Using the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

Using the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

The Address Resolution Protocol, or ARP, is part of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol stack; it is used to translate TCP/IP addresses to MAC (media access control) addresses using broadcasts. When a machine running TCP/IP wants to know which machine on an Ethernet network uses a particular IP address, it will send an ARP broadcast that says, in effect, “Hey! Who is IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ?” The machine that owns the specific address will respond with its own MAC address. The machine that made the inquiry then adds

that information to its own ARP table.

        In addition to the normal usage, the ARP designation refers to a utility in Windows that you can use to manipulate and view the local workstation’s ARP table.