Configuring Arp; Overview; Arp Message Format; Arp Operation - HP 830 Series Configuration Manual

Configuring ARP

This chapter describes how to configure the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP).

Overview

ARP resolves IP addresses into physical addresses such as MAC addresses. On an Ethernet LAN, a
device uses ARP to get the MAC address of the target device for a packet.

ARP message format

ARP uses two types of messages, ARP request and ARP reply.
request/reply. Numbers in the figure refer to field lengths.
Figure 1 ARP message format
Hardware type—Hardware address type. The value 1 represents Ethernet.
•
• Protocol type—Type of the protocol address to be mapped. The hexadecimal value 0x0800
represents IP.
Hardware address length and protocol address length—Length, in bytes, of a hardware address
•
and a protocol address. For an Ethernet address, the value of the hardware address length field is
6. For an IPv4 address, the value of the protocol address length field is 4.
OP—Operation code, which describes type of the ARP message. Value 1 represents an ARP request,
•
and value 2 represents an ARP reply.
Sender hardware address—Hardware address of the device sending the message.
•
Sender protocol address—Protocol address of the device sending the message.
•
• Target hardware address—Hardware address of the device to which the message is being sent.
Target protocol address—Protocol address of the device to which the message is being sent.
•

ARP operation

As shown in
follows:
1. Host A looks through its ARP table for an ARP entry for Host B. If an entry is found, Host A uses the
MAC address in the entry to encapsulate the IP packet into a data link layer frame and sends the
frame to Host B.
Figure 2, Host A and Host B are on the same subnet. Host A sends a packet to Host B as
Figure 1
1
shows the format of the ARP