Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!barmar
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Subject: Re: Bootp questions (a possible reposting)
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.080332.16964@Think.COM>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
References: <94488@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <Ibyt2Ki00WCp44dZAH@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 08:03:32 GMT

In article <Ibyt2Ki00WCp44dZAH@andrew.cmu.edu> ww0n+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Walter Lloyd Wimer III) writes:
>RARP provides another alternative for assigning IP addresses to booting
>hosts.  It only deals with the IP address assignment issue (unlike BOOTP
>which can also pass information such as the subnet mask, default
>router(s), etc.).  RARP is a link-layer protocol, so it cannot work
>across routers like BOOTP can.

Why couldn't an RARP server rebroadcast the RARP request on another subnet,
and then forward the response back to the original host?  BOOTP's "routing"
is done at the application layer, because IP-layer routing requires the
client to know most of the information it is trying to find out from the
BOOTP server.  Since BOOTP does its routing at the application layer, so
could RARP.

--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
