Hi, Does deleting an alias does not immediately make a host stop replying to ARP requests for that IP address? Is there some time for which, even though the alias is deleted, ARP replies are still sent? Does behavior of a process using that address affect this? I am seeing this situation. Machines X and Y. X sets up aliases A1 and A2 on eth0. Y has a process (PY) that connects (TCP) to a process (PX) on X using address A1. PX is killed and as a part of cleanup the alias A1 on X is deleted. Another process on Y (PY') detects that PX is failed and tries to see if the address A1 is taken by anyone on the network (it sends ARP requests for IP A1 and monitors ARP replies from A1). It is ensured that PY' is activated only when PX fails and the address has been given up. I see from the tcpdump output that X actually sends an ARP reply to the ARP request from PY' even after deleting the alias. There is this time delay and I wonder why it is there and whether the connection between PY and PX was the cause of it. This can actually be tested using ping, ifconfig, arp, and tcpdump utilities, if one is fast enough to switch the window from delete alias on X and ping on Y. Remember to clear the arp cache on Y before the ping. Any ideas? Thanks, Ashwani - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
