NAME

       arpwatch - keep track of ethernet/ip address pairings

SYNOPSIS

       arpwatch [ -dN ]
               [ -f datafile ]
               [ -i interface ]
               [ -n net[/width ]]
               [ -r file ]
               [ -s sendmail_path ]
               [ -p ]
               [ -a ]
               [ -m addr ]
               [ -u username ]
               [ -R seconds ]
               [ -Q ]
               [ -z ignorenet/ignoremask ]

DESCRIPTION

       Arpwatch  keeps  track  for  ethernet/ip address pairings. It syslogs activity and reports
       certain changes via email.  Arpwatch uses pcap(3) to listen for arp  packets  on  a  local
       ethernet interface.

       The  -d  flag is used enable debugging. This also inhibits forking into the background and
       emailing the reports. Instead, they are sent to stderr.

       The -f flag is used to set the ethernet/ip address  database  filename.   The  default  is
       arp.dat.

       The -i flag is used to override the default interface.

       The  -n  flag  specifies  additional  local  networks. This can be useful to avoid "bogon"
       warnings when there is more than one network running on the same  wire.  If  the  optional
       width is not specified, the default netmask for the network's class is used.

       The -N flag disables reporting any bogons.

       The  -r  flag is used to specify a savefile (perhaps created by tcpdump(1) or pcapture(1))
       to read from instead of reading from the network. In this case, arpwatch does not fork.

       (Debian) The -s flag is used to specify the path to the  sendmail  program.   Any  program
       that takes the option -odi and then text from stdin can be substituted. This is useful for
       redirecting reports to log files instead of mail.

       (Debian) The -p flag disables promiscuous operation.   ARP  broadcasts  get  through  hubs
       without having the interface in promiscuous mode, while saving considerable resources that
       would  be  wasted  on  processing  gigabytes  of  non-broadcast  traffic.   OTOH,  setting
       promiscuous mode does not mean getting 100% traffic that would concern arpwatch .  YMMV.

       (Debian) -a By default, arpwatch reports bogons (unless -N is given) for IP addresses that
       are in the same subnet than the first IP address of the default interface.  If this option
       is specified, arpwatch will report bogons about every IP addresses.

       (Debian)  The  -m  option  is  used to specify the e-mail address to which reports will be
       sent.  By default, reports are sent to root on the local machine.

       (Debian) The -u flag instructs arpwatch to drop root privileges  and  change  the  UID  to
       username  and  GID  to  the  primary group of username .  This is recommended for security
       reasons, but username has to have write access to the default directory.

       (Debian) The -R flag instructs arpwatch to restart in seconds seconds after the  interface
       went  down.   By  default,  in  such cases arpwatch would print an error message and exit.
       This option is ignored if either the -r or -u flags are used.

       (Debian) The -Q flags prevents arpwatch from sending reports by mail.

       (Debian) The -z flag is used to set a range of ip addresses to  ignore  (such  as  a  DHCP
       range). Netmask is specified as 255.255.128.0.

       Note that an empty arp.dat file must be created before the first time you run arpwatch.

REPORT MESSAGES

       Here's a quick list of the report messages generated by arpwatch(1) (and arpsnmp(1)):

       new activity
              This ethernet/ip address pair has been used for the first time six months or more.

       new station
              The ethernet address has not been seen before.

       flip flop
              The  ethernet address has changed from the most recently seen address to the second
              most recently seen address.  (If either the old or new ethernet address is a DECnet
              address  and  it  is  less  than  24  hours,  the  email  version  of the report is
              suppressed.)

       changed ethernet address
              The host switched to a new ethernet address.

SYSLOG MESSAGES

       Here are some of the syslog messages; note  that  messages  that  are  reported  are  also
       sysloged.

       ethernet broadcast
              The mac ethernet address of the host is a broadcast address.

       ip broadcast
              The ip address of the host is a broadcast address.

       bogon  The source ip address is not local to the local subnet.

       ethernet broadcast
              The source mac or arp ethernet address was all ones or all zeros.

       ethernet mismatch
              The source mac ethernet address didn't match the address inside the arp packet.

       reused old ethernet address
              The  ethernet  address has changed from the most recently seen address to the third
              (or greater) least recently seen address.  (This is similar to a flip flop.)

       suppressed DECnet flip flop
              A "flip flop" report was suppressed because one of the two addresses was  a  DECnet
              address.

FILES

       /var/lib/arpwatch - default directory
       arp.dat - ethernet/ip address database
       /usr/share/arpwatch/ethercodes.dat - vendor ethernet block list

SEE ALSO

       arpsnmp(8), arp(8), bpf(4), tcpdump(1), pcapture(1), pcap(3)

AUTHORS

       Craig  Leres  of  the  Lawrence  Berkeley  National  Laboratory  Network  Research  Group,
       University of California, Berkeley, CA.

       The current version is available via anonymous ftp:

              ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/arpwatch.tar.gz

BUGS

       Please send bug reports to arpwatch@ee.lbl.gov.

       Attempts are made to suppress DECnet flip flops but they aren't always successful.

       Most error messages are posted using syslog.