How does the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) work?

A. It sends a request packet to all the network elements, asking for the MAC address from a specific IP.

B. It sends a reply packet to all the network elements, asking for the

MAC address from a specific IP.

C. It sends a reply packet for a specific IP, asking for the MAC address.

D. It sends a request packet to all the network elements, asking for the domain name from a specific IP.

When an incoming packet destined

for a host machine on a particular local area network arrives at a gateway, the gateway asks the ARP program to find a physical host or MAC address that matches the IP address. The ARP program looks in the ARP cache and, if it finds the address, provides i

t so that the packet can be converted to the right packet length and format and sent to the machine. If no entry is found for the IP address, ARP broadcasts a request packet in a special format to all the machines on the LAN to see if one machine knows tha

t it has that IP address associated with it. A machine that recognizes the IP address as its own returns a reply so indicating. ARP updates the ARP cache for future reference and then sends the packet to the MAC address that replied.

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