>In your case the WinME box wants to communicate >with a machine on the network 192.168.1.1- >192.168.1.174 ( based on the netmask you >have set I >presume)Hence it sends the APR request and recieves >an RARP reply for >the same.
actually, it responds to WinME (the arp requestor) with an ARP reply. ARP is used to map a 32-bit IP address to a 48-bit MAC address. conversely, RARP is used to map a 48-bit MAC address to a 32-bit IP address. ARP/RARP requests are broadcasted, and replies are unicasted. the 2-byte [frame type] field in an ethernet frame is set to 0x0806 for all ARP requests _and_ replies, and is set to 0x8035 for all RARP requests _and_ replies. the link layer differentiates between requests and replies for ARP & RARP by looking at the 2-byte [op] field in the ethernet frame: 0x0001 is for ARP requests, 0x0002 is for ARP replies, 0x003 is for RARP requests, and 0x004 is for RARP replies. examples: a. ARP request: [frame type] = 0x0806, [op] = 0x0001 b. ARP reply: [frame type] = 0x0806, [op] = 0x0002 c. RARP request [frame type] = 0x8035, [op] = 0x0003 d. RARP reply [frame type] = 0x8035, [op] = 0x0004 RARP is normally used with a diskless workstation which cannot configure its IP address upon bootup. it broadcasts a RARP request to the network and receives its IP address in a RARP reply. cheers -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze
