Consistently getting at random intervals the following message, as seen from root log in account in system messages: arp: unknown hardware address format (0x0fff) I haven't been able to find any information on this by utilizing Google and other search engines. I haven't seen an related articles from other users regarding this message. I haven't noticed or been able to document any negative effects or results from this warning. However, I do not know why or what is the cause of this message, and I would sincerely appreciate a response from the development team in regards to this message. NOTE: This particular install of FreeBSD is being used as a firewall, and has a minimal install of the system only to accomplish the requirements of NATD, ipfw, and other requirements of an IPFW firewall. The ports install is minimal see below: pkg_info autoconf-2.62 Automatically configure source code on many Un*x platforms autoconf-2.68 Automatically configure source code on many Un*x platforms autoconf-wrapper-20071109 Wrapper script for GNU autoconf automake-1.10.1 GNU Standards-compliant Makefile generator (1.10) automake-1.11.1 GNU Standards-compliant Makefile generator (1.11) automake-wrapper-20071109 Wrapper script for GNU automake cvsup-without-gui-16.1h_4 File distribution system optimized for CVS (non-GUI version db41-4.1.25_4 The Berkeley DB package, revision 4.1 ezm3-1.2_1 Easier, more portable Modula-3 distribution for building CV gettext-0.18_1 GNU gettext package gmake-3.81_4 GNU version of 'make' utility help2man-1.38.2_1 Automatically generating simple manual pages from program o ipfwcount-0.2.1_1 Summarise ipfw logs by counting and sorting the fields libiconv-1.13.1_1 A character set conversion library libsigsegv-2.8 Handling page faults in user mode libtool-2.4 Generic shared library support script m4-1.4.15,1 GNU m4 ntp-4.2.6p4_2 The Network Time Protocol Distribution p5-gettext-1.05_3 Message handling functions perl-5.10.1_2 Practical Extraction and Report Language portaudit-0.5.15 Checks installed ports against a list of security vulnerabi sudo-1.7.4.6 Allow others to run commands as root tripwire-2.4.1.2 File system security and verification program This system ignores and denies all IPv6 traffic on both external, and all internal interfaces. If anyone can offer advice, suggestions, or any information on this particular message and what it may or may not relate to I would sincerely appreciate a response. How-To-Repeat: I have found no solution and NO information on this issue anywhere on the web, or on the FreeBSD.org site.
Responsible Changed From-To: freebsd-i386->freebsd-net Over to maintainer(s).
Most probably, that was triggered by some other device in network generating such "strange" arp packets. It should be possible to find those packets by doing something like "tcpdump -i XXX -lnevs100 arp" (where XXX is the interface name) and looking for ethertype value (and source mac address). While it is questionable if FreeBSD should yell on invalid arp packets instead of silently ignoring them, this is not a (FreeBSD) bug. I'd like to close this PR if there are no other questions/comments.