I''m looking to refine / re-use my recently discussed "Redundant
internet
connections"
(http://mailman.ds9a.nl/pipermail/lartc/2007q2/thread.html#21015) in
such a way that I will not be sure of returning traffic, thus I must
monitor the connection my self and not rely on inbound traffic to update
the kernel counters.
I''m considering using arping to ping the upstream gateway. I think
this
will work just fine. However arping has an option to always send
broadcasts verses starting with broadcast packets and then falling back
to unicast packets. My fear is that if I use arpings default method of
broadcast and then unicast once a MAC is known, this will fail if the
upstream router is doing something where the MAC address would change.
So, my question / request for thoughts and / or opinions, is should I
always send out broadcasts so that any and all stations on the subnet
see the ARP, thus allowing the arping to function even if the MAC
address of the default gateway is changed, say if the provider decides
to do an upgrade and / or maintenance?
Grant. . . .
