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RARP

Last Updated May 24, 2021 1:53 pm

Short for Reverse Address Resolution Protocol, a TCP/IP protocol that permits a physical address, such as an Ethernet address, to be translated into an IP address. Hosts such as diskless workstations often only know their hardware interface addresses, or MAC address, when booted but not their IP addresses. They must discover their IP addresses from an external source, usually a RARP server. RARP is defined in RFC 903.

Compare with ARP.

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