What is difference between ARP & RARP ? How both of these protocols will work, and where will it be used ?

Hi,

ARP -Meaning of ARP "Address Resolution Protocol", is used to map ip Network addresses to the hardware (Media Access Control sub layer) addresses used by the data link protocol. The ARP protocol operates between the network layer and the data link layer in the Open System Interconnection (osi) model.
 

RARP-RARP (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol) is a protocol by which a physical machine in a local area network can request to learn its IP address from a gateway server's Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table or cache. A network administrator creates a table in a local area network's gateway router that maps the physical machine (or Media Access Control - MAC address) addresses to corresponding Internet Protocol addresses. When a new machine is set up, its RARP client program requests from the RARP server on the router to be sent its IP address. Assuming that an entry has been set up in the router table, the RARP server will return the IP address to the machine which can store it for future use. RARP is available for Ethernet, Fiber Distributed-Data Interface, and token ring LANs.

shridhar

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RARP has been best explained by Shridhar... just imagine how a diskless machine will boot from network...this is the best example

by the way, explanation of Shridhar regarding ARP cannot be termed the best to understand (RARP explanation is the best though)