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rfc:rfc1027

Network Working Group Smoot Carl-Mitchell Request for Comments: 1027 Texas Internet Consulting

                                                    John S. Quarterman
                                             Texas Internet Consulting
                                                          October 1987
         Using ARP to Implement Transparent Subnet Gateways

Status of this Memo

  This RFC describes the use of the Ethernet Address Resolution
  Protocol (ARP) by subnet gateways to permit hosts on the connected
  subnets to communicate without being aware of the existence of
  subnets, using the technique of "Proxy ARP" [6].  It is based on
  RFC-950 [1], RFC-922 [2], and RFC-826 [3] and is a restricted subset
  of the mechanism of RFC-925 [4].  Distribution of this memo is
  unlimited.

Acknowledgment

  The work described in this memo was performed while the authors were
  employed by the Computer Sciences Department of the University of
  Texas at Austin.

Introduction

  The purpose of this memo is to describe in detail the implementation
  of transparent subnet ARP gateways using the technique of Proxy ARP.
  The intent is to document this widely used technique.

1. Motivation

  The Ethernet at the University of Texas at Austin is a large
  installation connecting over ten buildings.  It currently has more
  than one hundred hosts connected to it [5].  The size of the
  Ethernet and the amount of traffic it handles prohibit tying it
  together by use of repeaters.  The use of subnets provided an
  attractive alternative for separating the network into smaller
  distinct units.
  This is exactly the situation for which Internet subnets as
  described in RFC-950 are intended.  Unfortunately, many vendors had
  not yet implemented subnets, and it was not practical to modify the
  more than half a dozen different operating systems running on hosts
  on the local networks.

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 1] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

  Therefore a method for hiding the existence of subnets from hosts
  was highly desirable.  Since all the local area networks supported
  ARP, an ARP-based method (commonly known as "Proxy ARP" or the "ARP
  hack") was chosen.  In this memo, whenever the term "subnet" occurs
  the "RFC-950 subnet method" is assumed.

2. Design

2.1 Basic method

  On a network that supports ARP, when host A (the source) broadcasts
  an ARP request for the network address corresponding to the IP
  address of host B (the target), host B will recognize the IP address
  as its own and will send a point-to-point ARP reply.  Host A keeps
  the IP-to-network-address mapping found in the reply in a local
  cache and uses it for later communication with host B.
  If hosts A and B are on different physical networks, host B will not
  receive the ARP broadcast request from host A and cannot respond to
  it.  However, if the physical network of host A is connected by a
  gateway to the physical network of host B, the gateway will see the
  ARP request from host A.  Assuming that subnet numbers are made to
  correspond to physical networks, the gateway can also tell that the
  request is for a host that is on a different physical network from
  the requesting host.  The gateway can then respond for host B,
  saying that the network address for host B is that of the gateway
  itself.  Host A will see this reply, cache it, and send future IP
  packets for host B to the gateway.  The gateway will forward such
  packets to host B by the usual IP routing mechanisms.  The gateway
  is acting as an agent for host B, which is why this technique is
  called "Proxy ARP"; we will refer to this as a transparent subnet
  gateway or ARP subnet gateway.
  When host B replies to traffic from host A, the same algorithm
  happens in reverse: the gateway connected to the network of host B
  answers the request for the network address of host A, and host B
  then sends IP packets for host A to gateway.  The physical networks
  of host A and B need not be connected to the same gateway. All that
  is necessary is that the networks be reachable from the gateway.
  With this approach, all ARP subnet handling is done in the ARP
  subnet gateways.  No changes to the normal ARP protocol or routing
  need to be made to the source and target hosts.  From the host point
  of view, there are no subnets, and their physical networks are
  simply one big IP network.  If a host has an implementation of
  subnets, its network masks must be set to cover only the IP network
  number, excluding the subnet bits, for the system to work properly.

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 2] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

2.2 Routing

  As part of the implementation of subnets, it is expected that the
  elements of routing tables will include network numbers including
  both the IP network number and the subnet bits, as specified by the
  subnet mask, where appropriate.  When an ARP request is seen, the
  ARP subnet gateway can determine whether it knows a route to the
  target host by looking in the ordinary routing table.  If attempts
  to reach foreign IP networks are eliminated early (see Sanity Checks
  below), only a request for an address on the local IP network will
  reach this point.  We will assume that the same network mask applies
  to every subnet of the same IP network.  The network mask of the
  network interface on which the ARP request arrived can then be
  applied to the target IP address to produce the network part to be
  looked up in the routing table.
  In 4.3BSD (and probably in other operating systems), a default route
  is possible.  This default route specifies an address to forward a
  packet to when no other route is found.  The default route must not
  be used when checking for a route to the target host of an ARP
  request.  If the default route were used, the check would always
  succeed.  But the host specified by the default route is unlikely to
  know about subnet routing (since it is usually an Internet gateway),
  and thus packets sent to it will probably be lost.  This special
  case in the routing lookup method is the only implementation change
  needed to the routing mechanism.
  If the network interfaces on which the request was received and
  through which the route to the target passes are the same, the
  gateway must not reply.  In this case, either the target host is on
  the same physical network as the gateway (and thus the host should
  reply for itself), or this gateway is not on the most direct path to
  the desired network, i.e., there is another gateway on the same
  physical network that is on a more direct path and the other gateway
  should respond.
  RFC-925 [4] describes a general mechanism for dynamic subnet routing
  using Proxy ARP and routing caches in the gateways.  Our technique
  is restricted subset of RFC-925, in which we use static subnet
  routes which are determined administratively.  As a result, our
  transparent subnet gateways require no new network routing table
  entries nor ARP cache entries; the only tables which are affected
  are the ARP caches in the host.
  In our implementation, routing loops are prevented by proper
  administration of the subnet routing tables in the gateways.

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 3] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

2.3 Multiple gateways

  The simplest subnet organization to administer is a tree structure,
  which cannot have loops.  However, it may be desirable for
  reliability or traffic accommodation to have more than one gateway
  (or path) between two physical networks.  ARP subnet gateways may be
  used in such a situation:  a requesting host will use the first ARP
  response it receives, even if more than one gateway supplies one.
  This may even provide a rudimentary load balancing service, since if
  two gateways are otherwise similar, the one most lightly loaded is
  the more likely to reply first.
  More complex mechanisms could be built in the form of gateway-to-
  gateway protocols, and will no doubt become necessary in networks
  with large numbers of subnets and gateways, in the same way that
  gateway-to-gateway protocols are generally necessary among IP
  gateways.

2.4 Sanity checks

  Care must be taken by the network and gateway administrators to keep
  the network masks the same on all the subnet gateway machines.  The
  most common error is to set the network mask on a host without a
  subnet implementation to include the subnet number.  This causes the
  host to fail to attempt to send packets to hosts not on its local
  subnet.  Adjusting its routing tables will not help, since it will
  not know how to route to subnets.
  If the IP networks of the source and target hosts of an ARP request
  are different, an ARP subnet gateway implementation should not
  reply.  This is to prevent the ARP subnet gateway from being used to
  reach foreign IP networks and thus possibly bypass security checks
  provided by IP gateways.
  An ARP subnet gateway implementation must not reply if the physical
  networks of the source and target of an ARP request are the same.
  In this case, either the target host is presumably either on the
  same physical network as the source host and can answer for itself,
  or the target host lies in the same direction from the gateway as
  does the source host, and an ARP reply from the would cause a loop.
  An ARP request for a broadcast address must elicit no reply,
  regardless of the source address or physical networks involved.  If
  the gateway were to respond with an ARP reply in this situation, it
  would be inviting the original source to send actual traffic to a
  broadcast address.  This could result in the "Chernobyl effect"
  wherein every host on the network replies to such traffic, causing
  network "meltdown".

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 4] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

2.5 Multiple logical subnets per physical network

  The most straightforward way to assign subnet numbers is one to one
  with physical networks.  There are, however, circumstances in which
  multiple logical subnets per physical network are quite useful.  One
  of the more common is when it is planned that a group of
  workstations will be put on their own physical network but the
  gateway to the new physical network needs to be tested first.  (A
  repeater might be used when the gateway was not usable).  If a rule
  of one subnet per physical network is enforced, the addresses of the
  workstations must be changed every time the gateway is tested.  If
  they may be assigned addresses using a new subnet number while they
  are still on the old physical network, no further address changes
  are needed.
  To permit multiple subnets per physical network, an ARP subnet
  gateway must use the physical network interface, not the subnet
  number to determine when to reply to an ARP request.  That is, it
  should send a proxy ARP reply only when the source network interface
  differs from the target network interface. In addition, appropriate
  routing table entries for these "phantom" subnets must be added to
  the subnet gateway routing tables.

2.6 Broadcast addresses

  There are two kinds of IP broadcast addresses:  main IP directed
  network broadcast and subnet broadcast.  An IP network broadcast
  address consists of the network number plus a well-known value in
  the rest (local part) of the address.  An IP subnet broadcast is
  similar, except both the IP network number and the subnet number
  bits are included.  RFC-922 standardized the use of all ones in the
  local part, but there were two conventions in use before that:  all
  ones and all zeros.  For example, 4.2BSD used all zeros, and 4.3BSD
  uses all ones.  Thus there are four kinds of IP directed broadcast
  addresses still currently in use on many networks.
  With transparent subnetting a subnet gateway must not issue an IP
  broadcast using the subnet broadcast address, e.g., 128.83.138.255.
  Hosts on the physical network that receive the broadcast will not
  understand such an address as a broadcast address, since they will
  not have subnets enabled (or will not have subnet implementations).
  In fact, 4.2BSD hosts (with or without subnet implementations) will
  instead treat an address with all ones in the local part as a
  specific host address and try to forward the packet.  Since there is
  no such target host, there will be no entry in the forwarding host's
  ARP tables and it will generate an ARP request for the target host.
  This presents the scenario (actually observed) of a 4.3BSD gateway
  running the rwho program, which broadcasts a packet once a minute,

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 5] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

  causing every 4.2BSD host on the local physical network to generate
  an ARP request at the same time.  The same problem occurs with any
  subnet broadcast address, whether the local part is all zeros or all
  ones.
  Thus a subnet gateway in a network with hosts that do not understand
  subnets must take care not to use subnet broadcast addresses:
  instead it must use the IP network directed broadcast address
  instead.
  Finally, since many hosts running out-of-date software will still be
  using (and expecting) old-style all-zeros IP network broadcast
  addresses, the gateway must send its broadcast addresses out in that
  form, e.g., 128.83.0.0.  It might be safe to also send a duplicate
  packet with all ones in the local part, e.g., 128.83.255.255.  It is
  not clear whether the local network broadcast address of all ones,
  255.255.255.255, will cause ill effects, but it is very likely that
  it will not be recognized by many hosts that are running older
  software.

3. Implementation in 4.3BSD

  Subnet gateways using ARP have been implemented by a number of
  different people.  The particular method described in this memo was
  first implemented in 4.2BSD on top of retrofitted beta-test 4.3BSD
  subnet code, and has since been reimplemented as an add-on to the
  distributed 4.3BSD sources.  The latter implementation is described
  here.
  Most of the new kernel code for the subnet ARP gatewaying function
  is in the generic Ethernet interface module, netinet/if_ether.c.  It
  consists of eight lines in in_arpinput that perform a couple of
  quick checks (to ensure that the facility is enabled on the source
  interface and that the source and target addresses are on different
  subnets), call a new routine, if_subarp, for further checks, and
  then build the ARP response if all checks succeed.  This code is
  only reached when an ARP request is received, and does nothing if
  the facility is not enabled on the source interface.  Thus
  performance of the gateway should be very little degraded by this
  addition.  (Performance of the requesting host should also be
  similar to the latter case, as the only difference there is between
  efficiency of the ARP cache and of the routing tables).
  The routine if_subarp (about sixty lines) ensures that the source
  and target addresses are on the same IP network and that the target
  address is none of the four kinds of directed broadcast address.  It
  then attempts to find a path to the target either by finding a
  network interface with the desired subnet or by looking in the

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 6] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

  routing tables.  Even if a network interface is found that leads to
  the target, for a reply to be sent the ARP gateway must be enabled
  on that interface and the target and source interfaces must be
  different.
  The file netinet/route.c has a static routing entry structure
  definition added, and modifications of about eight lines are made to
  the main routing table lookup routine, rtalloc, to recognize a
  pointer to that structure (when passed by if_subarp) as a direction
  to not use the default route in this routing check.  The processor
  priority level (critical section protection) around the inner
  routing lookup check is changed to a higher value, as the routine
  may now be called from network interface interrupts as well as from
  the internal software interrupts that drive processing of IP and
  other high level protocols.  This raised processor priority could
  conceivably slow the whole kernel somewhat if there are many routing
  checks, but since the critical section is fast, the effect should be
  small.
  A key kernel modification is about fifteen lines added to the
  routine ip_output in netinet/ip_output.c.  It changes subnet
  broadcast addresses in packets originating at the gateway to IP
  network broadcast addresses so that hosts without subnet code (or
  with their network masks set to ignore subnets) will recognize them
  as broadcast addresses.  This section of code is only used if the
  ARP gateway is turned on for the outgoing interface, and only
  affects subnet broadcast addresses.
  A new routine, in_mainnetof, of about fifteen lines, is added to
  netinet/in.c to return the IP network number (without subnet number)
  from an IP address.  It is called from if_subarp and ip_output.
  Two kernel parameter files have one line added to each:  net/if.h
  has a definition of a bit in the network interface structure to
  indicate whether subnet ARP gateways are enabled, and netinet/in.h
  refers to in_mainnetof.
  In addition to these approximately 110 lines of kernel source
  additions, there is one user-level modification.  The source to the
  command ifconfig, which is used to set addresses and network masks
  of network interfaces, has four lines added to allow it to turn the
  subnet ARP gateway facility on or off, for each interface.  This is
  documented in eleven new lines in the manual entry for that command.

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 7] RFC 1027 ARP and Transparent Subnet Gateways October 1987

4. Availability

  The 4.3BSD implementation is currently available by anonymous FTP
  (login anonymous, password guest) from sally.utexas.edu as
  pub/subarp, which is a 4.3BSD "diff -c" listing from the 4.3BSD
  sources that were distributed in September 1986.
  This implementation was not included in the 4.3BSD distribution
  proper because U.C. Berkeley CSRG thought that that would reduce the
  incentive for vendors to implement subnets per RFC-950.  The authors
  concur.  Nonetheless, there are circumstances in which the use of
  transparent subnet ARP gateways is indispensable.

References

 1.  Mogul, J., and J. Postel, "Internet Standard Subnetting
     Procedure", RFC-950, Stanford University and USC/Information
     Sciences Institute, August 1985.
 2.  Mogul, J., "Broadcasting Internet Datagrams in the Presence of
     Subnets", RFC-922, Computer Science Department, Stanford
     University, October 1984.
 3.  Plummer, D., "An Ethernet Address Resolution Protocol or
     Converting Network Protocol Addresses to 48-bit Ethernet
     Addresses for Transmission on Ethernet Hardware", RFC-826,
     Symbolics, November 1982.
 4.  Postel, J., "Multi-LAN Address Resolution", RFC-925,
     USC/Information Sciences Institute, October 1984.
 5.  Carl-Mitchell, S., and J. S. Quarterman, "Nameservers in a Campus
     Domain", SIGCUE Outlook, Vol.19, No.1/2, pp.78-88, ACM SIG
     Computer Uses in Education, P.O. Box 64145, Baltimore, MD 21264,
     Spring/Summer 1986.
 6.  Braden, R., and J. Postel, "Requirements for Internet Gateways",
     RFC-1009, USC/Information Sciences Institute, June 1987.

Carl-Mitchell & Quarterman [Page 8]

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