Which of the following is a network layer protocol used to obtain an IP address for a given hardware (MAC) address?

Which of the following is a network layer protocol used to obtain an IP address for a given
hardware (MAC) address?

A.
IP

B.
PIM

C.
RARP

D.
ARP

Explanation:

Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) is a Network layer protocol used to obtain an IP
address for a given hardware (MAC) address. RARP is sort of the reverse of an ARP. Common
protocols that use RARP are BOOTP and DHCP.
Answer option D is incorrect. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a network maintenance
protocol of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It is responsible for the resolution of IP addresses to media

access control (MAC) addresses of a network interface card (NIC). The ARP cache is used to
maintain a correlation between a MAC address and its corresponding IP address. ARP provides
the protocol rules for making this correlation and providing address conversion in both directions.
ARP is limited to physical network systems that support broadcast packets.
Answer option B is incorrect. Protocol-Independent Multicast (PIM) is a family of multicast routing
protocols for Internet Protocol (IP) networks that provide one-to-many and many-to-many
distribution of data over a LAN, WAN, or the Internet. It is termed protocol-independent because
PIM does not include its own topology discovery mechanism, but instead uses routing information
supplied by other traditional routing protocols, such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
Answer option A is incorrect. The Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol used for communicating data
across a packet-switched inter-network using the Internet Protocol Suite, also referred to as
TCP/IP.
IP is the primary protocol in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite and has the task of
delivering distinguished protocol datagrams (packets) from the source host to the destination host
solely based on their addresses. For this purpose, the Internet Protocol defines addressing
methods and structures for datagram encapsulation. The first major version of addressing
structure, now referred to as Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is still the dominant protocol of the
Internet, although the successor, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), is being deployed actively
worldwide.