IP / ADDRES

Summary

Sub-menu: /ip address


IP addresses serve for a general host identification purposes in IP networks. Typical (IPv4) address consists of four octets. For proper addressing the router also needs the network mask value, id est which bits of the complete IP address refer to the address of the host, and which - to the address of the network. The network address value is calculated by binary AND operation from network mask and IP address values. It's also possible to specify IP address followed by slash "/" and the amount of bits that form the network address.

In most cases, it is enough to specify the address, the netmask, and the interface arguments. The network prefix and the broadcast address are calculated automatically.

It is possible to add multiple IP addresses to an interface or to leave the interface without any addresses assigned to it. In case of bridging or PPPoE connection, the physical interface may bot have any address assigned, yet be perfectly usable. Putting an IP address to a physical interface included in a bridge would mean actually putting it on the bridge interface itself. You can use /ip address print detail to see to which interface the address belongs to.

MikroTik RouterOS has following types of addresses:

• Static - manually assigned to the interface by a user
• Dynamic - automatically assigned to the interface by DHCP or an estabilished PPP connections

IP / ARP

Summary

Sub-menu: /ip arp
Standards: ARP RFC 826

Even though IP packets are addressed using IP addresses, hardware addresses must be used to actually transport data from one host to another. Address Resolution Protocol is used to map OSI level 3 IP addresses to OSI level 2 MAC addreses. Router has a table of currently used ARP entries. Normally the table is built dynamically, but to increase network security, it can be partialy or completely built statically by means of adding static entries.

Properties
Property Description
address (IP; Default: ) IP address to be mapped
interface (string; Default: ) Interface name the IP address is assigned to
mac-address (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) MAC address to be mapped to

Read only properties:

Property Description
dhcp (yes | no) Whether ARP entry is added by DHCP server
dynamic (yes | no) Whether entry is dynamically created
invalid (yes | no) Whether entry is not valid


Note: Maximal number of ARP entries is 8192.


ARP Modes


It is possible to set several ARP modes in interface configuration .....

Disabled
If ARP feature is turned off on the interface, i.e., arp=disabled is used, ARP requests from clients are not answered by the router. Therefore, static arp entry should be added to the clients as well. For example, the router's IP and MAC addresses should be added to the Windows workstations using the arp command:

C:\> arp -s 10.5.8.254  00-aa-00-62-c6-09

Enabled
This mode is enabled by default on all interfaces. ARPs will be discovered automatically and new dynamic entries will be added to ARP table.

Proxy ARP
A router with properly configured proxy ARP feature acts like a transparent ARP proxy between directly connected networks.

This behaviour can be usefull, for example, if you want to assign dial-in (ppp, pppoe, pptp) clients IP addresses from the same address space as used on the connected LAN.

Lets look at example setup from image above. Host A (172.16.1.2) on Subnet A wants to send packets to Host D (172.16.2.3) on Subnet B. Host A has a /16 subnet mask which means that Host A believes that it is directly connected to all 172.16.0.0/16 network (the same LAN). Since the Host A believes that is directly connected it sends an ARP request to the destination to clarify MAC address of Host D. (in case when Host A finds that destination IP address is not from the same subnet it send packet to default gateway.)

Host A broadcasts an ARP request on Subnet A:

Info from packet analyzer software:

No.     Time   Source             Destination       Protocol  Info

 12   5.133205  00:1b:38:24:fc:13  ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  ARP      Who has 173.16.2.3?  Tell 173.16.1.2


Packet details:

Ethernet II, Src: (00:1b:38:24:fc:13), Dst: (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)
    Destination: Broadcast (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)
    Source: (00:1b:38:24:fc:13)
    Type: ARP (0x0806)
Address Resolution Protocol (request)
    Hardware type: Ethernet (0x0001)
    Protocol type: IP (0x0800)
    Hardware size: 6
    Protocol size: 4
    Opcode: request (0x0001)
    [Is gratuitous: False]
    Sender MAC address: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
    Sender IP address: 173.16.1.2
    Target MAC address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
    Target IP address: 173.16.2.3

With this ARP request, Host A (172.16.1.2) is asking Host D (172.16.2.3) to send its MAC address. The ARP request packet is then encapsulated in an Ethernet frame with the MAC address of Host A as the source address and a broadcast (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF) as the destination address. Layer 2 broadcast means that frame will be sent to all hosts in the same layer 2 broadcast domain which includes the ether0 interface of the router, but does not reach Host D, because router by default does not forward layer 2 broadcast.

Since the router knows that the target address (172.16.2.3) is on another subnet but it can reach Host D, it replies with its own MAC address to Host A.

No.     Time   Source            Destination         Protocol   Info

13   5.133378  00:0c:42:52:2e:cf  00:1b:38:24:fc:13   ARP        172.16.2.3 is at 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf

Packet details:

Ethernet II, Src: 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf, Dst: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
   Destination: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
   Source: 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf
   Type: ARP (0x0806)
Address Resolution Protocol (reply)
   Hardware type: Ethernet (0x0001)
   Protocol type: IP (0x0800)
   Hardware size: 6
   Protocol size: 4
   Opcode: reply (0x0002)
   [Is gratuitous: False]
   Sender MAC address: 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf
   Sender IP address: 172.16.1.254
   Target MAC address: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
   Target IP address: 172.16.1.2

This is the Proxy ARP reply that the router sends to Host A. Router sends back unicast proxy ARP reply with its own MAC address as the source address and the MAC address of Host A as the destination address, by saying "send these packets to me, and I'll get it to where it needs to go."


When Host A receives ARP response it updates its ARP table, as shown:

C:\Users\And>arp -a

Interface: 173.16.2.1 --- 0x8
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  173.16.1.254          00-0c-42-52-2e-cf    dynamic
  173.16.2.3            00-0c-42-52-2e-cf    dynamic
  173.16.2.2            00-0c-42-52-2e-cf    dynamic

After MAC table update, Host A forwards all the packets intended for Host D (172.16.2.3) directly to router interface ether0 (00:0c:42:52:2e:cf) and the router forwards packets to Host D. The ARP cache on the hosts in Subnet A is populated with the MAC address of the router for all the hosts on Subnet B. Hence, all packets destined to Subnet B are sent to the router. The router forwards those packets to the hosts in Subnet B.

Multiple IP addresses by host are mapped to a single MAC address (the MAC address of this router) when proxy ARP is used.


Proxy ARP can be enabled on each interface individually with command arp=proxy-arp:

Setup proxy ARP:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> set 1 arp=proxy-arp

 [admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> print

 Flags: X - disabled, R - running
   #    NAME                 MTU   MAC-ADDRESS         ARP
   0  R ether1              1500  00:30:4F:0B:7B:C1 enabled
   1  R ether2              1500  00:30:4F:06:62:12 proxy-arp
 [admin@MikroTik] interface ethernet>

Reply Only
If arp property is set to reply-only on the interface, then router only replies to ARP requests. Neighbour MAC addresses will be resolved using /ip arp statically, but there will be no need to add the router's MAC address to other hosts' ARP tables like in case if arp is disabled.

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THE GOOD

Affordable tuition:

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Respectable rankings:

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THE BAD

Certain programs not offered in every state:

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Relatively low graduation rates:

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