Address
Resolution
Protocol
(ARP)
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 1
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ADDRESS MAPPING
The delivery of a packet to a host or a router
requires two levels of addressing: logical and
physical. We need to be able to map a logical
address to its corresponding physical address
and vice versa. These can be done using either
static or dynamic mapping.
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 2
ADDRESS MAPPING
Anytime a host or a router has an IP
datagram to send to another host or
router, it has the logical (IP) address of
the receiver. But the IP datagram must
be encapsulated in a frame to be able to
pass through the physical network. This
means that the sender needs the
physical address of the receiver. A
mapping corresponds a logical address
to a physical address. ARP accepts a
logical address from the IP protocol,
maps the address to the corresponding
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 3
Position of ARP in TCP/IP protocol suite
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 4
ARP operation
LAN
System A System B
Request
Looking for physical address of a
node with IP address 141.23.56.23
a. ARP request is broadcast
multicast
LAN
System A System B
Reply
The node physical address
is A4:6E:F4:59:83:AB
b. ARP reply is unicast
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 5
ARP packet
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 6
Encapsulation of ARP packet
Type: 0x0806
Preamble Destination Source
Type Data CRC
and SFD address address
8 bytes 6 bytes 6 bytes 2 bytes 4 bytes
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 7
Four cases using ARP
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 8
Example 8.1
A host with IP address 130.23.43.20 and physical
address B2:34:55:10:22:10 has a packet to send
to another host with IP address 130.23.43.25 and
physical address A4:6E:F4:59:83:AB. The two
hosts are on the same Ethernet network. Show
the ARP request and reply packets encapsulated
in Ethernet frames.
Solution
Figure 8.6 shows the ARP request and reply
packets. Note that the ARP data field in this case
is 28 bytes, and that the individual addresses do
not fit in the 4-byte boundary. That is why we do
not show the regular 4-byte boundaries for these
addresses. Also note that the IP addresses are
shown in hexadecimal.TCP/IP Protocol Suite 9
Figure 8.6 Example 8.1
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 10
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 11
Figure 8.7 Proxy ARP
Added subnetwork
The proxy ARP router replies 141.23.56.21 141.23.56.22 141.23.56.23
to any ARP request received
for destinations 141.23.56.21,
141.23.56.22, and 141.23.56.23.
Request
Proxy ARP
Router or host router
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 12
8-4 ARP PACKAGE
In this section, we give an example of a
simplified ARP software package. The
purpose is to show the components of a
hypothetical ARP package and the
relationships between the components.
Figure 8.13 shows these components and
their interactions. We can say that this
ARP package involves five components: a
cache table, queues, an output module,
an input module, and a cache-control
module.
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Figure 8.13 ARP components
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 14
