In the ARP process, what type of message should be sent to request the MAC address of a specified IP address?

In the ARP process, to discover the MAC address associated with a specific IP address, a device sends an ARP Request. This message is essential for IP-to-MAC address resolution within a local network. When a device wants to communicate with another device at a known IP address but does not have the corresponding MAC address, it broadcasts an ARP Request to the entire local network segment.

The ARP Request includes the source device's IP and MAC addresses, along with the target IP address for which it seeks the MAC address. All devices on the local segment receive the broadcast, but only the device with the matching IP address responds with an ARP Response, which contains its MAC address. This process enables efficient communication within the network, as it allows devices to dynamically learn the MAC addresses necessary for data link layer interactions.

The other options are not suitable for this scenario. An ARP Response is the message sent back in reply to an ARP Request, while an ARP Update is not a term typically used in the ARP process. An ARP Broadcast refers to the method of sending the ARP Request to all devices on the network but does not describe the message type itself when requesting the MAC address.