>Ok, Is this what you are saying:
>
>                           IP A         192.168.1.1  192.168.1.2
>[Cable Modem]---[Hub]-------[rl0: Your box :ed0]------[other machine]
>                   |
>                   *------[Brothers machine]-------[other machine(s)]
>                        IP B              192.168.1/24
>
>Where IP A and IP B are real IP addresses assigned by your provider?

yes thats exactly it....where ever did you learn how to draw such lovely 
pictures? :)


posible problems --

>- your brother's machine is doing something wrong and sending ARP packets
>out the wrong interface (is it NetBSD or FreeBSD also?)

yes he is running freebsd

>- or you're receiving the ARP packets from the cable due to someone else
>using that IP range directly connected to their cable modem.

that seems the most logical posibility

>You should be able tell by comparing the MAC address in the error message
>to the MAC addresses of your other machines.  If none of the machines in
>your house use have that MAC address, then it must be coming over the
>cable modem.

I will check them all tomorrow....and yes at least that should tell me if 
its one of our machines or comming from the outside

>(192.168.149/24) and my problems went away (although I may have still
>got warnings about unexpected ARP packets on the interface)...
>
>Hope this helps

that sounds like my best bet.....if I find the that the MAC address is from 
the outside then I will try switching to a less common subnet and see if 
that can restore my sanity

everyones comments here have been helpfull...I never get the same degree of 
help on the freebsd lists that I get here.....so thanks for letting me crowd 
the airways with a non-netbsd problem ;)

peace
pete
out
#!




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