# can't ping MS-LNB - FreeBSD 9 - ARP is Multicast



## schratikus (Mar 30, 2012)

Hello,

*W*e have just recently updated FreeBSD 8 to 9. Since then it is not possible to ping our Microsoft NLB Cluster anymore, in 8.2 there were no problems.

In /var/log/messages the line


```
kernel: in_arp: 03:bf:##:##:##:## is multicast
```

appears (and the corresponding "last messages repeated 500 times" lines too).

I have found no clue except this http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.co...-source-address-error-messages-td4975944.html, which indicates that there are two "culprits": MS is way to*o* lax concerning the RFC and FreeSBD way to*o* strict. 

We are running our terminal server NLB on this MAC, the whole thing runs on VMWare ESXi 5.0, our FreeBSD is on a standalone machine. The corresponding ESX/Windows admins told me that they could try to change the network config back to unicast, but this would involve severe changes in their field.

To cut this short: Is there a way to reenable the FreeBSD pre 9 behavior, allowing MAC Multicast?

(We have fixed this problem temporarily by routing the NLB-Clusters IP via another machine (FreeBSD 4(!)), which is really just a temporary solution due to the age of that gateway.)


----------



## schratikus (Mar 30, 2012)

After rereading my post *I* have to clarify/specify: the LNB is not reachable by our Freebsd FreeBSD-gateway and all our clients behind it at all! It*'*s not only ping that does not work.

I hope someone can help me/us.


----------



## RusDyr (Apr 5, 2012)

May be turn on multicast routing?


----------



## Borcotec (Feb 25, 2014)

You can fix the issue by creating a static MAC entry on the freebsd FreeBSD machine.


----------

