Address Resolution Protocol

ARP is defined in RFC 826. It introduce the concept of an Address Resolution

Protocol as a useful way
for devices to locate the Ethernet address of another IP host on the same Local
Network.

Operation Flow

When a device needs to send an IP packet to another device on the local network, the IP
software will first check to see if it knows the hardware address associated with the destination
IP address. If it founds then the sender simply transmit the data to the destination. However, if
the
destination system's hardware address is not known then the IP software has to locate it before
any data can be sent. at this point, IP will call on ARP to locate the hardware address of the
destination system.

ARP achieves this task by issuing a low level broadcast onto the network, requesting that the
system
that is using the specified IP address respond with its hardware address. if the destination system
is powered up and on the network, it will see this broadcast
(As will all of the other devices on the local network), and it will return an ARP response back
to
the original system. not that the response is not broadcast back of the network. but is
instead sent directly to the requesting device.

ARP structure

ARP packets work at the data-link layer, the same as IP packets. As such, ARP packets
are completely separate from IP packets; they even have a different protocol ID of 0806,
instead of 0800 as used with IP.ARP packets contain several fields, although only five of them
are actually used to

proved ARP's functionality.

Field Usage
Source Hardware
The hardware address of the sender's device
address
Source IP address The network address of the senders device
The hardware address of the receiver's device
Destination
(when this field is unknown ARP set it to all-
Hardware address
zero)
Destination IP The network address of the reciver's device
address
Indicates whether the current ARP packets is a
Message-Type
request or a response to a request

ARP Request

When a device is sending ARP request, it fills in three of the four address-related fields,
providing its own hardware and IP address, as well as the IP address of the target.
the destination hardware address is yet unknown so that field is filled with zeros.
In addition it will set the message type to indicate that the current packet is an
ARP request, and then broadcast the request onto the local network for all devices to see

ARP Reply

All of the local devices should monitor the network for ARP broadcasts, and when ever
they see a request for themselves they should generate a response packet and send
it back to the requesting system. The response packet will consist of the local device's
IP address of the original sender. The response will also be marked as as such, with the message-
type
field indicating that the current packet is an ARP response. the new ARP packet is then unicast
directly to the
original requester, where it is received and processed.

Simulation

ARP simulation is trying to show the basic operation of ARP. We use ping as application that
triggers ARP requests/replies.

The ARP table on top left if showing the current state of the arp table of the sender's computer

Ping any of the three hosts in the network and observe the animation.