Inverse ARP: is it supported by every host?

Hi,
I have a list of MAC addresses of stations associated to an AP which I
want to resolve in the corresponding IP addresses. Supposing that a
corresponding entry can not be found within the ARP Cache of the AP, I
thought that I could use Inverse ARP to do the reverse lookup of MAC
addresses.. My question is "should Inverse ARP be supported by every
host?".

I did a simple test: I have two host, HOST1 and HOST2, which are
connected through an ethernet cable (HOST1 on eth2 and HOST2 on ixp0)

HOST1:
eth2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:60:08:B2:96:5C
inet addr:192.168.2.1 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:
255.255.255.0

HOST2:
ixp0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:17:63:01:00:36
inet addr:192.168.2.100 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:
255.255.255.0

I tried to resolve HOST2 MAC address from HOST1, through the netwox
tools (contained within the netwox package of Gentoo/Debian):

HOST1 # netwox 33 -d eth2 -a 00:60:08:B2:96:5C -b 00:17:63:01:00:36
-e 8 -f 00:60:08:B2:96:5C -g 192.168.2.1 -h 00:17:63:01:00:36

On HOST2, tcpdump shows:
12:27:24.824425 00:60:08:b2:96:5c > 00:17:63:01:00:36, ethertype ARP
(0x0806), length 60: invarp who-is 00:17:63:01:00:36 tell
00:60:08:b2:96:5c


So, I don't receive the corresponding reply... Am I missing something?
Should InARP be explicitly enabled on each host?


BTW, this is the help page of the netwox tool that I used (number 33):
# netwox 33 --help
Title: Spoof EthernetArp packet
Usage: netwox 33 [-d device] [-a eth] [-b eth] [-c uint32] [-e uint32]
[-f eth] [-g ip] [-h eth] [-i ip]
Parameters:
-d|--device device device for spoof {Eth0}
-a|--eth-src eth Ethernet src {00:03:0D:35:72:F6}
-b|--eth-dst eth Ethernet dst {0:8:9:a:b:c}
-c|--eth-type uint32 Ethernet type : ARP=2054, RARP=32821
{2054}
-e|--arp-op uint32 ARP op : 1=ARPREQ, 2=ARPREP,
3=RARPREQ, 4=RARPREP {1}
-f|--arp-ethsrc eth ARP ethsrc {00:03:0D:35:72:F6}
-g|--arp-ipsrc ip ARP ipsrc {0.0.0.0}
-h|--arp-ethdst eth ARP ethdst {0:0:0:0:0:0}
-i|--arp-ipdst ip ARP ipdst {0.0.0.0}
--help2 display full help
Example: netwox 33


Thank you in advance for any help

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in
article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>, Slaytanic
wrote:

NOTE: Posting from groups.google.com (or some web-forums) dramatically
reduces the chance of your post being seen. Find a real news server.

>I have a list of MAC addresses of stations associated to an AP which I
>want to resolve in the corresponding IP addresses. Supposing that a
>corresponding entry can not be found within the ARP Cache of the AP,

In that case, they aren't associated (talking to) the AP. What are
you trying to accomplish?

>I thought that I could use Inverse ARP to do the reverse lookup of MAC
>addresses.. My question is "should Inverse ARP be supported by every
>host?".

Simple answer - no

2390 Inverse Address Resolution Protocol. T. Bradley, C. Brown, A.
Malis. September 1998. (Format: TXT=20849 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC1293)
(Status: DRAFT STANDARD)

>I tried to resolve HOST2 MAC address from HOST1, through the netwox
>tools (contained within the netwox package of Gentoo/Debian):

Wasn't aware of the tools. After a quick look at them, I don't think
I'll be installing them either. I was not favorably impressed, but that's
just me.

>So, I don't receive the corresponding reply... Am I missing something?
>Should InARP be explicitly enabled on each host?

Should it be by default? No. The service isn't commonly used, and I
only find mention of _experimental_ code in the kernel.

Old guy