incomplete+permanent arp entries

[Bill Vermillion]

At Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 17:39 , our malformed and occasionally 
flatulent friend Vitaliy Ovsyannikov spewed forth this fount of brain juice:

> Hello, freebsd-net.
> 
>   I've noticed what it is possible to make incomplete+permanent
> entries in kernel arp table.

> xx# arp -s 1.2.3.4 pub
> arp: invalid Ethernet address 'pub'

And 1.2.3.4 is not valid syntax.  xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx - the MAC
address - should preceded  and add the IP address with
a hostname into /etc/hosts

You probably just overlooked that line in the man page.

> # arp 1.2.3.4
> 1.2.3.4 (1.2.3.4) at (incomplete) on vlan1 permanent [vlan]
> 
> In result of it's permanent entry, kernel doesn't listening for
> arp-replies for this host.
> 
> My question is simple: is it bug or feature?

You left out 'user error'.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com