RFC 1029 (rfc1029) - Page 2 of 17
More fault tolerant approach to address resolution for a Multi-LAN system of Ethernets
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1029 Fault Tolerant ARP for Multi-LANs May 1988
PART 1
INTRODUCTION
In the Ethernet, while all packets are broadcast, the hardware
interface selects only those with either the explicit hardware
broadcast address or the individual hardware address of this
interface. Packets which do not have one of these two addresses are
rejected by the interface and do not get passed to the host software.
This saves a great deal of otherwise wasted effort by the host
software having to examine packets and reject them. If the interface
hardware selected packets to pass to the host software by means of
the protocol address, there would be no need for any translation from
protocol to Ethernet address. Although it is very important to
minimize the number of packets which each host must examine, so
reducing especially needless inspections, use of the hardware
broadcast address should be confined to those situations where it is
uniquely beneficial. Perhaps if one were designing a new local
network one could eliminate the need for an address translation, but
in the real world of existing networks it fills a very important
purpose. A rare use of the broadcast hardware address, which avoids
putting any processing load on the other hosts of the Ethernet, is
where hosts obtain the information they need to use the specific and
individual hardware addresses to exchange most of their packets.
REASONING BEHIND ADDRESS RESOLUTION
The process of converting from the logical host address to the
physical Ethernet address has been termed ADDRESS RESOLUTION, and has
prompted research into a method which can be easily interfaced,
whilst at the same time remaining portable.
The Ethernet requires 48 bit addresses on the physical cable [11] due
to the fact that the manufacturers of the LAN interface controllers
assign a unique 48 bit address during production. Of course, Network
Managers do not want to be bothered using this address to identify
the destination at the higher-level. Rather, they would prefer to
assign their logical names to the hosts within their supervision, and
allow some lower level protocol to perform a resolving operation.
Most of these logical protocol addresses are not 48 bits long, nor do
they necessarily have any relationship to the 48 bit address space.
For example, IP addresses have a 32 bit address space [6], thus
giving rise to the need to distribute dynamically the correspondences
between a pair, and a 48 bit Ethernet
address.
Parr