On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 2:59 AM, Fajar Priyanto fajarpri@arinet.org wrote:
Hi all, I have plan to replace my Centos5.7 VM with newer version. The VM works as our network gateway.
I want to ask from your experience, will it be a bad decision? My concern is that since the Mac Address of the gateway will change, will it disrupt the network? How fast the Switches can recognize the new mac? Any other pitfall?
Switches normally flood all ports until a new mac is identified so they will work as soon as the link comes up (which may take a few seconds for spanning tree). However, routers to adjacent subnets may cache their arp table for up to 20 minutes. You might have a problem with inbound connections if you don't clear the arp table on whatever is connected as the next hop.