IP Routing Features 
Configuring IP Parameters for Routing Switches 
Enabling Proxy ARP 
Proxy ARP allows a routing switch to answer ARP requests from devices on 
one network on behalf of devices in another network. Since ARP requests are 
MAC-layer broadcasts, they reach only the devices that are directly connected 
to the sender of the ARP request. Thus, ARP requests do not cross routers. 
For example, if Proxy ARP is enabled on a routing switch connected to two 
sub-nets, 10.10.10.0/24 and 20.20.20.0/24, the routing switch can respond to an 
ARP request from 10.10.10.69 for the MAC address of the device with IP 
address 20.20.20.69. In standard ARP, a request from a device in the 10.10.10.0/ 
24 sub-net cannot reach a device in the 20.20.20.0 sub-net if the sub-nets are 
on different network cables, and thus is not answered. 
An ARP request from one sub-net can reach another sub-net when both sub-
nets are on the same physical segment (Ethernet cable), since MAC-layer 
broadcasts reach all the devices on the segment. 
Proxy ARP is disabled by default on HP routing switches. To enable Proxy 
ARP, enter the following commands from the VLAN context level in the CLI: 
HPswitch(config)# vlan 1 
HPswitch(vlan-1)# ip proxy-arp 
To again disable IP proxy ARP, enter the following command: 
HPswitch(vlan-1)# no ip proxy-arp 
Syntax:  [no] ip proxy-arp 
Configuring Forwarding Parameters 
The following configurable parameters control the forwarding behavior of HP 
routing switches: 
■  Time-To-Live (TTL) threshold 
■  Forwarding of directed broadcasts 
All these parameters are global and thus affect all IP interfaces configured on 
the routing switch. 
To configure these parameters, use the procedures in the following sections. 
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