OpenFlow matching traffic destined for switch MAC address

When using OpenFlow, traffic that is destined to a routing switch that matches an OpenFlow flow that emulates routing does not get routed if there are no ARP entries on the switch for the devices involved. To trigger this, the traffic must be destined for a MAC address assigned on the switch.

In traditional networking without OpenFlow, when packets to a routable IP destination arrive, the packets will be buffered/dropped until the next hop to that IP destination is resolved. The ARP resolution is triggered by the switch itself.

NOTE:

To make this work with OpenFlow, you must ensure that ARPs to all hosts are resolved.