Party Packets

Note of the Author: Written at the Webbit2004. Among the funny network mess of the Lan Arena

Something new in the air.
Seems like things are different,
wire cables power unusual feelings,
atmosphere is
[really]
different.

I feel like some hard things have been done somewhere, out there, inside me.
Strange sensations of unexpected changes.

No matter. It's time to go.
Power On.
Once again,
back to life.

What a common extraordinary sequence of digital rebirth.
The raw electricity, the frantic dance of metallic logic,
devices and circuitry coming to life, stirred by flows of electonic dance.

Basic system checks, ancestral coscience of binary life, prepare my return to consciousness.

Kernel boots, RAM banks are flooded by ordered binary data,
main processor begins its computational lunch,
devices recognition is like remembering forgotten muscles,
at the end you realize the bounds of your body
and begin to define your life's roles in
this elegant parade of initialization scripts.

Everything                                                      [  OK  ]
but
Bringing up interface eth0:                                     [FAILED]

I'm dressed in what you call mobile computing, after all.

And finally, it's always a pleasure after all,
here's your login screen:

Mandrake Linux release 10.0 (Official) for i586
Kernel 2.6.3-7mdksmp on a Dual-processor i686 / \l

Define yourself, offer your credentials, root me.
Usual procedure of authentication exposure.

[root@vagante al]# dhclient
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.1rc13
Copyright 1995-2002 Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:c0:9f:2d:c8:a4
Sending on   LPF/eth0/00:c0:9f:2d:c8:a4
Listening on LPF/lo/
Sending on   LPF/lo/
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on lo to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
send_packet: Network is down
DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67

Sorry.
No offer for automatic network configuration.

Wired to a desert arena of mute servers....

[root@vagante al]# tcpdump -an
22:24:30.059395 arp who-has 192.168.4.109 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059418 arp who-has 192.168.4.110 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059443 arp who-has 192.168.4.112 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059468 arp who-has 192.168.4.113 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059494 arp who-has 192.168.4.114 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059520 arp who-has 192.168.4.115 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059546 arp who-has 192.168.4.116 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059572 arp who-has 192.168.4.117 tell 192.168.4.19

... and screaming hosts.

I knew there was something strange.
Frantic frames from the Interface Card,
unusual network bestiary of random requests.

22:24:29.944787 arp who-has 169.254.255.255 tell 192.168.6.139
22:24:30.015536 arp who-has 192.168.6.159 tell 192.168.4.1
22:24:30.042927 arp who-has 192.168.6.190 tell 0.0.0.0
22:24:30.059395 arp who-has 192.168.4.109 tell 192.168.4.19

Weird network environment, indeed,

where one asks for everybody...

22:24:30.059418 arp who-has 192.168.4.110 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059443 arp who-has 192.168.4.112 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059468 arp who-has 192.168.4.113 tell 192.168.4.19
22:24:30.059494 arp who-has 192.168.4.114 tell 192.168.4.19

... and nobody replies,
among puzzling notifications of spanning trees...

22:24:30.511140 802.1d config 8000.f2:98:21:40:7e:6a.8002 root 8000.f2:98:21:40:7e:6a pathcost 0 age 0 max 8 hello 2 fdelay 5
22:24:30.665556 802.1d config 8000.00:05:1a:05:38:a0.8031 root 8000.00:05:1a:05:38:a0 pathcost 0 age 0 max 20 hello 2 fdelay 15

... and feeble applications broadcasting grasps of acknowledgement ...

22:24:30.629993 IP 169.254.62.157.137 > 169.254.255.255.137: NBT UDP PACKET(137): QUERY; REQUEST; BROADCAST

... as whispers in this overwhelming dystonic concert of pointless packets.

22:24:30.646699 arp who-has 192.168.6.190 tell 0.0.0.0
22:24:30.742175 arp who-has 10.10.10.0 tell 10.10.10.123
22:24:30.915205 fe80::230:65ff:fe25:cbdc > ff02::2: icmp6: router solicitation
22:24:30.934160 arp who-has 192.168.1.1 tell 192.168.1.3
22:24:30.947637 arp who-has 192.168.6.190 tell 192.168.6.190
22:24:31.057114 IP 0.0.0.0.68 > 192.168.0.1.67: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 00:02:3f:64:1b:23, length: 300
22:24:31.095056 arp who-has 192.168.4.127 tell 192.168.4.19

A network deadly polluted.
Broken services.
Arp sickness at critical levels.

No way out.
Do yourself a favour.
Have a life, drink a beer.

[root@vagante al]# logout

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