<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> ron wrote: <blockquote cite="midb09e06360712200842m71e5c108re8cff6325d55b4c1@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Jacques B. said: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I can see the 98.203.0.1 entries being potentially normal. Depending how they set things up, you could have an entire street or neighbourhood on a subnet. ARP requests are broadcast ARPs which would be seen by all hosts on the subnet, so normal traffic. I am at a lost for explaining the ARP requests coming from other ranges of IPs that are no doubt not in your subnet. What is your subnet mask? That would help determine what broadcast traffic you should see. Jacques B. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> </pre> </blockquote> -----Snip----- <blockquote cite="midb09e06360712200842m71e5c108re8cff6325d55b4c1@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Finally, all interfaces will generate ARP requests because when you try to make a connection to an IP address on the same subnet you don't know what its physical address is so your computer issues an ARP request of the form "who has nn.nn.nn.nn". Whoever has that address responds with its physical address and then you can make your connection. All ethernet communications is ultimately done between physical addresses which may explain why we go to all of this trouble. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">--jc </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> Some info: $ sudo /sbin/ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:D8:CF:C4:8C inet addr:98.203.6.135 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.248.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:582667 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:178013 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:368010009 (350.9 MiB) TX bytes:17358499 (16.5 MiB) Interrupt:17 Base address:0x2000 </pre> </blockquote> Okay, your ISP provides you with a subnet containing 8 Class C networks (2048 possible addresses) so the DHCP server has a lot of house keeping to do. <blockquote cite="midb09e06360712200842m71e5c108re8cff6325d55b4c1@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:910 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:910 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:2490948 (2.3 MiB) TX bytes:2490948 (2.3 MiB) -- As far as my default gateway I'm guessing 93.203.0.1 </pre> </blockquote> No need to guess, try netstat -r to get a list of routes including the default route. Not that it matters. <blockquote cite="midb09e06360712200842m71e5c108re8cff6325d55b4c1@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> $ cat etc hosts: # Do not remove the following line, or various programs # that require network functionality will fail. 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost f8 ::1 localhost.localdomain localhost f8 </pre> </blockquote> If you want to ignore all of those ARP packets run tcpdump as tcpdump not arp and you'll see all of the actual Internet traffic to and from your neighbors' homes. <blockquote cite="midb09e06360712200842m71e5c108re8cff6325d55b4c1@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> -- Sorry I'm new at this. </pre> </blockquote> Aren't we all? <blockquote cite="midb09e06360712200842m71e5c108re8cff6325d55b4c1@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> Thanks for the reply. I figured it somehow is programmed into the cable modem and is somehow initiated by Comcast. I initially ignored it, but as a start in my learning about routers and networking I started here. I basically see how it works now. My next project is to get a static ip address from DynDNS <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.dyndns.com/">www.dyndns.com/</a> and then study up on routers. Any sugestions on hardware and software would be appreciated. I'd like to eventually experiment with a wireless sff motherboard diy router project. Thanks again. -macroron- </pre> </blockquote> --jc </body> </html>