Strange DHCP & ARP behaviour

[OblongCheese]

Hi all,

My home network presently consists of an ADSL modem, connected via a Smoothwall box to my home PCs. Recently I aquired myself a new toy; a Nintendo DS handheld gaming console. So that I may play games online, I've expanded my previously wired-only network to incorporate a wireless access point.

Now, the Nintendo DS console, it its network setup options, has the ability to receive network information via DHCP, or you can manually specify it.

Using DHCP unfortunately doesn't work, as my Smoothwall box does not reply to any of the DHCPDISCOVER messages that the Nintendo DS console sends out. I suspect this is part of a larger problem, one that I will divulge further.

So, if I set my Nintendo DS console up with a static IP and give it all the other necessary network information, upon attempting to contact the outside world, obviously it is going to need to acquire the MAC address of my internet gateway (the Smoothwall box).

Long story short, it can't.

The DS console sends out many ARP requests for the MAC address of my SW box, but it is in vain, as the SW box never replies to the request. This is made stranger by the fact that if I attempt to ping the DS console from a PC within my network, the PC is able to resolve the MAC of the DS without any issue, as the ARP request for the DS's MAC is responded to by the DS, with an ARP reply.

So, the DS is able to talk to the PC's on my network, but not vice-versa.

I was wondering if anyone with in-depth knowledge of ARP would be able to shed some light on this. I have many details of this problem, including Ethereal packet analysis, and I am unable to see where or why or how this issue is occuring.

There is a thread here on the Smoothwall Community forums outlining many of the more technical aspects of my problem. I hope somebody can help me out, as I am at a complete loss as to a solution!

Thanks in advance.

 

[pansophic]

What is your IP addressing scheme? Are all of the systems in the same broadcast domain?

Is the Nintendo the only wireless device on your network?

Are you running tcpdump on your Smoothwall so you know that the packets actually arrive there?


pansophic

 

[OblongCheese]

Hi pansophic,

Turns out the problem was an incompatability between the DS and the wireless access point I was using.

When I tried it with a wireless USB dongle acting as an AP on my PC, it worked great.

Shortly after I posted this thread, I checked back at nintendowifi.com and lo and behold, the router I was trying to use was listed as incompatible -- so either I missed it the first time, or it was recently added.

But thanks for your help anyway.