The IP Over NBMA (ION) Archive

[Paul Ferguson <pferguso@cisco.com>]

At 06:27 PM 8/12/96 -0400, SanJeev Rampal wrote:


>
>		Proposed Extensions to Inverse ARP (RFC 1293) 
>

[snip]

>
>3. Given the extension of the classical IP model to beyond the LIS (via 
>NHRP), it is natural to consider extending Inverse ARP similarly. Hence
>upon receiving an InARP request, A STATION SHOULD BE ABLE TO REPLY WITH 
>PROTOCOL ADDRESSES NOT NECESSARILY IN THE SAME SUBNET AS THE REQUESTOR. 
>IT MAY ALSO BE DESIRABLE TO ALLOW/ MANDATE THE STATION TO SEND BACK 
>SEVERAL REPLIES IN RESPONSE TO SUCH AN InARP REQUEST, ONE FOR EACH 
>PROTOCOL ADDRESS ON THIS INTERFACE.  
>

I think this is a really bad idea. Primarily, it defeats the purpose
of relying in inverseARP in environments such as frame-relay where
auto mapping of a specific logical subnet to a local identifier
(DLCI) is used. I believe thsi will introduce more problems that it
solves.

- paul