Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!ALLSPICE.LCS.MIT.EDU!dab
From: dab@ALLSPICE.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: a proposed modification to ARP
Message-ID: <8807111441.AA18646@PTT.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 11 Jul 88 14:41:27 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 11

> 4.3 BSD ARP times out unaccessed cache entries every 20 minutes.  Is
> there any good reason not to increase the value to several hours or
> longer?  Broadcasts are expensive and memory is cheap.

     If 4.3 still has the bug where it doesn't update its ARP entry for an
IP address everytime it receives an ARP from that IP address, then those of
us who occasionally change ethernet interfaces would rather see this time
shortened than increased.  Except for this, I think an ARP timeout of many
hours is reasonable.

					David Bridgham