iputils-arping conflicts with package arping because of same name

[Damiön la Bagh]

I need to scan for an ip address based on MAC address and wanted to use the utility arping.

Unfortunatly there are TWO different versions of the program with the exact same name. arping has dependancies with network-manager network-manager-gnome and ubuntu-desktop making the package arping impossible to install as iputils-arping is default. And iputils-arping doesn't have the option to use a MAC address to arp to receive the IP address.

This discussion (from 2005) sums it up in the end as well. (why does this issue still exist?)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/how-to-find-ip-address-of-a-machine-if-i-know-their-mac-address-353239/

What procedure needs to be followed in order to get one of the programmers to rename their program, or to repackage the ubuntu package arping so that it creates /usr/bin/arpingmac or something similar instead of the naming conflict?

kat@tabbykat:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 11.04
Release: 11.04

arping:
  Geïnstalleerd: (geen)
  Kandidaat: 2.09-2
  Versietabel:
     2.09-2 0
        500 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/universe amd64 Packages

kat@tabbykat:~$ apt-cache policy iputils-arping
iputils-arping:
  Geïnstalleerd: 3:20100418-3ubuntu1
  Kandidaat: 3:20100418-3ubuntu1
  Versietabel:
 *** 3:20100418-3ubuntu1 0
        500 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

What I expected to happen:
arping -i eth1 00:E0:29:XX:YY:ZZ
returns
60 bytes from 192.168.0.AAA (00:e0:29:XX:YY:ZZ): icmp_seq=0 time=47.922 usec

What I really get
kat@tabbykat:~$ arping -I eth0 00:21:00:xx:xx:xx
arping: unknown host 00:21:00:xx:xx:xx

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: arping (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-11.48-generic 2.6.38.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-11-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx wl
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Aug 25 08:36:38 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=nl_NL:en
 LANG=nl_NL.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: arping
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Damiön la Bagh (kat-amsterdam)]

I have also asked one of the developers Thomas Habets upstream to rename the package arping

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[psl (slansky)]

Ubuntu 13.04, i386.

arpping is not part of iputils-arping package (advice from cli helper for missing commands is not correct):

# arpping
No command 'arpping' found, did you mean:
 Command 'arping' from package 'iputils-arping' (main)
 Command 'arping' from package 'arping' (universe)
arpping: command not found

# apt-get install iputils-arping
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
iputils-arping is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[psl (slansky)]

You can ignore my previous post; there is a typo in arpping (arping is correct).

Anyway, I installed arping package and that broke my notebook connectivity (network manager offered only bluetooth HW but refused to control WiFi or ETH hardware. When I tried to configure networks from Unity setting, there was an error:

The system network services are not compatible with this version

I fixed this by uninstalling arping package and force reinstall network-manger.

This was bad bug, it cost me more than an hour to fix my notebook.

Another really bad bug is disabling WiFi card when you "disable" WiFi in Network Manager. You can disable, it is easy but it is really difficult to reenable it; WiFI is dead even in Windows... Command rfkill can address this issue but it is tricky, you have to try it again and again... BTW, notebook is HP NC4200.

[SB Tech Services (info-sbts)]

I actually selected package iputils-arping, but the UI keeps reverting to iputils

[dino99 (9d9)]

That version is no more supported

[SB Tech Services (info-sbts)]

dino99,

A new version is no reason to close this bug, it still exists even for the new version of the package (as far as I can see)

Also closing it as Invalid is not the correct course of action either, the bug was and still is a Valid bug.

Reopening.

[mdrescher (drescher)]

Ran just into it myself: This is really a serous issue as it completely breaks the IP network. An unexperienced user is getting doomed here.

I suggest, you just remove all the rdepends from the arping package. This will prevent uninstalling the iputils package with all its dependencies. As arping's binary installs in /usr/sbin/, iputil's arping will not be harmed, both will live together peacefully.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Arping & iputils-arping conflict each other; that's it.
Note that latest arping's update was in 2014/10 and should have been removed from the archive, as per the Debian solution found to resolve such issue:

an old question/answer some years ago (by the arping dev):

In the past there were some attempts to include arping into the Fedora Package Collection. At the moment there is an issue with the name. iputils contains a tool that is called arping and this ends with a name conflict.

The suggestion was to rename your arping to arping-ng for the package name. Have you ever thought about renaming your tool or are there any objections about renaming it from your side? From my point of view it would be the best way to make the name change upstream to avoid confusion the users.
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Thomas Habets Mod Fabian Affolter • 6 years ago
Debian solved this by creating a new package called iputils-arping that contains that arping and have this arping be in the package "arping". I will not rename Arping since this is just a minor issue on Linux. I have no problem with it being named something else in Fedora, except several other OSs have *this* program with the name "arping", so it could cause more confusion than already exists.

http://www.habets.pp.se/synscan/programs.php?prog=arping

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for iputils (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]