Cabletron Systems SmartSwitch manual Configuring Reverse Address Resolution Protocol Rarp

Chapter 6: IP Routing Configuration Guide

Configuring Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP)

Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) works exactly the opposite of ARP. Taking a MAC address as input, RARP determines the associated IP address. RARP is useful for X- terminals and diskless workstations that may not have an IP address when they boot.

They can submit their MAC address to a RARP server on the SSR, which returns an IP address.

Configuring RARP on the SSR consists of two steps:

•Letting the SSR know which IP interfaces to respond to

•Defining the mappings of MAC addresses to IP addresses

Specifying IP Interfaces for RARP

To specify the interfaces that the RARP server on the SSR should respond to, enter the following command in Configure mode:

Specify interfaces for RARP.

rarpd set interface <InterfaceName>all

Defining MAC-to-IP Address Mappings

To map a MAC address to an IP address, enter the following command in Configure mode:

Map a MAC address to an IP address.

rarpd add hardware-address <MAC-addr>ip-address <IPaddr>

There is no limit to the number of address mappings you can configure.

Optionally, you can create a list of mappings with a text editor and then use TFTP to upload the text file to the SSR. The format of the text file must be as follows:

MAC-address1 IP-address1 MAC-address2 IP-address2

...

MAC-addressnIP-addressn

Then place the text file on a TFTP server that the SSR can access and enter the following command in Enable mode:

ssr# copy tftp-server to ethers

TFTP server? <IPaddr-of-TFTP-server>

Source filename? <filename>

SmartSwitch Router User Reference Manual 89