ARP: X is multicast

Stewart

At sites where I have OpenMesh devices, I repeatedly see

arp: xx:xx:xx:yy:yy:yy is multicast

How can I silence these in the logs? I've seen this:

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/80516/kernel-arp-43-05-43-05-00-00-is-multicast-spam-in-syslog

Is this still the solution?

stephenw10

Yes, that's still technically invalid so needs to be specifically allowed:
https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4284

Steve

Stewart

Thanks. In looking at the redmine I see a recommendation to add it into System->Advanced -> Network. In there I see:

ARP Handling
_   Suppress ARP messages
This option will suppress ARP log messages when multiple interfaces reside on the same broadcast domain.

Will checking this box effectively do the same thing? Or should I add it in as a Tunable?

stephenw10

No, that will not accept the multicast ARP replies if you need that. That requires the system tunable to be added.

If you just need to clean the logs then you can try that check box. I'm not sure I've ever done so for multicast ARP, we hardly ever see that (because it's invalid ).

Steve