In the video, Switching Technologies, Wes says that Switches have ARP tables. Can I get some clarification please? I googled and can't find that. What I do find is that Workstations & Servers have APR tables and Switches have MAC address tables. So is he referring to Layer 3 switches? How do I need to remember this for the test?
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CompTIA Net+ Switching Technologies
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Hey @Michele-Duval MAC addresses are stored in a MAC table(stored in Content Addressable Memory) for Layer 2 switches, which is a MAC to port mapping. Layer 2 switches will have and ARP table but only for management (SSH, SNMP...etc). If any device is using IP then it will have an ARP table to map IP addresses to MAC addresses. Workstations and servers do have an ARP table with mappings for the local subnet and one for the default gateway when there is no match in the table, this is where the Layer 3 devices come into play. These devices will have ARP tables for each of their own interfaces. Thank you for bring this to my attention, and I will try and clarify for the future.
Layer 2 - Ethernet frames (no IP = no ARP table)(except for management)
Layer 3 - IP addresses and MAC addresses (ARP Table to allow IP and Ethernet/MAC addresses to be mapped) -
Hey Wes. Thank you very much for clarifying and for teaching me how to figure it out logically, no IP = no ARP table (except for management).
PS No worries, it doesn't seem like anyone else was confused. -
We strive for accuracy and sometimes what is in my brain does not make it to my mouth....lol. Thank you for pointing this out and it will help to improve the next Network+
