About the mentioned arp-patch

Forum: Linux IP NAT Forum
Re: Can NAT Do this? (Bill Harris)
Re: Of course It Can! (Bill Harris)
Re: Yes and it could be even more simple (Rolf Cronberg)
Keywords: Public Access of Private Intranet
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 02:48:01 GMT
From: Michael Hasenstein <hasenstein@yahoo.com>

Some general words to avoid confusion about the arp patch that is mentioned in several articles: If one wants to reach an IP (be it a virtual or a real IP, it doesn't matter) that is located behind a router there are two ways to achieve this: one installs a route to this IP via the gateway one installs proxy arp on the router (often used together with ppp and incoming calls) Dan Lasley, the author of the (short) arp patch for the Linux kernel, didn't want to install routes for his newly created virtual IPs so he's got to use proxy arp as the only other alternative (that I'm currently aware of). The standard arp code didn't allow this solution for him so he made a patch. This patch has nothing to do with the NAT patch. Its author has discovered his need for it by using NAT, ok, but it is no NAT issue. I explain this because I don't want some people out there to believe they have to get the patch in order for NAT to work - this is not the case. You might find the patch useful or not, but this has nothing to do with NAT (i.e. you can use it independent of NAT, with or without it, neither of these patches requires the other one).