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Date:      Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:36:07 +1100
From:      Tony Landells <ahl@austclear.com.au>
To:        David Preece <davep@afterswish.com>
Cc:        Lowell Gilbert <lowell@world.std.com>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Adding route using mac address 
Message-ID:  <200103142236.JAA23422@tungsten.austclear.com.au>
In-Reply-To: Message from David Preece <davep@afterswish.com>  of "Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:08:09 %2B1300." <5.0.2.1.1.20010315085251.02281748@pop3.paradise.net.nz> 

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davep@afterswish.com said:
> Okay, I realise I'm on shaky ground here, but would like to disagree. 
> Routes - next hop ones at least - have everything to do with layer 2. Say 
> my machine is 1.2.3.8 on a class C, and my default router is 1.2.3.1. What 
> we are effectively saying here is that I am layer 2 connected to 
> 1.2.3.everything, and that if I want to get a packet outside of that I have 
> to use the machine at 1.2.3.1. So when a packet goes off to 3.4.5.6, on 
> layer 2 the packet is addressed over to the router.

There's actually no reason why at layer 2 you might not be connected to
3.4.5.6.

> Conceptually it may be truer to describe a default route in terms of mac 
> address. "The route out of the layer 2 network is at this address". 
> However, it would be a pain in the arse, so we give routers an IP address 
> and rely on arp to convert it to a mac address for us.

No, we do that because layer 2 may not even have a MAC address.  Not all
the world runs on Ethernet.  In fact, if you took out all the non-Ethernet
you wouldn't have an Internet.  I don't suppose you've heard of things
like ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Token Ring, or even modems?

> > > Because on the LAN some ppl are changing IPs to skip the traffic counters
> > > for them.
> 
> Oh. This isn't really a routing question then. Perhaps go to a dhcp network 
> and set up the dhcpd.config (or whatever it's called) with very very long 
> leases so everyone gets the same IP every time. Hmmm, no, I guess that 
> wouldn't help.

If the people are changing them manually, then their desktop should be
set up so they can't do that.  If you mean they're renewing their DHCP
leases, then either change to static mappings or use smarter accounting
that looks at the DHCP logs as well.

And if they're supposed to be using fixed IP addresses, you could put
in server/gateway systems that permit you to enter static ARP entries
so that they can't do anything if they change IP addresses.

And I've gotta say, if they're changing IP addresses I'm surprised
they haven't trashed your network due to duplicate IP addresses, etc.

> Perhaps we need a mac layer accounting daemon that could sit off a tee 
> socket. This wouldn't be too hard, and yes, I might be volunteering. Is 
> this something the community in general might find useful?

It would certainly be one step better in situations like this.  And for
catching accidental duplicate IP addresses.

Of course, if the people have sufficient control of their desktop it will
only work until they start changing their MAC address, but that's usually
a bit harder to get to...

> >You should also, in my opinion, consider non-technical solutions, like
> >terminating these people's accounts, firing them, failing them in your
> >course, slapping their wrists with #6 linguine, whatever's appropriate
> >in your environment.

> Might also prove appropriate. However, you're still facing the ultimate 
> problem of catching the bastards. Perhaps we need something that just 
> correlates mac addresses to IP's? Maybe just leaving running for 24hrs off 
> a bpf then compare the answers to what you should've seen.

That's a good approach, but in a switched environment will require setting
up additional options on the switch so that the logging system sees all
the traffic.

Cheers,
Tony
-- 
Tony Landells					<ahl@austclear.com.au>
Senior Network Engineer				Ph:  +61 3 9677 9319
Australian Clearing Services Pty Ltd		Fax: +61 3 9677 9355
Level 4, Rialto North Tower
525 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia



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