Constant activity on router / cable modem - ARP???

Constant activity on router / cable modem - ARP???
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Subject Author Date
Constant activity on router / cable modem - ARP??? retkaa 12-23-2005
Posted by on December 23, 2005, 1:07 am
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Hello.

I've just moved to Canada from the UK, and this is my 1st cable modem
setup. I came home from work to find a nice Motorolo SurfBoard Cable
modem set up. I attached a new Netgear WGR614 to the modem, but having
done this a strange thing happens.

The internet activity light on the modem flashes continually, as does
the Netgear router internet activity light. This happens when no
devices are connected or even switched on! I am concerned about the
amount of bandwidth being used, and how to conserve it.

I read on a previous post something about ARP requests. What are ARP
requests, and why would they be causing constant web activity? Is
there a way to disable them (I have de-activated UPnP)?

Thanks in advance,
Rob


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Posted by Gene S. Berkowitz on December 23, 2005, 1:19 am
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retkaa@gmail.com says...
> Hello.
>
> I've just moved to Canada from the UK, and this is my 1st cable modem
> setup. I came home from work to find a nice Motorolo SurfBoard Cable
> modem set up. I attached a new Netgear WGR614 to the modem, but having
> done this a strange thing happens.
>
> The internet activity light on the modem flashes continually, as does
> the Netgear router internet activity light. This happens when no
> devices are connected or even switched on! I am concerned about the
> amount of bandwidth being used, and how to conserve it.
>
> I read on a previous post something about ARP requests. What are ARP
> requests, and why would they be causing constant web activity? Is
> there a way to disable them (I have de-activated UPnP)?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Rob

ARP is Address Resolution Protocol. It is used by server to find out
and uniquely identify other machines on a network. ARP messages are
sent as an ethernet Broadcast message, which means that every machine on
that LAN segment will receive it. Since your neighborhood cable is
basically a LAN segment that could carry dozens or hundreds of clients,
there are a lot of ARP messages floating around.

They're harmless.

--Gene

Posted by on December 23, 2005, 2:11 am
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OK, thanks for the reply. But how come the internet activity light
stops on the cable modem when I unplug the router? It only flashes
like crazy when the router is connected.

Rob


Posted by Gene S. Berkowitz on December 23, 2005, 2:17 am
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retkaa@gmail.com says...
> OK, thanks for the reply. But how come the internet activity light
> stops on the cable modem when I unplug the router? It only flashes
> like crazy when the router is connected.
>
> Rob

Because until the router is connected, the modem has nothing to forward
the ARP requests to...

--Gene

Posted by Fafa Fofo on December 23, 2005, 8:40 am
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I've seen the same thing on some of Comcrap's setups. They have some
system(s) pumping out constant ARP (Address Resolution Protocol)
messages to potential messages. For example, you'll see 216.100.100.1,
216.100.100.2... Frankly, I think that they're looking for invalid
connected systems. Even though your router should be set to ignore
ping requests, it will always respond to ARPs. I complained about it
to Comcrap and they simply denied that the messages exist.

On 22 Dec 2005 22:07:23 -0800, retkaa@gmail.com wrote:

>Hello.
>
>I've just moved to Canada from the UK, and this is my 1st cable modem
>setup. I came home from work to find a nice Motorolo SurfBoard Cable
>modem set up. I attached a new Netgear WGR614 to the modem, but having
>done this a strange thing happens.
>
>The internet activity light on the modem flashes continually, as does
>the Netgear router internet activity light. This happens when no
>devices are connected or even switched on! I am concerned about the
>amount of bandwidth being used, and how to conserve it.
>
>I read on a previous post something about ARP requests. What are ARP
>requests, and why would they be causing constant web activity? Is
>there a way to disable them (I have de-activated UPnP)?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Rob


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other useful resources:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
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