Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) tells hosts how to find the MAC address of any other host on the local network. Virtually all protocols, whether they be TCP, AppleTalk, or some other protocol, use a form of ARP to find other hosts on the network. In order for a host to send a packet to another host, it needs to know the MAC address of the machine's interface. ARP provides the mechanism to find the target's MAC address knowing only the IP address, for example. This tutorial covers how ARP provides this functionality and why ARP is important to network functionality, especially in a network using Ethernet connectivity.

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