Re: [Bridge] linux bridge does not forward arp reply back packets in a vmware vm

[Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>]

On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 16:19:03 +0200
Adrian P <adrian27oradea@gmail.com> wrote:

> Investigating this further, I have noticed that the mac address of the
> eth0 interface from the cirros VM instance does not appear in the
> bridge forwarding table, and this explains why everything starts
> working only when I set ageing time to 0, because in that case all
> packets are flooded on all ports and the bridge behaves like a hub.
> 
> So now the question is: why the bridge does not learn the mac address
> of the eth0 interface from the cirros VM instance? I am able to see
> the arp request (ARP, Request who-has 10.20.21.1 tell 10.20.21.233)
> going out from the cirros VM instance on tap interface, so the bridge
> should learn the mac address and add it to the forwarding table.
> 
> The reply back to the arp request (Reply 10.20.21.1 is-at
> 00:17:08:c4:52:80) does not reach the cirros VM instance anymore, and
> now I know why: there is no mac address in the forwarding table, so
> the bridge does not know on which port to send the arp reply back.
> 
> This happens with tap interfaces only. I can see many mac addresses
> associated with "physical" interface ens160 (that is interface number
> 1) in the forwarding table, but in case of the tap interfaces, there
> are only two entries, and both entries shows the mac address of the
> tap interfaces only:

VMWare does ARP spoofing maybe it consumes the ARP