multiple registration protocol (802.1ak) (MRP)

Multiple Registration Protocols (MRP) are registration protocols with which switches, bridges and other network components can register and remove VLAN IDs, multicast groups or attributes. The MRP protocol operates at the link layer and replaces the older Generic Attribute Registration Protocol( GARP).

The MRP protocol is specified in IEEE 802.1ak. In order for GARP applications to be used with the Multiple Registration Protocol, they had to be modified. In addition, the GARP Multicast Registration Protocol( GMRP) was replaced by the Multiple MAC Registration Protocol ( MMRP) and the GARP VLAN Registration Protocol( GVRP) was replaced by the Multiple VLAN Registration Protocol( MVRP). These changes were made to allow GARP, GARP VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP), and GARP Multicast Registration Protocol (GMRP) to be used in the VLAN environments specified by 802.1Q. The impetus for the changes was the length of time that the registration protocols took to register or receive an error message.