ARP vs RARP: Network Protocols

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In this article, we’ll learn about comparison between ARP vs RARP.

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) and Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) are network protocols used for resolving layer 2 (Data Link Layer) addresses to layer 3 (Network Layer) addresses and vice versa.

ARP vs RARP: Network Protocols

Feature	ARP (Address Resolution Protocol)	RARP (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol)
Purpose	Resolves a known IP address to a MAC address	Resolves a known MAC address to an IP address
Function	Maps an IP address to a corresponding MAC address	Maps a MAC address to a corresponding IP address
Operation	Broadcasts an ARP request to the entire local network	Broadcasts a RARP request to the entire local network
Protocol	Uses Ethernet frames in most cases	Uses Ethernet frames in most cases
Message Types	ARP Request, ARP Reply	RARP Request, RARP Reply
Address Type	Resolves logical (IP) addresses to physical (MAC) addresses	Resolves physical (MAC) addresses to logical (IP) addresses
Packet Structure	ARP packet includes sender and target IP and MAC addresses	RARP packet includes sender and target MAC addresses
Use Cases	Commonly used in Ethernet networks	Used in scenarios where diskless workstations need to discover their IP address
Broadcast vs. Unicast	ARP requests are broadcasted to all devices in the local network	RARP requests are broadcasted to all devices in the local network
Implementation	More widely implemented and used	Less common and mostly superseded by BOOTP and DHCP

While ARP is still widely used, RARP has become less common and has been largely superseded by more modern protocols like BOOTP (Bootstrap Protocol) and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) for IP address assignment in networks.