9. Example

Let there exist machines X and Y that are on the same 10Mbit Ethernet cable. They have Ethernet address EA(X) and EA(Y) and DOD Internet addresses IPA(X) and IPA(Y). Let the Ethernet type of Internet be ET(IP). Machine X has just been started, and sooner or later wants to send an Internet packet to machine Y on the same cable. X knows that it wants to send to IPA(Y) and tells the hardware driver (here an Ethernet driver) IPA(Y). The driver consults the Address Resolution module to convert <ET(IP), IPA(Y)> into a 48.bit Ethernet address, but because X was just started, it does not have this information. It throws the Internet packet away and instead creates an ADDRESS RESOLUTION packet with:

(ar$hrd) = ares_hrd$Ethernet
(ar$pro) = ET(IP)
(ar$hln) = length(EA(X))
(ar$pln) = length(IPA(X))
(ar$op)  = ares_op$REQUEST
(ar$sha) = EA(X)
(ar$spa) = IPA(X)
(ar$tha) = don't care
(ar$tpa) = IPA(Y)

and broadcasts this packet to everybody on the cable.

Machine Y gets this packet, and determines that it understands the hardware type (Ethernet), that it speaks the indicated protocol (Internet) and that the packet is for it ((ar$tpa)=IPA(Y)). It enters (probably replacing any existing entry) the information that <ET(IP), IPA(X)> maps to EA(X). It then notices that it is a request, so it swaps fields, putting EA(Y) in the new sender Ethernet address field (ar$sha), sets the opcode to reply, and sends the packet directly (not broadcast) to EA(X). At this point Y knows how to send to X, but X still doesn't know how to send to Y.

Machine X gets the reply packet from Y, forms the map from <ET(IP), IPA(Y)> to EA(Y), notices the packet is a reply and throws it away. The next time X's Internet module tries to send a packet to Y on the Ethernet, the translation will succeed, and the packet will (hopefully) arrive. If Y's Internet module then wants to talk to X, this will also succeed since Y has remembered the information from X's request for Address Resolution.