Cisco NX-OS supports multiple IP addresses per interface. You can specify an unlimited number of secondary addresses for a variety of situations. The most common are as follows:

• When there are not enough host IP addresses for a particular network interface. For example, if your subnetting allows up to 254 hosts per logical subnet, but on one physical subnet you must have 300 host addresses, then you can use secondary IP addresses on the routers or access servers to allow you to have two logical subnets that use one physical subnet.

• Two subnets of a single network might otherwise be separated by another network. You can create a single network from subnets that are physically separated by another network by using a secondary address. In these instances, the first network is extended, or layered on top of the second network. A subnet cannot appear on more than one active interface of the router at a time.

Note	If any device on a network segment uses a secondary IPv4 address, all other devices on that same network interface must also use a secondary address from the same network or subnet. The inconsistent use of secondary addresses on a network segment can quickly cause routing loops.

Networking devices and Layer 3 switches use Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to map IP (network layer) addresses to (Media Access Control [MAC]-layer) addresses to enable IP packets to be sent across networks. Before a device sends a packet to another device, it looks in its own ARP cache to see if there is a MAC address and corresponding IP address for the destination device. If there is no entry, the source device sends a broadcast message to every device on the network.

Each device compares the IP address to its own. Only the device with the matching IP address replies to the device that sends the data with a packet that contains the MAC address for the device. The source device adds the destination device MAC address to its ARP table for future reference, creates a data-link header and trailer that encapsulates the packet, and proceeds to transfer the data. The following figure shows the ARP broadcast and response process.

When the destination device lies on a remote network that is beyond another device, the process is the same except that the device that sends the data sends an ARP request for the MAC address of the default gateway. After the address is resolved and the default gateway receives the packet, the default gateway broadcasts the destination IP address over the networks connected to it. The device on the destination device network uses ARP to obtain the MAC address of the destination device and delivers the packet. ARP is enabled by default.

ARP caching minimizes broadcasts and limits wasteful use of network resources. The mapping of IP addresses to MAC addresses occurs at each hop (device) on the network for every packet sent over an internetwork, which may affect network performance.

ARP caching stores network addresses and the associated data-link addresses in the memory for a period of time, which minimizes the use of valuable network resources to broadcast for the same address each time that a packet is sent. You must maintain the cache entries that are set to expire periodically because the information might become outdated. Every device on a network updates its tables as addresses are broadcast.

Static routing requires that you manually configure the IP addresses, subnet masks, gateways, and corresponding MAC addresses for each interface of each device. Static routing requires more work to maintain the route table. You must update the table each time you add or change routes.

Dynamic routing uses protocols that enable the devices in a network to exchange routing table information with each other. Dynamic routing is more efficient than static routing because the route table is automatically updated unless you add a time limit to the cache. The default time limit is 25 minutes but you can modify the time limit if the network has many routes that are added and deleted from the cache.

When a network is divided into two segments, a bridge joins the segments and filters traffic to each segment based on MAC addresses. The bridge builds its own address table, which uses MAC addresses only. A device has an ARP cache that contains both IP addresses and the corresponding MAC addresses.

Passive hubs are central-connection devices that physically connect other devices in a network. They send messages out on all their ports to the devices and operate at Layer 1 but do not maintain an address table.

Layer 2 switches determine which port of a device receives a message that is sent only to that port. However, Layer 3 switches are devices that build an ARP cache (table).

Reverse ARP (RARP) as defined by RFC 903 works the same way as ARP, except that the RARP request packet requests an IP address instead of a MAC address. RARP often is used by diskless workstations because this type of device has no way to store IP addresses to use when they boot. The only address that is known is the MAC address because it is burned into the hardware.

Use of RARP requires an RARP server on the same network segment as the router interface. The following figure shows how RARP works.

RARP has several limitations. Because of these limitations, most businesses use Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) to assign IP addresses dynamically. DHCP is cost effective and requires less maintenance than RARP. The following are the most important limitations:

• Because RARP uses hardware addresses, if the internetwork is large with many physical networks, a RARP server must be on every segment with an additional server for redundancy. maintaining two servers for every segment is costly.

• Each server must be configured with a table of static mappings between the hardware addresses and IP addresses. Maintenance of the IP addresses is difficult.

• RARP only provides IP addresses of the hosts and not subnet masks or default gateways.

Proxy ARP enables a device that is physically located on one network appear to be logically part of a different physical network connected to the same device or firewall. Proxy ARP allows you to hide a device with a public IP address on a private network behind a router and still have the device appear to be on the public network in front of the router. By hiding its identity, the router accepts responsibility for routing packets to the real destination. Proxy ARP can help devices on a subnet reach remote subnets without configuring routing or a default gateway.

When devices are not in the same data link layer network but in the same IP network, they try to transmit data to each other as if they are on the local network. However, the router that separates the devices does not send a broadcast message because routers do not pass hardware-layer broadcasts and the addresses cannot be resolved.

When you enable proxy ARP on the device and it receives an ARP request, it identifies the request as a request for a system that is not on the local LAN. The device responds as if it is the remote destination for which the broadcast is addressed, with an ARP response that associates the device’s MAC address with the remote destination's IP address. The local device believes that it is directly connected to the destination, while in reality its packets are being forwarded from the local subnetwork toward the destination subnetwork by their local device. By default, proxy ARP is disabled.

You can use local proxy ARP to enable a device to respond to ARP requests for IP addresses within a subnet where normally no routing is required. When you enable local proxy ARP, ARP responds to all ARP requests for IP addresses within the subnet and forwards all traffic between hosts in the subnet. Use this feature only on subnets where hosts are intentionally prevented from communicating directly by the configuration on the device to which they are connected.

Gratuitous ARP sends a request with an identical source IP address and a destination IP address to detect duplicate IP addresses. Cisco NX-OS supports enabling or disabling gratuitous ARP requests or ARP cache updates.

You can use the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) to provide message packets that report errors and other information that is relevant to IP processing. ICMP generates error messages, such as ICMP destination unreachable messages, ICMP Echo Requests (which send a packet on a round trip between two hosts) and Echo Reply messages. ICMP also provides many diagnostic functions and can send and redirect error packets to the host. By default, ICMP is enabled.

Some of the ICMP message types are as follows:

• Network error messages

• Network congestion messages

• Troubleshooting information

• Timeout announcements

Note	ICMP redirects are disabled on interfaces where the local proxy ARP feature is enabled.