The BOOTP was first defined in September 1985 in RFC 951 as a replacement for the Reverse Address Resolution Protocol [[RARP]], published in RFC 903 in June 1984. The primary motivation for replacing RARP with BOOTP is that RARP was a [[link layer]] protocol. This made implementation difficult on many server platforms, and required that a server be present on each individual IP [[subnetwork|subnet]]. BOOTP introduced the innovation of relay agents, which forwarded BOOTP packets from the local network using standard IP routing, so that one central BOOTP server could serve hosts on many subnets..<ref>{{cite web|url=http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc951#section-6 |title=RFC 951 - Bootstrap Protocol |author=Bill Croft|author2=John Gilmore|date=September 1985|work=Network Working Group}}</ref>
The BOOTP ( Bootstrap Protocol ) was actually introduced in 1985 because of Request for Comments 951 ( also known as RFC 951 ) to replace Reverse Address Resolution Protocol ( RARP ). This Protocol requires servers to be present on the every server Internet Protocol ( IP ) Address. By using BOOTP ( Bootstrap Protocol ) , a central BOOTP ( Bootstrap Protocol ) server can exist for many sub nets.
Today, BOOTP ( Bootstrap Protocol ) is carried out via User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which forms the basis for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ( DHCP ) servers handle client requests.
