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The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) serves the purpose of mapping IP addresses to MAC addresses on a local network.ARP is used to find the hardware address (MAC address) of a device (typically a computer or router) connected to the same local area network (LAN). When a device wants to communicate with another device on the same network, it needs to know the MAC address of the destination device. However, devices communicate with each other using IP addresses. ARP allows a device to determine the MAC address associated with a specific IP address.
How ARP works:
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ARP Request: When a device needs to communicate with another device on the same network, but it only knows the destination's IP address, it broadcasts an ARP request packet to all devices on the network. The ARP request packet contains the IP address of the target device.
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ARP Reply: The device with the corresponding IP address specified in the ARP request responds with an ARP reply packet. The ARP reply packet contains its own MAC address.
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MAC Address Mapping: Upon receiving the ARP reply packet, the requesting device updates its ARP cache (also known as the ARP table) with the MAC address of the target device, associating it with the corresponding IP address.
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Subsequent Communication: With the MAC address of the destination device now known, the requesting device can use it to construct Ethernet frames for subsequent communication with the target device on the local network.
Posted : 27/04/2024 10:20 pm
