Notes 3 - Network Addressing and Protocols

Computer Networking Fundamentals

Outcome One

Describe the concepts of computer networks.

Performance Criteria

(b) Describe network addressing

(c) Describe network protocols

Describe network addressing and protocols

Before we can really look at how PCs / laptops / tablets / smart phones / smart TVs etc are
addressed on a network, we really have to explain what a protocol is…

You might have heard of TCP/IP or HTTP, when using the internet? They are examples of
protocols.

Protocol

A protocol is a set of rules that control communication on a network. You might have heard
of TCP/IP, that’s a protocol. Its job is to take the data (for example your email or web page)
and split it up into bite sized pieces, stick an address on them and make sure all the pieces
get sent to the right computer and rebuilt to re-create your message. Very clever.

According to Wikipedia:

“In computing, a protocol is a convention or standard that controls or enables the

connection, communication, and data transfer between computing endpoints. In its simplest
form, a protocol can be defined as the rules governing the syntax and synchronisation of
communication”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_(computing)
TCP/IP

The protocol that you will see the most is TCP/IP.

It is actually 2 protocols, TCP and IP. TCP – the transmission control protocol – controls the
transmission of data and IP – the internet protocol – gets the data to go to the right place (ie
the correct destination computer). It does this by using an IP address, so we will talk about
that in a minute or two.

There is, however, more than one address system used on networks. There are MAC
addresses as well as IP addresses…

MAC address

A MAC address (Media Access Control address) is the address of the network card. A MAC
address might look like this: 12-15-A1-FF-03-7C. That’s twelve hexadecimal digits. It’s 48
bits long and every computer has a unique MAC address since every NIC has that unique
address programmed into it at the factory when it is made.

A MAC address is used because, if you think about it, when one device on a network wants
to talk to another one, it uses a network card to do it. So the MAC address is the address of
the network card (or NIC) so when a network card talks to another network card it uses the
MAC address to find the correct destination network card and therefore the correct
destination PC, that the network card is installed in!
But what about on networks, and the internet?

When you are dealing with networking, you use an IP address to find the right network, and
then when you have the destination network sorted you can find the destination computer on
the network. (Then, the MAC address is also used to allow for communication and
transmission of data to work).

We had better have a look at TCP/IP.

TCP/IP and IP addressing

The TCP (transmission control protocol) and IP (internet protocol) work together to create
and send the packets (using TCP) to the correct computer (using IP and IP addressing). We
will see later how data is created and then transmitted and addressed (with an IP address)
before being sent over the network.

Basically, TCP/IP moves your data around a LAN and / or WAN.

Let’s briefly introduce the idea of an IP address:

An IP address might look like this: 192.168.10.32.

It’s four numbers of between 1 and 254 with a ‘.’ between each portion.

It’s a 32 bit address (192.168.10.17 looks like 11000000 10101000 00001010 00010001
when converted to a binary data stream).

You will see that TCP/IP addresses have to be unique for each computer on the network.
IP addresses, subnet masks and default gateways

An IP address is made up of two parts, a network address and a host address.

This is because when you are sending data you need to find the destination network before
you can find the destination computer on the network.

The subnet mask identifies which part of the IP address is the network address and which
part is the host (computer) address.

An IP address also needs a subnet mask, for example 255.255.255.0.

192. 168. 100. 14 computer IP address

255. 255. 255. 0 subnet mask

N N N H where N is network address and H is host address.

192. 168. 100. 0 network address (calculated by taking the IP

address and subnet mask and putting them
together).

If you have two computers communicating and you wish to send data from your PC, which
we will call PC1, to another computer, which we will call PC2, then you will have a source IP
address (PC1) and a destination IP address (for PC1, which is the IP address of PC2).

If PC1 and PC2 are on the same network:

192. 168. 1. 1 192. 168. 1. 2

255. 255. 255. 0 255. 255. 255. 0

N N N H N N N H

192. 168. 1. 0 192. 168. 1. 0

The subnet mask calculation tells the computer (PC1) that the destination computer (PC2) is
on the same network. This means that data can be sent to the switch and the switch can
deliver the data to the destination computer (PC2) without us needing to deal with anything
else.

However… let’s see what happens if our destination computer, let’s call it PC20, is on a
different network.

If PC20 is on a different network it will have a different (network) IP address, for example:

192. 168. 1. 1 172. 16. 1. 2

255. 255. 255. 0 255. 255. 255. 0

N N N H N N N H

192. 168. 1. 0 172. 16. 1. 0

The subnet mask calculation tells the computer (PC1) that the destination computer (PC20)
is NOT on the same network. This means that data would be sent to the switch and then the
switch needs to deliver the data to the router on the network. A router is needed on a LAN to
connect our LAN to other LANs, to make the WAN. As the destination computer (PC20) is on
a different LAN we need to use the WAN to get the data from PC1 to PC20.

The router will know where to send the data on the WAN to find the destination LAN (ie the
172.16.1.0 network), as routers are designed and programmed to be able to deal with these
things. Once the router has sent the data onto the destination LAN, the destination LAN
switch will then be able to find the PC20 host at 172.16.1.2 and deliver the data to the
correct computer on the correct destination network.

This also brings the default gateway into play.

If you need to send data to a different LAN, then the default gateway is the IP address of
your LANs router. You send the data to the default gateway so that data can be routed onto
the WAN.

So… if PC1 (192.168.1.1) wants to talk to PC20 (172.16.1.2), which is on the remote
network, PC1 needs to send the data for PC20 to the default gateway - 192.168.1.254 in this
example - so that the router can forward the data to the destination network.

If we were configuring Windows, we would need to configure this:

We need to configure the default gateway IP address here (ie the address of the router on
our LAN) because if we don’t then our computer will not be able to send data to other
networks, as it won’t know where to send the data to (if we don’t tell it…!)

We’ll discuss subnet masks and things like that more in discussions class. They aren’t
complicated to understand but there would be a lot of extra reading to do, and there’s
enough here to read anyway as it is..!

Anyway, there is something else we should look at. We will look at this briefly now and in
more detail at some future point in your academic career:

With regard to subnet masks and things, you may see the following:

Network class Example IP address Subnet mask

Class A 10.12.14.160 255.0.0.0
Class B 172.16.100.125 255.255.0.0
Class C 192.168.1.25 255.255.255.0

Networks can be different sizes, ie big (class A), medium (class B) and small (class C). This
is how the internet was originally designed. The use of ‘classful’ addressing was scrapped
on the internet in 1993, but the concept still remains. Have a look at this information:

Network design starts with the use of class A, B or C, however we now use ‘classless’ IP
addressing and variable length subnet masking, where if you look at the different subnet
mask values used you can have different sizes of networks and customise your IP
addressing requirements to what size of network you need. (In reality, with subnet masks,
you might see 255.255.128.0 as an example of a valid subnet mask… but as this is quite
advanced you might not see it any time soon!! You will learn this in the future).
Configuring IP addresses onto hosts

You can configure a static IP address, or use ‘Obtain an IP address automatically’ and
configure a dynamic IP address.

Static IP address Dynamic IP address

Configured by the administrator Configured by automated processes eg DHCP

which is a service running on a server on your
network or on a wireless router or WAP

If you are using a static IP address, you must configure an IP address and subnet mask
manually (and a default gateway, if you are using a router to connect to a remote network or
the internet). If you are using a DHCP server, this can be configured to hand out an IP
address, subnet mask, default gateway address and other related information.
Public and private IP addresses

One more thing for us to look at: public and private IP addresses.

If you have a device that is a part of the internet, for example an internet router used by an
ISP to link to other ISPs on the internet backbone, then it will use a PUBLIC IP address.

If you have your own LAN, you should use a PRIVATE IP address configuration on it.

Why?

Private IP addresses are IP addresses that are reserved for use on LANs (your home
broadband, a small office LAN or a larger corporate business network). They are not
routable on the internet so it makes your LAN more secure when you use them.

192.168.1.0 is a private IP address (which is why you will see this configuration on your
home network, my home network and the College network in room 3-09at Milton Road
campus). FYI: this address can be used many times by just about everyone as you have a
router to connect you to the internet and so my home 192.168.1.0 network is not directly
connected to your home 192.168.1.0 network, so it’s okay and as a result we can both use
the same network address (the routers and ISPs work it out, don’t worry…!)

As you can see, there is a class A private IP address range, and also one for class B and
class C. Our ‘192.168.1.0’ IP address fits inside the class C private address block range.

One last thing: network address, first host, last host, broadcast

Network address first host last host broadcast

192.168.1.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.254 192.168.1.255

Every network needs a network address. Hosts can be configured in the first to last host IP
range… and then the broadcast address is used to send data to all compters on that
network.

FYI: the configuration above would use a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask.

Troubleshooting IP related issues

Problems connecting on your network? There are a couple of TCP/IP related troubleshooting
items that you will use many times in your IT life, they are:

Ipconfig and also Ipconfig /all: these two command line utilities both do the same thing,
which is display your IP address. Ipconfig /all displays the IP address and additional
settings…

Ipconfig

Ipconfig /all

Also:

Ping: use the command prompt to ‘Ping’ which allows you to test computer to computer
connectivity on a network. You would type ping followed by the IP address you want to test
connectivity to, for example “ping 192.168.1.17”.

Best practice for using Ping: Ping the loopback address first, “ping 127.0.0.1” This allows
you to test your TCP/IP and network card as pinging the loopback address means that you
ping your own NIC. The loopback address is used for testing your own computers NIC setup.

Then ping your own IP address, eg “ping 192.168.1.79”, then ping another computer on your
network – which might be the machine you want to connect to, eg “ping 192.168.1.112”

Here is a screenshot showing the pinging of the loopback address:

4 packets sent and 4 received means it’s working okay.

It is highly likely that you will look at troubleshooting later on in the course.
Describe network protocols - more on protocols

You will see, in time, that there are quite a few protocols that work together to move data
across a LAN or WAN.

Maybe this might be easier in English, rather than French… but I like that screenshot….!

Either way, have you heard of things like Telnet, or FTP, or SMTP before? They are
protocols that allow remote access, or file transfer or email to work properly.

FYI: we will look at the OSI model in the next class… but for now…

Application layer protocols

They work on the Application layer of the OSI model (more on that later, in the next class…)
and allow users to do things on networks. For example, HTTP and HTTPS are application
layer protocols that allow users to access web pages from web servers (using a browser
such as Chrome or Firefox).

Please note: the application layer of the OSI model is nothing to do with user applications
such as browsers, so do not get confused with that…!

A ‘network’ application would be web data transfer… and the HTTP / HTTPS protocols
would be used for that network application, so HTTP and HTTPS are OSI model Application
layer protocols… the fact that a browser is a user application is not a part of the network
application OSI model thing…!

Another example of application layer protocols would be SMTP and POP3 for email transfer.
Email is the OSI model Application layer event, SMTP and POP3 are the Application layer
protocols that allow email communications to happen).
Transport layer protocols

There are two transport layer protocols: TCP and UDP. Why are there two?

TCP – the transmission control protocol – delivers data to a destination computer, it makes
sure that all of the data gets there and that all of the data can be rebuilt properly to create
your email or web page (for example). It guarantees data delivery and uses
‘acknowledgements’ to make sure that all of the data is sent and received.

The use of acknowledgements means that the data delivery works but it is a little bit slower
as a result, because your computer has to wait for the acknowledgements.

TCP does not work in ‘real time’ applications as a result. Examples of ‘real time’ data
transfer are streaming from YouTube and using Teams or video conferencing. UDP does not
use acknowledgements, so it does not guarantee packet delivery… but it’s okay to use that
in You Tube streaming because if you lose one packet here and there you can still watch
your video…!

TCP is picked by your computer as your Transport layer protocol when you are doing things
like email, web and file transfer and UDP – the user datagram protocol – is used when you
are dealing with real-time data transfer or events such as DNS name resolution (FYI: you do
not select the Transport layer protocol, the Application layer event choses the protocol for
you).
Network layer protocols

In the Network layer of the OSI model (as you will soon see in next week’s class) we find IP
addressing and the router.

There are two Network layer protocols: IPv4 and IPv6 (IP version 4 and IP version 6).

IPv4 is the IP addressing that you know, for example 192.168.1.123, 255.255.255.0

It is a 32 bit (binary) address and can support 4.3 billion IP addresses. You might think that
is a lot, but as the internet grew so fast (too fast for IPv4!) they ran out of IP addresses. IPv6
was created to deal with that problem. As you can see here, because IPv6 is 128 bits, not
just 32 bits like IPv4, there are a lot of available IPv6 addresses… The addresses are
hexadecimal

The addresses are hexadecimal (which takes a bit of getting used to, so we will cover IPv6
in future classes in future years). FYI: if you are curious about IPv1, IPv2, IPv3 and IPv5,
look here: https://www.alertlogic.com/blog/where-is-ipv1-2-3-and-5/
Data link and physical layer

Ethernet works on these two layers. You might recognise Ethernet as the network cabling
that you use on your average everyday LAN (by the way, we will studying this in a few
weeks). That said, Ethernet is a communication standard that involves cabling, data frames,
MAC addressing and a bunch of other stuff.

Protocol Data Unit

A protocol data unit is a way of describing the different ways during the communication
process your data is formatted for transmission. At this time you only need to know the PDU
used by these network devices:

Routers use packets

Switches use frames
Network cards use bits.