Top-Down Network Design, Second Edition

Guidelines for Assigning Network Layer Addresses 191

IP Dynamic Addressing

When the IP protocols were first developed, a network administrator was required to

configure each host with its unique IP address. In the mid-1980s, protocols were developed

to support diskless stations dynamically learning an address, which was necessary because

a diskless station has no storage for saving a configuration. These protocols included the

Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) and BOOTP. BOOTP has evolved into

DHCP, which has gained considerable popularity since the late 1990s.

RARP is limited in scope; the only information returned to a station using RARP ...