Talk:Martian packet

Mars missions?

What about martian explorers, arent there packets coming from them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.49.3.230 (talk) 03:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Not yet, they're just simulating ATM. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.91.114.210 (talk) 13:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

LOL

You guys crack me up! "Martian"! Loving it! Stephen Charles Thompson (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Do what?

"The requirement to do this is found in RFC 1812"

The requirement to do what, exactly?

OhReally (talk) 08:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Reserved addresses

The lede saya martians are packets with a source-address that is "Resereved for special use" (and links to Reserved IP addresses).

That page doesn't say which of the addresses it describes should be considered "spoofed" or whatever.

There's no reason that packets from 192.168/16 shouldn't appear on an interface. They are not martians. This article doesn't say what kinds of packet are martians, which is sort-of a deficiency in an article on martians.

MrDemeanour (talk) 18:16, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

There are few uses of term "Marian packet". On public internet, BPG routers, and other routers, usually consider the private network also martians, or bogons, and drops (and maybe sporadically log) them (this includes both the control plane, like received BPG prefixes with AS paths, as well as a dataplane, just in case). On private networks, they are totally permitted of course (including on private BPG servers).

The IPv4 routing requirements are a bit more specific which addresses should / must be dropped. This includes 0.0.0.0/8 network on source or destination. 127.0.0.0/8 source or destination (unless done via a loopback interface), and 255.0.0.0/24 (with exception of 255.255.255.255 destination) as a source or a destination for example. And also the case where source address is in the multicast (224.0.0.0/4) or broadcast class (255.0.0.0/24). And local multicast use destination (244.0.0.0/24 should also not be routed).

Here is abbreviated text from RFC 1812

5.3.7 Martian Address Filtering

  An IP source address is invalid if it is a special IP address, as
  defined in 4.2.2.11 or 5.3.7, or is not a unicast address.

  An IP destination address is invalid if it is among those defined as
  illegal destinations in 4.2.3.1, or is a Class E address (except
  255.255.255.255).

  A router SHOULD NOT forward any packet that has an invalid IP source
  address or a source address on network 0.  A router SHOULD NOT
  forward, except over a loopback interface, any packet that has a
  source address on network 127.

  A router SHOULD NOT forward any packet that has an invalid IP
  destination address or a destination address on network 0.  A router
  SHOULD NOT forward, except over a loopback interface, any packet that
  has a destination address on network 127.

The BPG and public internet routing usually adds extra requirements what to filter more.

There are also some exceptions and special cases, like source address being 0.0.0.0, for things like BOOTP / DHCP, and ICMP mask request, which might be used, but still should not be routed other than to deliver application on the machine providing the bootp service in same physical segment. Routers should be dropping them. ~2026-33554-60 (talk) 09:54, 7 June 2026 (UTC)