishes the same goal – populating the FIB with a relevant entry.

Don’t forget about manual intervention. Another way of populating the FIB is by manually setting a static address on the interface or having one automatically stick with port-security.

score -4 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 06 '14 at 10:38

-4

In general — yeah. There's special case of ARP messages called Gratuitous ARP, but anyways there're either replies or requests.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/16335 http://wiki.wireshark.org/Gratuitous_ARP

answered Oct 06 '14 at 10:38

poige

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Hi, that answer is a bit unspecific and you're only referencing links. Could you perhaps elaborate more so that the question has a meaningful answer? – Sebastian Wiesinger Oct 06 '14 at 13:43
no, there's no sense to copy-paste docs. Answer it yourself. – poige Oct 06 '14 at 19:05
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@poige, SE prefers to not have answers that get the main content from links. The reason for this is that link dependent answers are subject to "link rot" and can result in answers that are no longer be useful to the community. – YLearn Oct 06 '14 at 20:34
I hear this crap from time to time, but it's just crap. Do you really want to build your own internet (with blackjack and sluts) instead, which wouldn't rot? ;-P The whole idea behind Internet is hypertext, not copy-paste text. – poige Oct 07 '14 at 03:06
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@poige, perhaps you hear this from time to time because there is room to improve your answers. Please read [shog9's question in meta.SE](http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/225370/160519) – Mike Pennington Oct 07 '14 at 09:39
Or perhaps it's a crap and you can't understand why it is crap. – poige Oct 08 '14 at 01:50

Which traffic is able to update the ARP cache?

2 Answers2