how traffic moves around network

[carl_townshend]

Hi all, when I do a route print my pc, can anyone tell me where the pc learns these routes from, also how often does the pc send an arp request out for the default gateway, is it at every reboot ?

[gunner07971]

A PCs IP address, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS settings are either configured statically of via DHCP.

Most PC's don't have additional routes configured on them apart from the default route...

0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 send via the IP address of your default gateway (local router)

You would use static routes if your PC was multi homed (connected to different networks at the same time) and want to control where traffic is sent.

The follwoing link should help with how ARP works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Resolution_Protocol

HTH