Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) is a protocol used to resolve an Internet Protocol address from a given hardware address (such as an Ethernet address). The primary limitations were that each Media Access Control had to be manually configured on a central server, and it was limited to only the IP address, leaving subnetting, gateways, and other information to be configured by hand. It was later obsoleted by BOOTP, which had a much greater feature set.

Another disadvantage with RARP compared to BOOTP is the fact that it is a non-IP protocol. This means that it can t be handled with the TCP/IP stack already present on the client computer. Thus the client must have special functionality in order to handle the raw RARP packet.

RARP is the complement of Address Resolution Protocol. RARP is described in Request for Comments 903

=See also=

*Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol *BOOTP *Address Resolution Protocol

=External links=