Both ICMP and ARP (As will as IGMP and RARP) are somewhat controversial.
Some people will put ICMP on L3, while some other will put it on L4 (because in the IP packet header, there is a place for a Protocol ID, for TCP it's 6, for UDP it's 17, and for ICMP it's 1, which puts ICMP right there with TCP and UDP as a layer 4 protocol).
The same goes for ARP, some will say it is a L2 protocol (because it is used to resolve L2 addresses), while some others will say it is a layer 3 protocol (because IP is a L3 address, and a L2 device implementing L2 protocols only will not know that it has a IP address, and wouldn't allow you to configure one because it doesn't know you are talking about, so you'll need the L3 functionality).
If you are setting a CompTIA exam, and CompTIA wants ARP to be L3, then this is the answer you'll need, as you might get your answer marked as wrong if you answered otherwise.
Good luck !
Last edited by jalal; 04-15-2004 at 11:39 PM.
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