Bug#98919: ITP: arping -- sends arp and/or ip pings to a given host
On Sun, May 27, 2001 at 05:37:44PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sun, 27 May 2001, Lenart Janos wrote:
> > Package: wnpp
> > Version: N/A (Sun, 27 May 2001 16:41:08 +0200)
> > Severity: wishlist
>
> What's are the differences compared to the arping program that is in the
> iputils-ping package?
Quote from the README:
Introduction
------------
Arping is a util to find out it a specific IP address on the LAN is 'taken'
and what MAC address owns it. Sure, you *could* just use 'ping' to find out if
it's taken and even if the computer blocks ping (and everything else) you still
get an entry in your arp cache. But what if you aren't on a routable net? Or
the host blocks ping (all ICMP even)? Then you're screwed. Or you use arping.
Why it's not stupid
-------------------
Say you have a block of N real ARIN-assigned IP-addresses. You want to debug
the net and you don't know which IP addresses are taken. You can't ping anyone
before you take the IP, and you can't pick an IP before you know which are
already taken. Catch 22. But with arping you can 'ping' the IP and if you get
no responce, the IP is availible.
Example uses
------------
If some box is dumping non-IP (like IPX) garbage and you don't know which box
it is, you can ping by MAC to get the IP and fix the problem.
(...)
--
Lenart, Janos
<ocsi@debian.org>
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