Reverse Address Resolution Protocol

The Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) translates unique hardware addresses into Internet addresses on the Ethernet local area network (LAN) adapter (Ethernet protocol only).

Standard Ethernet protocol is supported with the following restrictions:

• The server only replies to RARP requests.
• The server only uses permanent ARP table entries.
• The server does not use dynamic ARP table entries.
• The server does not automatically reply for itself.

The system administrator must manually build and maintain a table of permanent ARP entries using the arp command. A specific ARP table entry must be added on the server for each host that requires RARP replies from an authoritative source.