ARP seeming to not resolve?

Shouldn't it normally be the end of the subnet, IE 255.255.255.255

And gateway is the IP requesting the whois as well.

Ah... my bad... it is 10.255.255.255. One computer behind me, one in front and i got it mixed up spinning my chair around.

ARP still only lists 10.128.128.128 at [MAC address]

I did another capture from the linux box with both computers up and now it is sending the ongoing who has request to both my computers (as well as a third). For kicks, and to verify, I am unable to ping the new 3rd IP address as well. 

So I'm still back where I started not understanding why it keeps requesting the information. Am I correct that the response is not broadcast, but sent only to the "tell" ip requested? I only see the host response from the computer running the capture.

If the ARP table is incomplete, wouldn't that prevent the computers from getting internet? They are able to connect to the internet just fine.

Also, thanks for entertaining my questions!

Edited by DeltaFox, 18 September 2023 - 10:05 AM.

Doing it just now the linux box shows the gateway device as well as the previously mentioned 3rd IP address
I ran it on the windows box and it shows the gateway IP as dynamic? There are several static IP addresses listed there (all are either variants of xxx.000.000.xxx or xxx.255.255.xxx) , but neither the linux box or 3rd IP address.

I'll do some research on the difference of arp -a between the two OS systems to better understand those commands.

As far as I know ARP tables arent actively querried like you think they are. The request is sent from your PC to the broadcast address in the network segment, which is quite large in your case. 
If you ping from the PC to your linux or phone IP, you should see the ARP table on the PC update. 

To answer your question, the only ARP entry the PC would need to get to the internet is that of the gateway so that the Layer 2 frames are forwarded once received by the router.

Edited by Chiquatli, 19 September 2023 - 04:46 PM.

Thanks for the response. I didn't think an ARP would normally be so active, as that would defeat the purpose of the table to begin with. I was just surprised that their was an active request every 8 seconds ongoing like I mentioned as though it was getting deleted, or not received.

Sending out to the internet through gateway makes sense, if the router doesn't have the computer on the routing table, it still sends the inbound packet to the IP address?

Thanks

The router will strip layer 3 packet once it receives the reply from the remote requested data and send it down to the layer 2 address (mac address) of your PC. Of course this is a simplistic flat network, it depends on how your network is setup without NATing being introduced. I recommend you explore the OSI model. The CCNA packet tracer tool is quite informative.

Edited by Chiquatli, 20 September 2023 - 12:47 PM.

Thanks for the response. I didn't think an ARP would normally be so active, as that would defeat the purpose of the table to begin with. I was just surprised that their was an active request every 8 seconds ongoing like I mentioned as though it was getting deleted, or not received.

 

Sending out to the internet through gateway makes sense, if the router doesn't have the computer on the routing table, it still sends the inbound packet to the IP address?

Thanks

Well you, the user, may not think ARP is a necessary aspect to do whatever tasks that involve local and online connectivity, but your various gadgets rely upon networking stacks that do. There's a lot of constantly running background processes so all your devices maintain their connections between each other.

If the router doesn't detect the computer in its routing table, there's no place to send a data packet. The IP listing is dynamic, not static -- i.e. if your PC was previously assigned an IP address by your router but has for whatever reason been physically disconnected (removing Ethernet cable plug end) or manually disconnected via your router's setup menu than at that point that PC is no longer considered to be a part of your local network by your router. It won't send anything to that IP address because it's no longer in use.