04 Try it yourself Interactive

Watch both tables fill, one step at a time

The same four devices from section 02, the same addresses, both tables empty at step zero. Same LAN walks A’s frame to B, nine steps from the empty cache to the data frame leaving on one port. Different network sends the same host to 203.0.113.9 instead, and the interesting thing is what A asks for: not the far host, the gateway. Keep one eye on A’s ARP cache and one on the switch’s MAC table — a green row is one that was just written. The four counters are the honest cost of the journey. Nothing plays on its own: Next, Back and Reset, or the arrow keys.

Same LAN · A to B
both tables empty, nothing sent yet
Indigo is the station transmitting. Amber is a station that received a copy. Green is a match, a row just written, or a unicast address on the wire. Rose is a station that examined the frame and discarded it, or a broadcast address on the wire.
Press Next to begin. Each press moves the story one step.


      

        
Broadcasts sent0

        
Unicasts sent0

        
ARP rows in A0

        
MAC table rows0

      


      

      

        
        
        
        step 0 / 0