INTERNET WORKING

In real world scenario, networks under same administration are generally scattered geographically.
There may exist requirement of connecting two different networks of same kind as well as of different
kinds. Routing between two networks is called internetworking.
Networks can be considered different based on various parameters such as, Protocol, topology, Layer-
2 network and addressing scheme.
The most notable example of internetworking is the Internet, a network of networks based on many
underlying hardware technologies, but unified by an internetworking protocol standard, the Internet
Protocol Suite, often also referred to as TCP/IP.
The smallest amount of effort to create an internet (an internetwork, not the Internet), is to have
two LANs of computers connected to each other via a router. Simply using either a switch or a hub to
connect two local area networks together doesn't imply internetworking; it just expands the original
LAN.
In internetworking, routers have knowledge of each other’s address and addresses beyond them. They
can be statically configured go on different network or they can learn by using internetworking routing
protocol.
Routing protocols which are used within an organization or administration are called Interior Gateway
Protocols or IGP. RIP, OSPF are examples of IGP. Routing between different organizations or
administrations may have Exterior Gateway Protocol, and there is only one EGP i.e. Border Gateway
Protocol.
Tunneling
If they are two geographically separate networks, which want to communicate with each other, they
may deploy a dedicated line between or they have to pass their data through intermediate networks.
Tunneling is a mechanism by which two or more same networks communicate with each other, by
passing intermediate networking complexities. Tunneling is configured at both ends.

When the data enters from one end of Tunnel, it is tagged. This tagged data is then routed inside the
intermediate or transit network to reach the other end of Tunnel. When data exists the Tunnel its tag is
removed and delivered to the other part of the network.
Both ends seem as if they are directly connected and tagging makes data travel through transit network
without any modifications.

Packet Fragmentation
Every packet based network has an MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) size. The MTU is the size of
the largest packet that that network can transmit.
Packets larger than the allowable MTU must be divided into smaller packets or fragments to enable
them to traverse the network.
Fragmentation is done by the network layer when the maximum size of datagram is greater than
maximum size of data that can be held by a frame i.e., its Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU). The
network layer divides the datagram received from transport layer into fragments so that data flow is
not disrupted.
 Since there are 16 bits for total length in IP header so, maximum size of IP datagram = 216 – 1 =
65, 535 bytes.

 It is done by network layer at the destination side and is usually done at routers.
 Source side does not require fragmentation due to wise (good) segmentation by transport layer
i.e. instead of doing segmentation at transport layer and fragmentation at network layer, the
transport layer looks at datagram data limit and frame data limit and does segmentation in such
a way that resulting data can easily fit in a frame without the need of fragmentation.

 Receiver identifies the frame with the identification (16 bits) field in IP header. Each fragment
of a frame has same identification number.
 Receiver identifies sequence of frames using the fragment offset(13 bits) field in IP header
 An overhead at network layer is present due to extra header introduced due to fragmentation.
Fields in IP header for fragmentation –
 Identification (16 bits) – use to identify fragments of same frame.
 Fragment offset (13 bits) – use to identify sequence of fragments in the frame. It generally
indicates number of data bytes preceeding or ahead of the fragment.
Maximum fragment offset possible = (65535 – 20) – 1 = 65514
{where 65535 is maximum size of datagram and 20 is minimum size of IP header}
So, we need ceil(log265514) = 16 bits for fragment offset but fragment offset field has only 13
bits. So, to represent efficiently we need to scale down fragment offset field by 216/213 = 8
which acts as a scaling factor. Hence, all fragments except the last fragment should have data in
multiples of 8 so that fragment offset ∈ N.
 More fragments (MF = 1 bit) – tells if more fragments ahead of this fragment i.e. if MF = 1,
more fragments are ahead of this fragment and if MF = 0, it is the last fragment.
  Don’t fragment (DF = 1 bit) – if we don’t want the packet to be fragmented then DF is set i.e.
DF = 1.
Reassembly of Fragments –
It takes place only at destination and not at routers since packets take independent path(datagram
packet switching), so all may not meet at a router and hence a need of fragmentation may arise again.
The fragments may arrive out of order also.

Algorithm –
1. Destination should identify that datagram is fragmented from MF, Fragment offset field.
2. Destination should identify all fragments belonging to same datagram from Identification field.
3. Identify the 1st fragment(offset = 0).
4. Identify subsequent fragment using header length, fragment offset.
5. Repeat until MF = 0.
Efficiency –
Efficiency (e) = useful/total = (Data without header)/(Data with header)
Throughput = e * B { where B is bottleneck bandwidth }

Example – An IP router with a Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of 200 bytes has received an IP
packet of size 520 bytes with an IP header of length 20 bytes. The values of the relevant fields in the
IP header.
Explanation – Since MTU is 200 bytes and 20 bytes is header size so, maximum length of data = 180
bytes but it can be represented in fragment offset since not divisible by 8 so, maximum length of data
feasible = 176 bytes.
Number of fragments = (520/200) = 3.
Header length = 5 (since scaling factor is 4 therefore, 20/4 = 5)
Efficiency, e = (Data without header)/(Data with header) = 500/560 = 89.2 %