Importance

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Abstract

Communications between network devices on a logical subnet are restricted between devices authorized to communicate with each other, even though other network devices may be present on the subnet. When a network device receives a request to provide it L2 address to a requesting network device, it responds with its L2 address only if the requesting device is authorized to request L2 address. Optionally, a network device only transmits requests for the L2 addresses of other devices if it authorized to do so. The information describing authorized devices maybe store as list of L2 and L3 addresses, which list may be loaded by each network device when starting up. Preferably, authorized devices include routers on the device's logical subnet, to allow the routers to communicate with, and route packets to, the network devices.

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First Claim