Address Resolution Protocol

(ARP)

Relates to Lab 2.

This module is about the address resolution protocol.

Overview

1
ARP and RARP

• Note:
– The Internet is based on IP addresses
– Data link protocols (Ethernet, FDDI, ATM) may have
different (MAC) addresses
• The ARP and RARP protocols perform the translation
between IP addresses and MAC layer addresses
• We will discuss ARP for broadcast LANs, particularly Ethernet
LANs

ARP Ethernet MAC

IP address
address
(32 bit)
(48 bit)
RARP
3

Processing of IP packets by network device drivers

2
Address Translation with ARP

ARP Request:
Argon broadcasts an ARP request to all stations on the
network: “What is the hardware address of Router137?”

Address Translation with ARP

ARP Reply:
Router 137 responds with an ARP Reply which contains the
hardware address

3
ARP Packet Format

Ethernet II header

Destination Source Type

ARP Request or ARP Reply Padding CRC
address address 0x8060

6 6 2 28 10 4

Hardware type (2 bytes) Protocol type (2 bytes)

Hardware address Protocol address
Operation code (2 bytes)
length (1 byte) length (1 byte)
Source hardware address*

Source protocol address*

Target hardware address*

Target protocol address*

* Note: The length of the address fields is determined by the corresponding address length fields

Example

• ARP Request from Argon:

Source hardware address: 00:a0:24:71:e4:44
Source protocol address: 128.143.137.144
Target hardware address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Target protocol address: 128.143.137.1

• ARP Reply from Router137:

Source hardware address: 00:e0:f9:23:a8:20
Source protocol address: 128.143.137.1
Target hardware address: 00:a0:24:71:e4:44
Target protocol address: 128.143.137.144

4
ARP Cache

• Since sending an ARP request/reply for each IP datagram is

inefficient, hosts maintain a cache (ARP Cache) of current
entries. The entries expire after 20 minutes.

• Contents of the ARP Cache:

(128.143.71.37) at 00:10:4B:C5:D1:15 [ether] on eth0
(128.143.71.36) at 00:B0:D0:E1:17:D5 [ether] on eth0
(128.143.71.35) at 00:B0:D0:DE:70:E6 [ether] on eth0
(128.143.136.90) at 00:05:3C:06:27:35 [ether] on eth1
(128.143.71.34) at 00:B0:D0:E1:17:DB [ether] on eth0
(128.143.71.33) at 00:B0:D0:E1:17:DF [ether] on eth0

Proxy ARP

• Proxy ARP: Host or router responds to ARP Request that

arrives from one of its connected networks for a host that is
on another of its connected networks.
Argon Neon
Router137
128.143.137.1/16 128.143.171.21/24
128.143.137.144/16 128.143.71.1/24
00:e0:f9:23:a8:20 00:20:af:03:98:28

128.143.0.0/16 128.143.71.0/24
Subnet Subnet

ARP Request:
What is the MAC address
of 128.143.71.21?

ARP Reply:
The MAC address of
128.143.71.21 is
00:e0:f9:23:a8:20

10

5
Things to know about ARP

• What happens if an ARP Request is made for a non-existing

host?
Several ARP requests are made with increasing time
intervals between requests. Eventually, ARP gives up.

• On some systems (including Linux) a host periodically sends

ARP Requests for all addresses listed in the ARP cache. This
refreshes the ARP cache content, but also introduces traffic.

• Gratuitous ARP Requests: A host sends an ARP request for

its own IP address:
– Useful for detecting if an IP address has already been
assigned.

11

Vulnerabilities of ARP

1. Since ARP does not authenticate requests or replies, ARP Requests and
Replies can be forged
2. ARP is stateless: ARP Replies can be sent without a corresponding ARP
Request
3. According to the ARP protocol specification, a node receiving an ARP
packet (Request or Reply) must update its local ARP cache with the
information in the source fields, if the receiving node already has an entry
for the IP address of the source in its ARP cache. (This applies for ARP
Request packets and for ARP Reply packets)

Typical exploitation of these vulnerabilities:

• A forged ARP Request or Reply can be used to update the ARP cache of
a remote system with a forged entry (ARP Poisoning)
• This can be used to redirect IP traffic to other hosts

12