Address Resolution Protocols

Address Resolution Protocols

You should know the following protocols that perform address resolution.

Protocol		Description
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)		Used by hosts to discover the MAC address of a computer from its IP address.
Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP)		Used by a host to discover the IP address of a computer from its MAC address.
Bootstrap Protocol (BootP)		Used by a host (such as a diskless workstation) to query a bootstrap computer and receive an IP address assignment. A BootP server has a static list of MAC addresses and their corresponding IP addresses.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)		An improvement on BootP, DHCP is used to dynamically assign IP address and other TCP/IP configuration parameters. A DHCP server can use a static list to assign a specific IP address to a specific host. More commonly, however, the DHCP server automatically assigns an IP address from a preset range of possible addresses.