Overview#
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a communication protocol used for discovering the Link Layer address, such as a MAC Address, associated with a given internet layer address, typically an IPv4 address.This mapping is a critical function in the Internet Protocol Suite. Address Resolution Protocol was defined in 1982 by RFC 826.
ARP has been implemented with many combinations of Network Layer and Data-link Layer technologies, such as:
- IPv4
- VINES
- Chaosnet
- DECnet
- Xerox PARC Universal Packet (PUP) using IEEE 802 standards,
- FDDI
- X.25
- Frame Relay
- Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
- AppleTalk (AARP)
In Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) networks, the functionality of ARP is provided by the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP).