What does ARP stand for?

What does ARP stand for?

• A. Address Resolution Protocol
• B. Address Routing Protocol
• C. Automatic Resolution Protocol
• D. Advanced Routing Protocol

Answer: (A)

ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol. This protocol is used to find the hardware MAC address that corresponds to a given IP address on a local network. When a device wants to send an IPv4 packet to another device on the same LAN, it needs to know both the IP address (the destination) and the MAC address (the data link layer address). ARP accomplishes this by broadcasting a request like “Who has this IP? Tell me your MAC,” and the device with that IP replies with its MAC address. The sender then caches this mapping in an ARP table to speed up future communications. This is why the other options don’t fit: they imply routing or a different kind of resolution, but ARP’s core role is resolving an IP address to a MAC address, not routing or automatic or advanced routing. Note that in IPv6, ARP is not used; Neighbor Discovery Protocol handles address resolution there.

ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol. This protocol is used to find the hardware MAC address that corresponds to a given IP address on a local network. When a device wants to send an IPv4 packet to another device on the same LAN, it needs to know both the IP address (the destination) and the MAC address (the data link layer address). ARP accomplishes this by broadcasting a request like “Who has this IP? Tell me your MAC,” and the device with that IP replies with its MAC address. The sender then caches this mapping in an ARP table to speed up future communications.

This is why the other options don’t fit: they imply routing or a different kind of resolution, but ARP’s core role is resolving an IP address to a MAC address, not routing or automatic or advanced routing. Note that in IPv6, ARP is not used; Neighbor Discovery Protocol handles address resolution there.