ARP Protocol

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is fundamental in computer networks to map IP addresses to physical link layer addresses (MAC). Its main function is to find the MAC address associated with a specific IP address on a local network. When one device needs to communicate with another on the same network, it uses ARP to determine the MAC address of the destination before sending data. Nature of ARP Requests ARP requests are broadcast messages, as the destination address in the header is a broadcast address. This address has all its bits set to 1, which in MAC addresses is represented as FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF.