arpd's usefulness

[Drew Scott Daniels <umdanie8@cc.UManitoba.CA>]

I'm cc'ing people who may be able to better inform Debian as to the
upstream status of arpd.

Currently there is no one volunteering to keep aprd up to date on Debian,
and it has been suggested that perhaps arpd should be removed from Debian
(notes at: http://bugs.debian.org/191870 and perhaps some discussion can
be read at http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200305
).

But what about network segments that contain more than 256 machines?
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0201.2/0511.html suggests
that as of at least linux kernel 2.4.17 or 2.5.1,
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/neigh/default/gc_thresh3 can be used to change the arp
table. The same message says arpd still reduces broadcasting on LAN.

Older kernels and unique situations (such as wanting to define locally, arp
addresses) may still require arpd. I'm not sure how one could define
static arp addresses or how arpd could be used to define arp addresses.

Does the Linux kernel still recommend or at least suggest arpd? Will sarge
ship with any older linux kernels?
http://packages.debian.org/testing/base/ and
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/base/ seem to suggest versions of the
2.2.20 kernel will be shipped.

According to http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0201.2/1549.html
(Jan 22, 2002), there is a new arpd upstream maintainer (it doesn't look
like they made it into the official kernel though):
+P: Dana Lacoste
+M: dana.lacoste@peregrine.com
+W: http://home.loran.com/~dlacoste/
I currently can't access that site, although it does resolve.

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/net/0101.0/0007.html says that arpd
1.0.3 and 1.0.4 are downloadable from http://expansa.sns.it/knetfilter
(allows arpd to compile with "glibc 2.1 2.2 and with kernels 2.2 and
2.4"). I don't see them there anymore, but maybe they can be requested.

     Drew Daniels