Routing and Switching (BTEC-905A-18)

Chapter-2

Network Connections

Switching

Switching is process to forward packets coming in from one port to a port leading towards the destination.
When data comes on a port it is called ingress, and when data leaves a port or goes out it is called egress. A
communication system may include number of switches and nodes. At broad level, switching can be divided
into two major categories:
∙ Connectionless: The data is forwarded on behalf of forwarding tables. No previous handshaking is
required and acknowledgements are optional.
∙ Connection Oriented: Before switching data to be forwarded to destination, there is a need to pre
establish circuit along the path between both endpoints. Data is then forwarded on that circuit. After the
transfer is completed, circuits can be kept for future use or can be turned down immediately.

Circuit Switching

When two nodes communicate with each other over a dedicated communication path, it is called circuit
switching. There 'is a need of pre-specified route from which data will travels and no other data is permitted.In
circuit switching, to transfer the data, circuit must be established so that the data transfer can take place.
Circuits can be permanent or temporary. Applications which use circuit switching may have to go through three
phases:
∙ Establish a circuit
∙ Transfer the data
∙ Disconnect the circuit

Circuit switching was designed for voice applications. Telephone is the best suitable example of circuit
switching. Before a user can make a call, a virtual path between caller and callee is established over the
network.

Message Switching
0
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This technique was somewhere in middle of circuit switching and packet switching. In message switching, the
whole message is treated as a data unit and is switching / transferred in its entirety.
A switch working on message switching, first receives the whole message and buffers it until there are
resources available to transfer it to the next hop. If the next hop is not having enough resource to accommodate
large size message, the message is stored and switch waits.

This technique was considered substitute to circuit switching. As in circuit switching the whole path is blocked
for two entities only. Message switching is replaced by packet switching. Message switching has the following
drawbacks:
∙ Every switch in transit path needs enough storage to accommodate entire message.
∙ Becauseof store-and-forward technique and waits included until resources are available, message
switching is very slow.
∙ Message switching was not a solution for streaming media and real-time applications.

Packet Switching

Shortcomings of message switching gave birth to an idea of packet switching. The entire message is broken
down into smaller chunks called packets. The switching information is added in the header of each packet and
transmitted independently.
It is easier for intermediate networking devices to store small size packets and they do not take much resources
either on carrier path or in the internal memory of switches.

Packet
switching enhances line efficiency as packets from multiple applications can be multiplexed over the carrier.
The internet uses packet switching technique. Packet switching enables the user to differentiate data streams
based on priorities. Packets are stored and forwarded according to their priority to provide quality of service.
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Spanning Tree Protocol

Redundant links are used to provide a backup path when one link goes down but a Redundant link can
sometimes cause switching loops. The main purpose of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is to ensure that you do
not create loops when you have redundant paths in your network.
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) –
As IEEE STP is used to make a loop-free network by monitoring the network to track all the links and shut
down the redundant ones. These are some important terms related to Spanning Tree Protocol: ∙ Bridge Priority
Data Unit (BPDU) – It contains the Bridge I’d, Sender’s Bridge I’d, Cost to the Root
Bridge, Timer values on Root Bridge. All switches exchange BPDU in order to elect root bridge. The switch
with the lowest Bridge I’d become the root bridge.
∙ Bridge I’d – It is an 8-byte field that is a combination of bridge priority (2 bytes) and Base Mac address (6
bytes) of a device. If there is a tie on bridge priority then the Base Mac address is considered. ∙ Bridge Priority
– It is a priority, which is assigned to every switch, 32768 by default. ∙ Root Bridge – The root bridge is the
bridge with the lowest Bridge I’d. All the decisions like which ports are the root ports (the port with the best
path to the root bridge) are made from the perspective of the root bridge.
∙ Path cost – A switch may encounter one or more switches in the path to the root bridge. All the paths are
analyzed and the path with the lowest cost will be selected.

Designated port – The port which sends the best BPDU i.e ports on the root bridge will be in a forwarding
state.
Root port – The port which receives the best BPDU on a non-root bridge. Criteria for selecting root port:

1. Lowest path cost to reach the root bridge

2. Lowest sender bridge I’d
3. Lowest sender port I’d
(Port priority + Port number) – Port priority is by default 128 and port number is the switch interface number.
Election procedure –

All the switches in the network declare themselves root bridges and start exchanging their own BPDU. The
BPDU with the lowest bridge I’d be considered as superior. Now the switch receiving the superior BPDU
makes changes in its own BPDU and carries forward to its neighbours. It changes the value of root Bridge I’d
with its superior BPDU bridge I’d. This process goes on until all the switches are satisfied with which bridge
has the lowest bridge I’d and hence that switch will be declared as the root bridge.
Now according to the criteria, the root ports will be selected and then the port left will be in blocking mode.

Example –

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Here is a small topology with three switches switch A (mac address-0000.0ACA7.A603), switch
B(0030.F222.2794), and switch C(000A.41D5.7937) with all having default priority (32768).
Root Bridge election –

As all the switches have default priority therefore there is a tie on the basis of priority. Now, the switch with the
lowest Mac address will become a root bridge. Here, switch A will become the root bridge as it has the lowest
Mac address. Therefore, the ports of switch A will be in forwarding state i.e designated port.

Root Ports Election –

The root ports are selected on non-root bridges, i.e. switch B and switch C. Now, for instance, if switch C
choose the path through switch B then the cost will be (4+4=8) but if it chooses the directly connected path to
switch A then the cost will be 4, therefore, both switch B and switch C will choose the ports connected to switch
A as their root ports.
Now, the only thing left is to find which port will be in forwarding mode and blocking mode respectively. Now
as the link between switch B and switch C has the same cost as the root bridge, therefore, the switch with the
lowest bridge I’d be in forwarding mode therefore switch C port will be in forwarding mode and switch B port
will be in block mode
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Types of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is used to make a loop free network by monitoring the network to track all the
links and shut down the least redundant ones. Root bridge is a switch in a single VLAN or whole topology
(according to the type of STP standard used) which is responsible for distributing BPDUs and block the least
redundant port.
Types of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) –
1. 802.1D – This is also known as CST (Common Spanning Tree). It is a spanning tree standard developed by
IEEE which elects only one root bridge per whole topology. All the traffic flows over the same path (the
best path to the root bridge) but this doesn’t hold good always as there can be scenarios in which the
optimised path to reach a VLAN is different than the path obtained on electing the root bridge. It is very
slow as it takes 32 seconds to converge.
Advantages:
∙ Less CPU and memory required.
Disadvantage:
∙ Lesser optimisation as the path calculated as the best cost to root bridge might not be the best path to reach
a network.
∙ No load balancing.

2. Per VLAN Spanning Tree + (PVST+) – It is a spanning tree standard developed by Cisco for its devices
which finds the root bridge per VLAN. It is a Cisco default version of STP. It finds separate 802.1d spanning
tree instance for each VLAN. It also provides backward comparability with 802.1d or CST. This is more
optimized to the IEEE because it provides optimal path selection as separate instance of STP per VLAN is
find. This is as slow as CST.
Advantages:
∙ PVST+ provides more optimization on the performance of a network than CST as it selects root bridges
per VLAN.
∙ Bandwidth consumption is lesser than CST.
∙ Optimum load balancing is achieved.
Disadvantages:
∙ This is slow as CST i.e convergence time is slow. By default, Cisco switches take 50 seconds for
converging.
∙ More resources (CPU and memory) is required.
3. 802.1w – Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) – It is a spanning standard developed by IEEE which
provides faster convergence than CST but holds the same idea of finding a single root bridge in the topology.
The bridge resources needed in RSTP is higher than CST but less than PVST+ .

4. Rapid Per VLAN Spanning Tree + (RPVST+) –This Spanning Tree standard is developed by Cisco which
provides faster convergence than PVST+ and finds separate instance of 802.1w per VLAN. It requires much
more CPU and memory than other STP standards.

5. 802.1s (Multiple Spanning Tree) :-This standard is developed by IEEE in which grouping of VLANs is
done and for each single group, RSTP is run. This is basically a Spanning Tree Protocol running over
another Spanning Tree Protocol.
Advantages:
∙ High redundancy
∙ load balancing can be achieved.
∙ lower CPU and memory usage is required
Disadvantages:
∙ More configuration is required and not easy to implement.
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Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP)

Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) is a network protocol that ensures a loop-free topology for Ethernet
networks. Nowadays it is a popular solution to implement redundant networks in critical systems for Energy,
Aerospace or Factory Automation. This protocol is incorporated into IEEE 802.1Q-2014. RSTP provides faster
convergence than 802.1D STP when topology changes occur. RSTP defines three port states: discarding,
learning, and forwarding and five port roles: root, designated, alternate, backup, and disabled.

A RSTP capable switch determines what spanning tree will be computed by the algorithm, but the rules as
written require knowledge of the entire network. This information is provided bridges use special data frames
called Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) to exchange information about bridge IDs and root path costs. The
switch device needs to manage BPDU in the proper way to ensure that the algorithm running on the CPU it is
able to compute the algorithm.

The primary focus thus far has been on legacy STP as defined by IEEE 802.1D. As you have learned in the
previous sections, the immediate hindrance of STP is convergence. It takes anywhere from 30 to 50 seconds
depending on the type of failure to converge the network. RSTP helps with convergence issues that plague
legacy STP. RSTP has additional features similar to UplinkFast and BackboneFast that offer better recovery at
Layer 2 than STP.
RSTP is based on IEEE 802.1w standard. Numerous glaring differences exist between RSTP and STP. For
starters, RSTP requires full-duplex point-to-point connection between adjacent switches. Half duplex, generally
speaking, denotes a shared medium whereby multiple hosts share the same wire; a point-to-point connection
cannot reside in this environment. As a result, RSTP cannot work in a half-duplex mode. STP and RSTP also
have port designation differences. RSTP has Alternate and Backup port designation, which are absent from the
STP environment. Ports not participating in spanning tree are known as edge ports. Edge ports should be
configured using the set spantree portfast command. The edge port becomes a non-edge port immediately if a
BPDU is heard on the port. Non-edge ports participate in the spanning-tree algorithm; hence, only non-edge
ports generate Topology Changes (TCs) on the network when transitioning to forwarding state only. TCs are not
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generated for any other RSTP states. In legacy STP, TCNs were generated for any active port that was not
configured for portfast.
RSTP port designations include the following:
∙ Root Port (RP)? Defined as port closest metrically to the Root. This designation is also seen in legacy STP.
 ∙ Alternate
Port? Alternate path to get to the Root. Alternate ports do not forward traffic. An alternate port is
equivalent to a backup of the RP.
∙ Designated Port (DP)? Port used to forward the best BPDU on each segment.
∙ Backup Port? This port is a backup to the DP on the segment. It does not forward traffic.
These port designations are illustrated in Figure 10-8.
Figure 10-8. RSTP Port Designations

All ports on the Root that are participating in spanning tree will be forwarding on each of the segments. Hence,
Root will forward its BPDUs to both Switch2 and Switch3. Switch2 and Switch3 RPs are directly connected to
the Root. The RPs will be receiving configuration BPDUs from the Root and will be in forwarding state.
Switch2 and Switch3 will be competing as to which switch will forward BPDUs on Segment C. The decision
process is the same for both RSTP and STP. As noted in Chapter 1, the decision process involves the following:
∙ Lowest path cost to the Root
∙ Lowest Sender Bridge ID (BID)
∙ Lowest Port ID
In Figure 10-8, the lowest BID will determine which switch will be the DP for Segment C because the cost to the
Root is the same for both Switch2 and Switch3. The BID is composed of bridge priority and MAC address. The
default priority value is the same for both Switch2 and Switch3; therefore, the decision is going to be based on
the lowest MAC address. Switch2 has a lower MAC address than Switch3, and, as a result, will be forwarding
on Segment C. As noted in Figure 10-8, the DP is associated with Switch2. The Backup Port on Switch2 will be
discarding. It will be backing up DP should it go down. The Alternate Port is in discarding state and will be
backing up the RP on Switch3. The only forwarding port on Segment C will be the DP on Switch2.
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RSTP States
Table 10-1 shows the different port states between RSTP and legacy STP. The three port states in RSTP are the
following:
∙ Discarding

∙ Learning

∙ Forwarding

Table 10-1. Port States

 Operational Port St
StateRST

Enabled Blocking Discarding

Enabled Listening Discarding

Enabled Learning Learning

Enabled Forwarding Forwarding

Disabled Discarding Discarding

In Cisco implementation, discarding is replaced with blocking.

RSTP BPDU
The BPDU packet has also changed with RSTP. (See Figure 10-9.) The version field in legacy STP was set at 1,
but in RSTP, the version is set at 2. The motivation here is for RSTP to be able to communicate with legacy STP.
The Flag field in the STP BPDU packet contained TCN and TCA. In RSTP, the Flag field, 1 byte long, has been
modified to accommodate port designations and proposal/agreement between adjacent switches. BPDUs are sent
every 2 seconds. Unlike in legacy STP, in RSTP, each switch generates its own BPDUs regardless if it hears
BPDUs from the Root. In legacy STP, BPDUs were only generated by the Root and propagated throughout the
spanning-tree domain. As a result, when a switch did not receive a configuration BPDU, it did not know where
the failure occurred. In RSTP mode, the switch needs only to worry about its immediate neighbors. Hence,
BPDUs also serve as keepalive mechanisms between adjacent switches. If the switch does not hear three
consecutive BPDUs from its downstream neighbor, it will transition appropriate ports to converge the network.
Figure 10-9. RSTP BPDU Flag Field

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RSTP Proposal/Agreement
Figure 10-10 depicts adjacent switches participating in RSTP implementation. RSTP switches require BPDUs
from their connected neighbors to keep the link up. This mechanism is outlined in the RSTP proposal/agreement
process.
Figure 10-10. RSTP Proposal/Agreement
The mechanism involved in proposal/agreement between adjacent switches is very fast. It takes less than few
seconds to transition a port to the appropriate state, whereas in STP, it took a minimum of 30 seconds. In Figure
10-10, BPDU exchange between Switch1 and Switch2 has not yet taken place. Only in discarding and learning
states will proposal BPDUs be sent. Assume that the ports connecting the two switches are in learning state:
Switch1, with lower BID, sends a proposal BPDU to Switch2. Switch2 having received the proposal sees that
Switch1 has better BPDU; it will accept Switch1 as the Root for the VLAN. Switch2 will send an agreement
BPDU back to Switch1. In a situation where Switch1 does not receive an agreement BPDU, it will fall back to
legacy STP mode.
A new connection has been set up between Switch1 and Switch3. (See Figure 10-11.) When this connection
comes up, Switch3 will receive a better BPDU from Switch1. It must, therefore, transition its current RP and
designate a new RP.
Figure 10-11. A New Connection Between Switches

The following steps outline how Switch3 chooses a new RP:

Step 1. A new connection between Switch1 and Switch3 has been set up.

Step 2. Switch3 receives a better BPDU from Switch1. It keeps the new port in blocking state.

Step3. Switch3 transitions the current RP to Alternate port (discarding state). Step4. Switch3 sends an
agreement BPDU to Switch1.

Step 5. Switch3 transitions the new RP to forwarding state.

Step 6. Switch1 receives the agreement BPDU and transitions its port to forwarding state as well.
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RSTP Legacy Support

RSTP is backward compatible with legacy STP. Typically, RSTP generates BPDUs every 2 seconds on the wire
informing the segment of which bridge is the Root. Based on this information, the downstream bridges will
appropriately designate their spanning-tree ports. The problem is that legacy STP devices do not understand
these BPDU messages that they are receiving from RSTP-enabled devices. As a result, legacy STP devices will
continue to generate their own BPDUs and ignore the RSTP BPDUs. Legacy STP BPDUs may have wrong
information as to which bridge is the Root in the network. It becomes crucial for RSTP implementation to be
backward compatible to prevent such a scenario.
The RSTP device is engineered so that it can deal with legacy STP devices on the same Layer 2 network. RSTP
handles the legacy STP device problem through a timer. The RSTP device will wait 4 seconds (2 * hello
interval) to see if legacy STP BPDUs will cease. If they do not, RSTP will fall back to legacy STP mode. Now,
all the bridges will communicate via legacy STP specifications. Hence, the fast convergence and relative
stability gained through RSTP is lost. Manual intervention is required to revert back to RSTP mode.
Unfortunately, no mechanism is in place today to allow an RSTP device to revert back to RSTP mode if the
legacy STP device disappears.
RSTP Direct Failure
RSTP has natively implemented the same type of mechanisms involved in UplinkFast and BackboneFast. In
Figure 10-12, when Switch3 loses its RP, it immediately transitions the Alternate port into forwarding mode. In
legacy STP mode, a direct failure of this type would have taken 30 seconds. Unlike the UplinkFast mechanism,
the RSTP mechanism does not use dummy multicast generation to flush the CAM entries. TCs generated by
RSTP to the upstream switch clear the appropriate CAM entries associated with the broken link.
Figure 10-12. RSTP Convergence Due to Link Failure

When a TC bit is set, the switch starts a TC While timer equal to 4 seconds (2 * hello interval) for all its
non-edge ports. It flushes the MAC addresses that were associated with that port. The upstream switch that
received the TC BPDU will flush its MAC addresses from all ports except the port that received the BPDU.
This process streamlines the convergence process. In legacy STP, the TCNs first needed to be propagated to the
Root, which afterward generated configuration BPDUs that were propagated back to the spanning-tree domain.
The amount of time it took to converge the network was contingent upon how big the spanning-tree domain
was. In RSTP, the TCs are flooded quickly to non-edge ports and RPs, and the upstream switches flush their
CAM entries, resulting in faster convergence time. The downside to this process is some flooding does take
place in the network.
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RSTP Indirect Failure

Referencing back, Figure 10-6 shows an indirect type of failure that would take 50 seconds for spanning tree to
converge. Using BackboneFast, the convergence time is reduced to 30 seconds. Maxage timer does not exist in
RSTP. RSTP takes an active role in bringing the network into convergence rather than passively waiting for
timers to expire before transitioning a non-edge port.
The following steps outline how RSTP handles indirect link failures:
Step 1. Switch3 loses its RP connection to the Root. As a result, Switch3 starts to generate BPDUs,
informing other switches that it is the Root.

Step 2. Switch2 receives the inferior BPDUs from Switch3. Switch2 knows through periodic BPDUs
that it still has a connection to the Root.

Step 3. Switch2 sends BPDUs informing Switch3 that Switch1 is still the Root. Step 4. Upon receiving
 the superior BPDUs, Switch3 stops sending BPDUs. It transitions its DP to RP.

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Segmenting the IP Network:

Segmenting your IP addresses is the process of separating and sending email traffic from different IP
addresses based on different factors related to your email program. The objective of IP segmentation is to
organize your email in such a way as to maximize performance to help ensure your email reaches the inbox

Network segmentation is an architectural approach that divides a network into multiple segments or
subnets, each acting as its own small network. This allows network administrators to control the flow of traffic
between subnets based on granular policies.

What Is Network Segmentation?

Segmentation divides a computer network into smaller parts. The purpose is to improve network performance
and security. Other terms that often mean the same thing are network segregation, network partitioning, and
network isolation.

How does segmentation work?

Segmentation works by controlling how traffic flows among the parts. You could choose to stop all traffic in one
part from reaching another, or you can limit the flow by traffic type, source, destination, and many other options.
How you decide to segment your network is called a segmentation policy.

What is an example of segmentation?

Imagine a large bank with several branch offices. The bank's security policy restricts branch employees from
accessing its financial reporting system. Network segmentation can enforce the security policy by preventing all
branch traffic from reaching the financial system. And by reducing overall network traffic, the financial system
will work better for the financial analysts who use it.

What enforces segmentation policy?

Some traditional technologies for segmentation included internal firewalls, and Access Control List (ACL) and
Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) configurations on networking equipment. However, these approaches are
costly and difficult.

Today, software-defined access technology simplifies segmentation by grouping and tagging network traffic. It
then uses traffic tags to enforce segmentation policy directly on the network equipment, yet without the
complexity of traditional approaches.

What is microsegmentation?
Microsegmentation uses much more information in segmentation policies like application-layer information. It
enables policies that are more granular and flexible to meet the highly-specific needs of an organization or
business application.
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Benefits of network segmentation

Improve operational performance

Segmentation reduces network congestion. For example, a hospital's medical devices can be segmented from its
visitor network so that medical devices are unaffected by web browsing.

Limit cyberattack damage

Segmentation improves cybersecurity by limiting how far an attack can spread. For example, segmentation
keeps a malware outbreak in one section from affecting systems in another.

Protect vulnerable devices

Segmentation can stop harmful traffic from reaching devices that are unable to protect themselves from attack.
For example, a hospital's connected infusion pumps may not be designed with advanced security defenses.
Network segmentation can stop harmful Internet traffic from ever reaching them.

Reduce the scope of compliance

Segmentation reduces the costs associated with regulatory compliance by limiting the number of in-scope
systems. For example, segmentation separates the systems that process payments from those that don't. That
way, the expensive compliance requirements and audit processes apply only to the in-scope systems, not the
entire network.

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Types of network segmentation

NETWORK SEGMENTATION:
Segmentation has long been carried out by creating segments in networks with VLANs or subnets. Virtual local
area networks (VLANs) create smaller network segments with all hosts connected virtually to each other as if
they were in the same LAN. Subnets use IP addresses to partition a network into smaller subnets, connected by
networking devices. These approaches not only allow for more efficient network performance, but also serve to
contain threats from spreading beyond a particular VLAN or subnet.

There are two key challenges to these approaches. The first is the fact that networks must often be re-architected
to accommodate segmentation needs. The second is the complexity of programming and managing the
thousands of access control list (ACL) rules that live on network devices needed to create subnets.

FIREWALL SEGMENTATION:

Instead of using the network to enforce segmentation, firewalls are another option. Firewalls are deployed inside
a network or data center to create internal zones to segment functional areas from each other in order to limit
attack surfaces, thereby preventing threats from spreading beyond a zone. An example could be separating
engineering applications from finance. Another common example is protecting sensitive areas where PCI data
resides for example.

Network and security administrators are familiar with firewalls deployed at the perimeter. However, they tend to
introduce considerable complexity when the same firewalls are used for internal segmentation.

This is due to the thousands of firewall rules that are needed to segment internal networks. Another
consideration is the risk of firewall misconfiguration that can break an application and harm the business.
Another drawback of using firewalls for segmentation is the considerable cost they impose since they are
bought in pairs for multiple sites, often costing millions of dollars.
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SEGMENTATION WITH SDN:

Software-defined networking (SDN) is relied on for greater network automation and programmability through
centralized controllers that are abstracted from the physical hardware of the network. Some network operators
seek to coax segmentation from their SDN network overlay implementation by using it to create policies to
funnel packets through a distributed set of firewalls.

A drawback here is the vast level of complexity that it requires for successful micro-segmentation, particularly
when applications do not fit into network boundaries. SDN is focused on network policy rather than security
visibility into workloads and application flows that other approaches address.

MICRO-SEGMENTATION:

An alternative way to get to a segmented network is enforcement using the host workload, instead of subnets or
firewalls. Each workload operating system in the data center or cloud contains a native stateful firewall, such as
iptables in Linux or Windows Filtering Platform in Windows. This approach tends to use whitelist models that
block all traffic except for what is permitted. Micro-segmentation is also sometimes referred to as host-based
segmentation or security segmentation.
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Host-based segmentation uses workload telemetry to create a map of cloud and on-premise compute
environments and applications. This map is used to visualize what must be protected and to put automated
segmentation policy in place. This approach uses human-readable labels versus IP addresses or firewall rules to
create policy. An advantage is the ability to enforce segmentation down to the process level, more granular than
just specific ports.
 Those introduced to host-based segmentation require a period of adaptation. Most new users are familiar with
firewalls and networking concepts, but find it necessary to get trained on a new way to create policy and
enforce segmentation at the host.

Who needs to segment networks or environments?

Organizations that are security- and compliance-minded need to put segmentation in place to protect their
environments from breaches by restricting attacker lateral movement.

Two prime examples of the need for segmented networks are organizations that must comply with healthcare
cybersecurity compliance or PCI mandates:

∙ Healthcare organizations must protect PHI data, complying with healthcare cybersecurity compliance
frameworks. Common security frameworks exist to help healthcare organizations and their providers
demonstrate their security and compliance in a consistent and streamlined manner. Key security controls that
must be implemented include segmentation or segregation in networks, isolation of sensitive systems, accurate
mapping, and network connection control.

∙ PCI compliance standards require merchants and other businesses to handle credit card information in a secure
manner that helps reduce the likelihood of data breaches of sensitive cardholder financial account information.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance efforts include network segmentation to
isolate the system components within a Cardholder Data Environment (CDE).

For example, this might mean keeping in-scope systems separated from out-of-scope systems or managing
access between in-scope systems or networks. The right network segmentation can also reduce the number of
systems in scope for PCI DSS to begin with.
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IP Static Routes:
A static IP route specifies the route's destination address and the next-hop router's IP address or routing
switch interface through which the routing switch can reach the destination. (The route is added to the
routing switch's IP route table.)

Static route types

You can configure the following types of static IP routes:

∙ Standard - The static route consists of the destination network address and network mask, and the IP
address of the next-hop gateway. You can configure multiple standard static routes with the same metric
for load sharing or with different metrics to provide a primary route and backup routes.

∙ Interface-based - The static route consists of the destination network address and network mask, and the
Layer 3 switch interface through which you want the Layer 3 switch to send traffic for the route.
Typically, this type of static route is for directly attached destination networks.

∙ Null - The static route consists of the destination network address and network mask, and the "null0"
parameter. Typically, the null route is configured as a backup route for discarding traffic if the primary
route is unavailable.
Routing
o A Router is a process of selecting path along which the data can be transferred from source to the
destination. Routing is performed by a special device known as a router.
o A Router works at the network layer in the OSI model and internet layer in TCP/IP model o A router is a
networking device that forwards the packet based on the information available in the packet header and
forwarding table.
o The routing algorithms are used for routing the packets. The routing algorithm is nothing but a software
responsible for deciding the optimal path through which packet can be transmitted.
o The routing protocols use the metric to determine the best path for the packet delivery. The metric is the
standard of measurement such as hop count, bandwidth, delay, current load on the path, etc. used by the
routing algorithm to determine the optimal path to the destination.
o The routing algorithm initializes and maintains the routing table for the process of path determination.

Routing Metrics and Costs

Routing metrics and costs are used for determining the best route to the destination. The factors used by the
protocols to determine the shortest path, these factors are known as a metric.

Metrics are the network variables used to determine the best route to the destination. For some protocols use the
static metrics means that their value cannot be changed and for some other routing protocols use the dynamic
metrics means that their value can be assigned by the system administrator.
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The most common metric values are given below:

o Hop count: Hop count is defined as a metric that specifies the number of passes through internetworking
devices such as a router, a packet must travel in a route to move from source to the destination. If the
routing protocol considers the hop as a primary metric value, then the path with the least hop count will
be considered as the best path to move from source to the destination.
o Delay: It is a time taken by the router to process, queue and transmit a datagram to an interface. The
protocols use this metric to determine the delay values for all the links along the path end-to-end. The
path having the lowest delay value will be considered as the best path.
o Bandwidth: The capacity of the link is known as a bandwidth of the link. The bandwidth is measured in
terms of bits per second. The link that has a higher transfer rate like gigabit is preferred over the link that
has the lower capacity like 56 kb. The protocol will determine the bandwidth capacity for all the links
along the path, and the overall higher bandwidth will be considered as the best route.
o Load: Load refers to the degree to which the network resource such as a router or network link is busy. A
Load can be calculated in a variety of ways such as CPU utilization, packets processed per second. If the
traffic increases, then the load value will also be increased. The load value changes with respect to the
 change in the traffic.
o Reliability: Reliability is a metric factor may be composed of a fixed value. It depends on the network
links, and its value is measured dynamically. Some networks go down more often than others. After
network failure, some network links repaired more easily than other network links. Any reliability factor
can be considered for the assignment of reliability ratings, which are generally numeric values assigned
by the system administrator.

Types of Routing

Routing can be classified into three categories:

o Static Routing
o Default Routing
o Dynamic Routing
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Static Routing

o Static Routing is also known as Nonadaptive Routing.

o It is a technique in which the administrator manually adds the routes in a routing table. o A Router
can send the packets for the destination along the route defined by the administrator. o In this
technique, routing decisions are not made based on the condition or topology of the networks

Advantages Of Static Routing

Following are the advantages of Static Routing:

o No Overhead: It has ho overhead on the CPU usage of the router. Therefore, the cheaper router can be
used to obtain static routing.
o Bandwidth: It has not bandwidth usage between the routers.
o Security: It provides security as the system administrator is allowed only to have control over the routing
to a particular network.
Disadvantages of Static Routing:

Following are the disadvantages of Static Routing:

o For a large network, it becomes a very difficult task to add each route manually to the routing table. o The
system administrator should have a good knowledge of a topology as he has to add each route manually.

Default Routing

o Default Routing is a technique in which a router is configured to send all the packets to the same hop
device, and it doesn't matter whether it belongs to a particular network or not. A Packet is transmitted to
the device for which it is configured in default routing.
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o Default Routing is used when networks deal with the single exit point.
o It is also useful when the bulk of transmission networks have to transmit the data to the same hp device. o
When a specific route is mentioned in the routing table, the router will choose the specific route rather than
the default route. The default route is chosen only when a specific route is not mentioned in the routing
table.

Dynamic Routing

o It is also known as Adaptive Routing.

o It is a technique in which a router adds a new route in the routing table for each packet in response to the
changes in the condition or topology of the network.
o Dynamic protocols are used to discover the new routes to reach the destination.
o In Dynamic Routing, RIP and OSPF are the protocols used to discover the new routes. o If
any route goes down, then the automatic adjustment will be made to reach the destination.

The Dynamic protocol should have the following features:

o All the routers must have the same dynamic routing protocol in order to exchange the routes. o If the
router discovers any change in the condition or topology, then router broadcast this information to all other
routers.

Advantages of Dynamic Routing:

o It is easier to configure.
o It is more effective in selecting the best route in response to the changes in the condition or topology.

Disadvantages of Dynamic Routing:

o It is more expensive in terms of CPU and bandwidth usage.
 o It is less secure as compared to default and static routing.
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Routing Protocol

All routing protocols can be classified into the following:

∙ Distance Vector or Link State Protocols

∙ Interior Gateway Protocols (IGP) or Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGP)
∙ Classful or Classless Protocols

Distance vector routing protocols

Distance vector routing protocols are protocols that use distance to work out the best routing path for
packets within a network.

These protocols measure the distance based on how many hops data has to pass to get to its destination. The
number of hops is essentially the number of routers it takes to reach the destination.

Generally, distance vector protocols send a routing table full of information to neighboring devices. This
approach makes them low investment for administrators as they can be deployed without much need to be
managed. The only issue is that they require more bandwidth to send on the routing tables and can run into
routing loops as well.
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Link State Routing Protocols

Link state protocols take a different approach to finding the best routing path in that they share information with
other routers in proximity. The route is calculated based on the speed of the path to the destination and the cost
of resources.

Link state routing protocols use an algorithm to work this out. One of the key differences to a distance vector
protocol is that link state protocols don’t send out routing tables; instead, routers notify each other when route
changes are detected.

Routers using the link state protocol creates three types of tables; neighbor table, topology table, and routing
table. The neighbor table stores details of neighboring routers using the link state routing protocol, the topology
table stores the whole network topology, and the routing table stores the most efficient routes.

IGP and EGPs

Routing protocols can also be categorized as Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs) or Exterior Gateway
Protocols (EGPs).
IPGs

IGPs are routing protocols that exchange routing information with other routers within a single autonomous
system (AS). An AS is defined as one network or a collection of networks under the control of one enterprise.
The company AS is thus separate from the ISP AS.

Each of the following is classified as an IGP:

∙ Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

∙ Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
∙ Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS)
∙ Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

EGPs

On the other hand, EGPs are routing protocols that are used to transfer routing information between routers in
different autonomous systems. These protocols are more complex and BGP is the only EGP protocol that you’re
likely to encounter. However, it is important to note that there is an EGP protocol named EGP.

Examples of EGPs include:

∙ Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

∙ Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP)
∙ The ISO’s InterDomain Routing Protocol (IDRP)

Types of Routing Protocol

Routing Protocols Timeline

∙ 1982 – EGP
∙ 1985 – IGRP
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∙ 1988 – RIPv1
∙ 1990 – IS-IS
∙ 1991 – OSPFv2
∙ 1992 – EIGRP
∙ 1994 – RIPv2
 ∙ 1995 – BGP
∙ 1997 – RIPng
∙ 1999 – BGPv6 and OSPFv3
∙ 2000 – IS-ISv6

Routing Information Protocol (RIP)

Routing Information Protocol or RIP is one of the first routing protocols to be created. RIP is used in both Local
Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs), and also runs on the Application layer of the OSI
model. There are multiple versions of RIP including RIPv1 and RIPv2. The original version or RIPv1
determines network paths based on the IP destination and the hop count of the journey.

RIPv1 interacts with the network by broadcasting its IP table to all routers connected to the network. RIPv2 is a
little more sophisticated than this and sends its routing table on to a multicast address. RIPv2 also uses
authentication to keep data more secure and chooses a subnet mask and gateway for future traffic. The main
limitation of RIP is that it has a maximum hop count of 15 which makes it unsuitable for larger networks.

Interior Gateway Protocol (IGRP)

Interior Gateway Protocol or IGRP is a distance vector routing protocol produced by Cisco. IGRP was designed
to build on the foundations laid down on RIP to function more effectively within larger connected networks and
removed the 15 hop cap that was placed on RIP. IGRP uses metrics such as bandwidth, delay, reliability, and
load to compare the viability of routes within the network. However, only bandwidth and delay are used under
IGRP’s default settings.

IGRP is ideal for larger networks because it broadcasts updates every 90 seconds and has a maximum hop
count of 255. This allows it to sustain larger networks than a protocol like RIP. IGRP is also widely used
because it is resistant to routing loops because it updates itself automatically when route changes occur within
the network.

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Open Shortest Path First or OSPF protocol is a link-state IGP that was tailor-made for IP networks using the
Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm. The SPF routing algorithm is used to calculate the shortest path
spanning-tree to ensure efficient data transmission of packets. OSPF routers maintain databases detailing
information about the surrounding topology of the network. This database is filled with data taken from Link
State Advertisements (LSAs) sent by other routers. LSAs are packets that detail information about how many
resources a given path would take.

OSPF also uses the Dijkstra algorithm to recalculate network paths when the topology changes. This protocol
is also relatively secure as it can authenticate protocol changes to keep data secure. It is used by many
organizations because it’s scalable to large environments. Topology changes are tracked and OSPF can
recalculate compromised packet routes if a previously-used route has been blocked.
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Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP)

Exterior Gateway Protocol or EGP is a protocol that is used to exchange data between gateway hosts that
neighbor each other within autonomous systems. In other words, EGP provides a forum for routers to share
information across different domains. The most high profile example of an EGP is the internet itself. The
routing table of the EGP protocol includes known routers, route costs, and network addresses of neighboring
devices. EGP was widely-used by larger organizations but has since been replaced by BGP.
The reason why this protocol has fallen out of favor is that it doesn’t support multipath networking
environments. The EGP protocol works by keeping a database of nearby networks and the routing paths it could
take to reach them. This route information is sent on to connected routers. Once it arrives, the devices can
update their routing tables and undertake more informed path selection throughout the network.

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol or EIGRP is a distance vector routing protocol that is used for IP,
AppleTalk, and NetWare networks. EIGRP is a Cisco proprietary protocol that was designed to follow on from
the original IGRP protocol. When using EIGRP, a router takes information from its neighbors’ routing tables
and records them. Neighbors are queried for a route and when a change occurs the router notifies its neighbors
about the change. This has the end result of making neighboring routers aware of what is going on in nearby
devices.

EIGRP is equipped with a number of features to maximize efficiency, including Reliable Transport Protocol
(RTP) and a Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL). Packet transmissions are made more effective because
routes are recalculated to speed up the convergence process.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

Border Gateway Protocol or BGP is the routing protocol of the internet that is classified as a distance path
vector protocol. BGP was designed to replace EGP with a decentralized approach to routing. The BGP Best
Path Selection Algorithm is used to select the best routes for data packet transfers. If you don’t have any custom
settings then BGP will select routes with the shortest path to the destination.

However many administrators choose to change routing decisions to criteria in line with their needs. The best
routing path selection algorithm can be customized by changing the BGP cost community attribute. BGP
can make routing decisions based Factors such as weight, local preference, locally generated, AS_Path length,
origin type, multi-exit discriminator, eBGP over iBGP, IGP metric, router ID, cluster list and neighbor IP
address.

BGP only sends updated router table data when something changes. As a result, there is no auto-discovery of
topology changes which means that the user has to configure BGP manually. In terms of security, BGP protocol
can be authenticated so that only approved routers can exchange data with each other.

Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS)

Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) is a link-state, IP routing protocol and IGPP protocol used
on the internet to send IP routing information. IS-IS uses a modified version of the Dijkstra algorithm. An IS
IS network consists of a range of components including end systems, (user devices), intermediate systems
(routers), areas, and domains.
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Under IS-IS routers are organized into groups called areas and multiple areas are grouped together to make up a
domain. Routers within the area are placed with Layer 1 and routers that connect segments together are
classified as Layer 2. There are two types of network addresses used by IS-IS; Network Service Access Point
(NSAP) and Network Entity Title (NET).

Classful and Classless Routing Protocols

Routing protocols can also be categorized as classful and classless routing protocols. The distinction between
these two comes down to how they go about executing routing updates. The debate between these two forms of
routing is often referred to as classful vs classless routing.

Classful Routing Protocols

Classful routing protocols don’t send subnet mask information during routing updates but classless routing
protocols do. RIPv1 and IGRP are considered to be classful protocols. These two are classful protocols because
they don’t include subnet mask information in their routing updates. Classful routing protocols have since
become outdated by classless routing protocols.

Classless Routing Protocols

As mentioned above, classful routing protocols have been replaced by classless routing protocols. Classless
routing protocols send IP subnet mask information during routing updates. RIPv2, EIGRP, OSPF, and IS-IS
are all types of class routing protocols that include subnet mask information within updates.

Dynamic Routing Protocols

Dynamic routing protocols are another type of routing protocols that are critical to modern enterprise-grade
networks. Dynamic routing protocols allow routers to automatically add information to their routing tables
from connected routers. With these protocols, routers send out topology updates whenever the topological
structure of the network changes. This means that the user doesn’t have to worry about keeping network paths
up-to-date.

One of the main advantages of dynamic routing protocols is that they reduce the need to manage configurations.
The downside is that this comes at the cost of allocating resources like CPU and bandwidth to keep them
running on an ongoing basis. OSPF, EIGRP, and RIP are considered to be dynamic routing protocols.

Routing Protocols and Metrics

No matter what type of routing protocol is being used, there will be clear metrics that are used to measure which
route is the best to take. A routing protocol can identify multiple paths to a destination network but needs to have
the ability to work out which is the most efficient. Metrics allow the protocol to determine which routing path
should be chosen to provide the network with the best service.

The simplest metric to consider is hop count. The RIP protocol uses hop count to measure the distance it takes
for a data packet to reach its destination. The more hops that a packet has to travel through, the farther the packet
has to travel. Thus the RIP protocol aims to choose routes while minimizing hops where possible. There are
many metrics besides hop count that are used by IP routing protocols. Metrics used include:

∙ Hop count – Measures the number of routers that a packet must travel through
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∙ Bandwidth – Chooses the routing path based on which has the highest bandwidth ∙
Delay – Chooses the routing path based on which takes the least time
∙ Reliability – Assesses the likelihood that a network link will fail based on error counts and previous
failures
∙ Cost – A value configured by the administrator or the IOS which is used to measure the cost of a route
based on one metric or a range of metrics
∙ Load – Chooses the routing path based on the traffic utilization of connected links
Distance Vector Routing with RIP
The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the oldest distance-vector routing protocols which employs
the hop count as a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing a limit on the number of hops
allowed in a path from source to destination. The largest number of hops allowed for RIP is 15, which limits the
size of networks that RIP can support.
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RIP implements the split horizon, route poisoning, and holddown mechanisms to prevent incorrect routing
information from being propagated.
In RIPv1 routers broadcast updates with their routing table every 30 seconds. In the early deployments, routing
tables were small enough that the traffic was not significant. As networks grew in size, however, it became
evident there could be a massive traffic burst every 30 seconds, even if the routers had been initialized at
random times.
In most networking environments, RIP is not the preferred choice of routing protocol, as its time to converge
and scalability are poor compared to EIGRP, OSPF, or IS-IS. However, it is easy to configure, because RIP does
not require any parameters, unlike other protocols.
RIP uses the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as its transport protocol, and is assigned the reserved port number
520

RIP stands for Routing Information Protocol. RIP is an intra-domain routing protocol used within an
autonomous system. Here, intra-domain means routing the packets in a defined domain, for example, web
browsing within an institutional area. To understand the RIP protocol, our main focus is to know the structure of
the packet, how many fields it contains, and how these fields determine the routing table.

Before understanding the structure of the packet, we first look at the following points:

o RIP is based on the distance vector-based strategy, so we consider the entire structure as a graph where
nodes are the routers, and the links are the networks.
o In a routing table, the first column is the destination, or we can say that it is a network address. o The cost
metric is the number of hops to reach the destination. The number of hops available in a network would be
the cost. The hop count is the number of networks required to reach the destination. o In RIP, infinity is
defined as 16, which means that the RIP is useful for smaller networks or small autonomous systems. The
maximum number of hops that RIP can contain is 15 hops, i.e., it should not have more than 15 hops as 16
is infinity.
o The next column contains the address of the router to which the packet is to be sent to reach the

destination. How is hop count determined?

When the router sends the packet to the network segment, then it is counted as a single hop.
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In the above figure, when the router 1 forwards the packet to the router 2 then it will count as 1 hop count.
Similarly, when the router 2 forwards the packet to the router 3 then it will count as 2 hop count, and when the
router 3 forwards the packet to router 4, it will count as 3 hop count. In the same way, RIP can support
maximum upto 15 hops, which means that the 16 routers can be configured in a RIP.

RIP Message Format

Now, we look at the structure of the RIP message format. The message format is used to share information
among different routers. The RIP contains the following fields in a message:

o Command: It is an 8-bit field that is used for request or reply. The value of the request is 1, and the value
of the reply is 2.
o Version: Here, version means that which version of the protocol we are using. Suppose we are using the
protocol of version1, then we put the 1 in this field.
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o Reserved: This is a reserved field, so it is filled with zeroes.

o Family: It is a 16-bit field. As we are using the TCP/IP family, so we put 2 value in this field. o Network
Address: It is defined as 14 bytes field. If we use the IPv4 version, then we use 4 bytes, and the other 10
bytes are all zeroes.
o Distance: The distance field specifies the hop count, i.e., the number of hops used to reach the destination.

How does the RIP work?

If there are 8 routers in a network where Router 1 wants to send the data to Router 3. If the network is
configured with RIP, it will choose the route which has the least number of hops. There are three routes in the
above network, i.e., Route 1, Route 2, and Route 3. The Route 2 contains the least number of hops, i.e., 2 where
Route 1 contains 3 hops, and Route 3 contains 4 hops, so RIP will choose Route 2.

Let's look at another example.

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Suppose R1 wants to send the data to R4. There are two possible routes to send data from r1 to r2. As both the
routes contain the same number of hops, i.e., 3, so RIP will send the data to both the routes simultaneously. This
way, it manages the load balancing, and data reach the destination a bit faster.

Disadvantages of RIP

The following are the disadvantages of RIP:

o In RIP, the route is chosen based on the hop count metric. If another route of better bandwidth is available,
then that route would not be chosen. Let's understand this scenario through an example.

We can observe that Route 2 is chosen in the above figure as it has the least hop count. The Route 1 is free and
data can be reached more faster; instead of this, data is sent to the Route 2 that makes the Route 2 slower due to
the heavy traffic. This is one of the biggest disadvantages of RIP.

o The RIP is a classful routing protocol, so it does not support the VLSM (Variable Length Subnet Mask).
The classful routing protocol is a protocol that does not include the subnet mask information in the
 routing updates.
o It broadcasts the routing updates to the entire network that creates a lot of traffic. In RIP, the routing table
updates every 30 seconds. Whenever the updates occur, it sends the copy of the update to all the
neighbors except the one that has caused the update. The sending of updates to all the neighbors creates
a lot of traffic. This rule is known as a split-horizon rule.
o It faces a problem of Slow convergence. Whenever the router or link fails, then it often takes minutes to
stabilize or take an alternative route; This problem is known as Slow convergence.
o RIP supports maximum 15 hops which means that the maximum 16 hops can be configured in a RIP o
The Administrative distance value is 120 (Ad value). If the Ad value is less, then the protocol is more
reliable than the protocol with more Ad value.
o The RIP protocol has the highest Ad value, so it is not as reliable as the other routing protocols.
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How RIP updates its Routing table

The following timers are used to update the routing table:

o RIP update timer : 30 sec

The routers configured with RIP send their updates to all the neighboring routers every 30 seconds.

o RIP Invalid timer : 180 sec

The RIP invalid timer is 180 seconds, which means that if the router is disconnected from the network or some
link goes down, then the neighbor router will wait for 180 seconds to take the update. If it does not receive the
update within 180 seconds, then it will mark the particular route as not reachable.

o RIP Flush timer : 240 sec

The RIP flush timer is 240 second which is almost equal to 4 min means that if the router does not receive the
update within 240 seconds then the neighbor route will remove that particular route from the routing table which
is a very slow process as 4 minutes is a long time to wait.

Advantages of RIP

The following are the advantages of a RIP protocol:

It is easy to configure

It has less complexity

The CPU utilization is less

RIP versions :
There are three versions of routing information protocol – RIP Version1, RIP Version2, and RIPng.
RIP v1 RIP v2 RIPng
 Sends update as broadcast Sends update as multicast Sends update as multicast

Broadcast at 255.255.255.255 Multicast at 224.0.0.9 Multicast at FF02::9 (RIPng can only

run on IPv6 networks)

Doesn’t support Supports authentication of –

authentication of update RIPv2 update messages
messages

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RIP v1 RIP v2 RIPng

Classful routing protocol Classless protocol, supports Classless updates are sent
classful

OSPF Protocol

The OSPF stands for Open Shortest Path First. It is a widely used and supported routing protocol. It is an
intradomain protocol, which means that it is used within an area or a network. It is an interior gateway protocol
that has been designed within a single autonomous system. It is based on a link-state routing algorithm in which
each router contains the information of every domain, and based on this information, it determines the shortest
path. The goal of routing is to learn routes. The OSPF achieves by learning about every router and subnet within
the entire network. Every router contains the same information about the network. The way the router learns this
information by sending LSA (Link State Advertisements). These LSAs contain information about every router,
subnet, and other networking information. Once the LSAs have been flooded, the OSPF stores the information in
a link-state database known as LSDB. The main goal is to have the same information about every router in an
LSDBs.

OSPF Areas
OSPF divides the autonomous systems into areas where the area is a collection of networks, hosts, and routers.
Like internet service providers divide the internet into a different autonomous system for easy management and
OSPF further divides the autonomous systems into Areas.

Routers that exist inside the area flood the area with routing information

In Area, the special router also exists. The special routers are those that are present at the border of an area, and
these special routers are known as Area Border Routers. This router summarizes the information about an area
and shares the information with other areas.

10 Sec
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Hello Java Program for Beginners

All the areas inside an autonomous system are connected to the backbone routers, and these backbone routers
are part of a primary area. The role of a primary area is to provide communication between different areas.

How does OSPF work?

There are three steps that can explain the working of OSPF:

Step 1: The first step is to become OSPF neighbors. The two connecting routers running OSPF on the same link
creates a neighbor relationship.

Step 2: The second step is to exchange database information. After becoming the neighbors, the two routers
exchange the LSDB information with each other.

Step 3: The third step is to choose the best route. Once the LSDB information has been exchanged with each
other, the router chooses the best route to be added to a routing table based on the calculation of SPF.

How a router forms a neighbor relationship?

The first thing is happened before the relationship is formed is that each router chooses the router ID.

Router ID (RID): The router ID is a number that uniquely identifies each router on a network. The router ID is
in the format of the IPv4 address. There are few ways to set the router ID, the first way is to set the router ID
manually and the other way is to let the router decides itself.

The following is the logic that the router chooses to set the router ID:

o Manually assigned: The router checks whether the router ID is manually set or not. If it manually set, then
it is a router ID. If it is not manually set, then it will choose the highest 'up' status loopback interface IP
address. If there are no loopback interfaces, then it will choose the highest 'up' status non-loopback
interface IP address.

Two routers connected to each other through point to point or multiple routers are connected can communicate
with each other through an OSPF protocol. The two routers are adjacent only when both the routers send the
HELLO packet to each other. When both the routers receive the acknowledgment of the HELLO packet, then
they come in a two-way state. As OSPF is a link state routing protocol, so it allows to create the neighbor
relationship between the routers. The two routers can be neighbors only when they belong to the same subnet,
share the same area id, subnet mask, timers, and authentication. The OSPF relationship is a relationship formed
between the routers so that they can know each other. The two routers can be neighbors if atleast one of them is
designated router or backup designated router in a network, or connected through a point-to-point link.

Types of links in OSPF

A link is basically a connection, so the connection between two routers is known as a

link. There are four types of links in OSPF:

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1. Point-to-point link: The point-to-point link directly connects the two routers without any host or router
in between.
2. Transient link: When several routers are attached in a network, they are known as a transient link. The
transient link has two different implementations: Unrealistic topology: When all the routers are
connected to each other, it is known as an unrealistic topology.
Realistic topology: When some designated router exists in a network then it is known as a realistic
topology. Here designated router is a router to which all the routers are connected. All the packets sent by
the routers will be passed through the designated router.
3. Stub link: It is a network that is connected to the single router. Data enters to the network through the
single router and leaves the network through the same router.
4. Virtual link: If the link between the two routers is broken, the administration creates the virtual path
between the routers, and that path could be a long one also.

OSPF Message Format

The following are the fields in an OSPF message format:

 o Version: It is an 8-bit field that specifies the OSPF protocol version.
o Type: It is an 8-bit field. It specifies the type of the OSPF packet.
o Message: It is a 16-bit field that defines the total length of the message, including the header. Therefore,
the total length is equal to the sum of the length of the message and header.
o Source IP address: It defines the address from which the packets are sent. It is a sending routing IP
address.
o Area identification: It defines the area within which the routing takes place.
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o Checksum: It is used for error correction and error detection.

o Authentication type: There are two types of authentication, i.e., 0 and 1. Here, 0 means for none that
specifies no authentication is available and 1 means for pwd that specifies the password-based
authentication.
o Authentication: It is a 32-bit field that contains the actual value of the authentication data.

OSPF Packets

There are five different types of packets in OSPF:

o Hello
o Database Description
o Link state request
o Link state update
o Link state Acknowledgment

Let's discuss each packet in detail.

1. Hello packet

The Hello packet is used to create a neighborhood relationship and check the neighbor's reachability. Therefore,
the Hello packet is used when the connection between the routers need to be established.

2. Database Description

After establishing a connection, if the neighbor router is communicating with the system first time, it sends the
database information about the network topology to the system so that the system can update or modify
accordingly.

3. Link state request

The link-state request is sent by the router to obtain the information of a specified route. Suppose there are two
routers, i.e., router 1 and router 2, and router 1 wants to know the information about the router 2, so router 1
sends the link state request to the router 2. When router 2 receives the link state request, then it sends the
link-state information to router 1.

4. Link state update

The link-state update is used by the router to advertise the state of its links. If any router wants to broadcast the
state of its links, it uses the link-state update.

5. Link state acknowledgment

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The link-state acknowledgment makes the routing more reliable by forcing each router to send the
acknowledgment on each link state update. For example, router A sends the link state update to the router B and
router C, then in return, the router B and C sends the link- state acknowledgment to the router A, so that the
router A gets to know that both the routers have received the link-state update.

OSPF States

The device running the OSPF protocol undergoes the following states:

o Down: If the device is in a down state, it has not received the HELLO packet. Here, down does not mean
that the device is physically down; it means that the OSPF process has not been started yet. o Init: If the
device comes in an init state, it means that the device has received the HELLO packet from the other router.
o 2WAY: If the device is in a 2WAY state, which means that both the routers have received the HELLO
packet from the other router, and the connection gets established between the routers. o Exstart: Once the
exchange between the routers get started, both the routers move to the Exstart state. In this state, master and
slave are selected based on the router's id. The master controls the sequence of numbers, and starts the
exchange process.
o Exchange: In the exchange state, both the routers send a list of LSAs to each other that contain a database
description.
o Loading: On the loading state, the LSR, LSU, and LSA are exchanged.
o Full: Once the exchange of the LSAs is completed, the routers move to the full state.

Router attributes
Before going to the Extract state, OSPF chooses one router as a Designated router and another router as a backup
designated router. These routers are not the type, but they are the attributes of a router. In the case of broadcast
networks, the router selects one router as a designated router and another router as a backup designated router.
The election of designated and the backup designated router is done to avoid the flooding in a network and to
minimize the number of adjacencies. They serve as a central point for exchanging the routing information
among all the routers. Since point-to-point links are directly connected, so DR and BDR are not elected.

If DR and BDR are not elected, the router will send the update to all the adjacent neighbors, leading to the
flooding in a network. To avoid this problem, DR and BDR are elected. Each non-DR and non-BDR send the
update only to the DR and BDR instead of exchanging it with other routers in a network segment. DR then
distributes the network topology information to other routers in the same area whereas the BDR serves a
substitute for the DR. The BDR also receives the routing information from all the router but it does not
distribute the information. It distributes the information only when the DR fails.

The multicast address 224.0.0.6 is used by the non-DR and non-BDR to send the routing information to the DR
and BDR. The DR and BDR send the routing information to the multicast address 224.0.0.5.

Based on the following rules, the DR and BDR are elected:

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o The router with the highest OSPF priority is chosen as the DR. By default, the highest priority is set as 1.
o If there is no highest priority, then the router with the highest router Id is chosen as the DR, and the router
with the second-highest priority is chosen as the BDR.

Let's understand this scenario through an example.

In the above figure, R1 is chosen as the DR, while R2 is chosen as the BDR as R1 has the highest router ID,
whereas the R2 has the second-highest router ID. If the link fails between R4 and the system, then R4 updates
only R1 and R4 about its link failure. Then, DR updates all the non-DR and non-BDR about the change, and in
this case, except R4, only R3 is available as a non-DR and non-BDR.
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Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used to dynamically assign an
IP address to nay device, or node, on a network so they can communicate using IP (Internet Protocol). DHCP
automates and centrally manages these configurations. There is no need to manually assign IP addresses to new
devices. Therefore, there is no requirement for any user configuration to connect to a DHCP based network.

DHCP can be implemented on local networks as well as large enterprise networks. DHCP is the default protocol
used by the most routers and networking equipment. DHCP is also called RFC (Request for comments) 2131.

DHCP does the following:

o DHCP manages the provision of all the nodes or devices added or dropped from the network.
o DHCP maintains the unique IP address of the host using a DHCP server.
o It sends a request to the DHCP server whenever a client/node/device, which is configured to work with
DHCP, connects to a network. The server acknowledges by providing an IP address to the
client/node/device.

DHCP is also used to configure the proper subnet mask, default gateway and DNS server information on the
node or device.

There are many versions of DCHP are available for use in IPV4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) and IPV6 (Internet
Protocol Version 6)ncepts in Java

How DHCP works

DHCP runs at the application layer of the TCP/IP protocol stack to dynamically assign IP addresses to DHCP
clients/nodes and to allocate TCP/IP configuration information to the DHCP clients. Information includes subnet
mask information, default gateway, IP addresses and domain name system addresses.

DHCP is based on client-server protocol in which servers manage a pool of unique IP addresses, as well as
information about client configuration parameters, and assign addresses out of those address pools.

The DHCP lease process works as follows:

o First of all, a client (network device) must be connected to the internet.
o DHCP clients request an IP address. Typically, client broadcasts a query for this information. o DHCP
server responds to the client request by providing IP server address and other configuration information.
This configuration information also includes time period, called a lease, for which the allocation is valid.
o When refreshing an assignment, a DHCP clients request the same parameters, but the DHCP server may
assign a new IP address. This is based on the policies set by the administrator.

Components of DHCP
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When working with DHCP, it is important to understand all of the components. Following are the list of
components:
 o DHCP Server: DHCP server is a networked device running the DCHP service that holds IP addresses
and related configuration information. This is typically a server or a router but could be anything that
acts as a host, such as an SD-WAN appliance.
o DHCP client: DHCP client is the endpoint that receives configuration information from a DHCP server.
This can be any device like computer, laptop, IoT endpoint or anything else that requires connectivity to
the network. Most of the devices are configured to receive DHCP information by default.
o IP address pool: IP address pool is the range of addresses that are available to DHCP clients. IP addresses
are typically handed out sequentially from lowest to the highest.
o Subnet: Subnet is the partitioned segments of the IP networks. Subnet is used to keep networks
manageable.
o Lease: Lease is the length of time for which a DHCP client holds the IP address information. When a
lease expires, the client has to renew it.
o DHCP relay: A host or router that listens for client messages being broadcast on that network and then
forwards them to a configured server. The server then sends responses back to the relay agent that passes
them along to the client. DHCP relay can be used to centralize DHCP servers instead of having a server
on each subnet.

Benefits of DHCP

There are following benefits of DHCP:

Centralized administration of IP configuration: DHCP IP configuration information can be stored in a single

location and enables that administrator to centrally manage all IP address configuration information.

Dynamic host configuration: DHCP automates the host configuration process and eliminates the need to
manually configure individual host. When TCP/IP (Transmission control protocol/Internet protocol) is first
deployed or when IP infrastructure changes are required.

Seamless IP host configuration: The use of DHCP ensures that DHCP clients get accurate and timely IP
configuration IP configuration parameter such as IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, IP address of DND
server and so on without user intervention.

Flexibility and scalability: Using DHCP gives the administrator increased flexibility, allowing the
administrator to move easily change IP configuration when the infrastructure changes.

Advantages of DHCP server

The DHCP server simplified device management. In addition to device management, it provides the following
benefits:
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Accurate IP configuration: It provides an easy way to troubleshoot and use the DHCP server. Thus, it
minimizes the risk of invalid IP configuration parameters.

Reduced IP address conflicts: The connected devices have a unique IP address. The DHCP server ensures the
one IP address is used only once. Thus, it reduces the IP address conflict.

Automation of IP address administration: The DHCP server automatically assigns an IP address to each
device. In the absence of a DHCP server, we have to manually assign the IP address. It keeps track of every IP
address. So it is easy to manage all the devices from one point.

Efficient change management: The DHCP provides an easy way to change the addresses, endpoints, and
scopes. For example, if we want to change the IP address scheme for the entire organization; it will allow us to
configure the system with the new scheme easily. Similarly, in the case of a new device, no configuration will
be needed.

FTP
o FTP stands for File transfer protocol.
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o FTP is a standard internet protocol provided by TCP/IP used for transmitting the files from one host to
another.
o It is mainly used for transferring the web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as a server
 for other computers on the internet.
o It is also used for downloading the files to computer from other servers.

Objectives of FTP

o It provides the sharing of files.

o It is used to encourage the use of remote computers.
o It transfers the data more reliably and efficiently.

Why FTP?

Although transferring files from one system to another is very simple and straightforward, but sometimes it can
cause problems. For example, two systems may have different file conventions. Two systems may have different
ways to represent text and data. Two systems may have different directory structures. FTP protocol overcomes
these problems by establishing two connections between hosts. One connection is used for data transfer, and
another connection is used for the control connection.

Mechanism of FTP

The above figure shows the basic model of the FTP. The FTP client has three components: the user interface,
control process, and data transfer process. The server has two components: the server control process and the
server data transfer process.

There are two types of connections in FTP:

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 o Control Connection: The control connection uses very simple rules for communication. Through control
connection, we can transfer a line of command or line of response at a time. The control connection is
made between the control processes. The control connection remains connected during the entire
interactive FTP session.
o Data Connection: The Data Connection uses very complex rules as data types may vary. The data
connection is made between data transfer processes. The data connection opens when a command comes
for transferring the files and closes when the file is transferred.

FTP Clients

o FTP client is a program that implements a file transfer protocol which allows you to transfer files between
two hosts on the internet.
o It allows a user to connect to a remote host and upload or download the files.
o It has a set of commands that we can use to connect to a host, transfer the files between you and your host
and close the connection.
o The FTP program is also available as a built-in component in a Web browser. This GUI based FTP client
makes the file transfer very easy and also does not require to remember the FTP commands.

Advantages of FTP:
o Speed: One of the biggest advantages of FTP is speed. The FTP is one of the fastest way to transfer the
files from one computer to another computer.
o Efficient: It is more efficient as we do not need to complete all the operations to get the entire file. o
Security: To access the FTP server, we need to login with the username and password. Therefore, we can
say that FTP is more secure.
o Back & forth movement: FTP allows us to transfer the files back and forth. Suppose you are a manager
of the company, you send some information to all the employees, and they all send information back on
the same server.
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Disadvantages of FTP:
 o The standard requirement of the industry is that all the FTP transmissions should be encrypted. However,
not all the FTP providers are equal and not all the providers offer encryption. So, we will have to look
out for the FTP providers that provides encryption.
o FTP serves two operations, i.e., to send and receive large files on a network. However, the size limit of
the file is 2GB that can be sent. It also doesn't allow you to run simultaneous transfers to multiple receivers.
o Passwords and file contents are sent in clear text that allows unwanted eavesdropping. So, it is quite
possible that attackers can carry out the brute force attack by trying to guess the FTP password. o It is not
compatible with every system.

Telnet
o The main task of the internet is to provide services to users. For example, users want to run different
application programs at the remote site and transfers a result to the local site. This requires a client-server
program such as FTP, SMTP. But this would not allow us to create a specific program for each demand.
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o The better solution is to provide a general client-server program that lets the user access any application
program on a remote computer. Therefore, a program that allows a user to log on to a remote computer.
 A popular client-server program Telnet is used to meet such demands. Telnet is an abbreviation for
Terminal Network.
o Telnet provides a connection to the remote computer in such a way that a local terminal appears to be at
the remote side.

There are two types of login:

Local Login

o When a user logs into a local computer, then it is known as local login.
o When the workstation running terminal emulator, the keystrokes entered by the user are accepted
by the terminal driver. The terminal driver then passes these characters to the operating system
which in turn, invokes the desired application program.
o However, the operating system has special meaning to special characters. For example, in UNIX
some combination of characters have special meanings such as control character with "z" means
suspend. Such situations do not create any problem as the terminal driver knows the meaning of
such characters. But, it can cause the problems in remote login.
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Remote login
 o When the user wants to access an application program on a remote computer, then the user must
perform remote login.

How remote login occurs

At the local site

The user sends the keystrokes to the terminal driver, the characters are then sent to the TELNET client.
The TELNET client which in turn, transforms the characters to a universal character set known as
network virtual terminal characters and delivers them to the local TCP/IP stack

At the remote site

The commands in NVT forms are transmitted to the TCP/IP at the remote machine. Here, the characters
are delivered to the operating system and then pass to the TELNET server. The TELNET server
transforms the characters which can be understandable by a remote computer. However, the characters
cannot be directly passed to the operating system as a remote operating system does not receive the
characters from the TELNET server. Therefore it requires some piece of software that can accept the
characters from the TELNET server. The operating system then passes these characters to the
appropriate application program.

Network Virtual Terminal (NVT)

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 o The network virtual terminal is an interface that defines how data and commands are sent across
the network.
o In today's world, systems are heterogeneous. For example, the operating system accepts a special
combination of characters such as end-of-file token running a DOS operating system ctrl+z while
the token running a UNIX operating system is ctrl+d.
o TELNET solves this issue by defining a universal interface known as network virtual interface. o
The TELNET client translates the characters that come from the local terminal into NVT form and
then delivers them to the network. The Telnet server then translates the data from NVT form into a
form which can be understandable by a remote computer.

SNMP
o SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol.
o SNMP is a framework used for managing devices on the internet.
o It provides a set of operations for monitoring and managing the internet.

SNMP Concept
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 o SNMP has two components Manager and agent.
o The manager is a host that controls and monitors a set of agents such as routers.
o It is an application layer protocol in which a few manager stations can handle a set of agents. o The
protocol designed at the application level can monitor the devices made by different manufacturers and
installed on different physical networks.
o It is used in a heterogeneous network made of different LANs and WANs connected by routers or
gateways.

Managers & Agents

o A manager is a host that runs the SNMP client program while the agent is a router that runs the SNMP
server program.
o Management of the internet is achieved through simple interaction between a manager and agent. o The
agent is used to keep the information in a database while the manager is used to access the values in the
database. For example, a router can store the appropriate variables such as a number of packets received and
forwarded while the manager can compare these variables to determine whether the router is congested or
not.
o Agents can also contribute to the management process. A server program on the agent checks the
environment, if something goes wrong, the agent sends a warning message to the manager.

Management with SNMP has three basic ideas:

o A manager checks the agent by requesting the information that reflects the behavior of the agent.
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o A manager also forces the agent to perform a certain function by resetting values in the agent database. o
 An agent also contributes to the management process by warning the manager regarding an unusual
condition.

Management Components

o Management is not achieved only through the SNMP protocol but also the use of other protocols that can
cooperate with the SNMP protocol. Management is achieved through the use of the other two protocols:
SMI (Structure of management information) and MIB(management information base).
o Management is a combination of SMI, MIB, and SNMP. All these three protocols such as abstract syntax
notation 1 (ASN.1) and basic encoding rules (BER).

SMI

The SMI (Structure of management information) is a component used in network management. Its main function
is to define the type of data that can be stored in an object and to show how to encode the data for the
transmission over a network.

MIB
o The MIB (Management information base) is a second component for the network management. o Each
agent has its own MIB, which is a collection of all the objects that the manager can manage. MIB is
categorized into eight groups: system, interface, address translation, ip, icmp, tcp, udp, and egp. These
groups are under the mib object.
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SNMP
 SNMP defines five types of messages: GetRequest, GetNextRequest, SetRequest, GetResponse, and

Trap.

GetRequest: The GetRequest message is sent from a manager (client) to the agent (server) to retrieve the value
of a variable.

GetNextRequest: The GetNextRequest message is sent from the manager to agent to retrieve the value of a
variable. This type of message is used to retrieve the values of the entries in a table. If the manager does not
know the indexes of the entries, then it will not be able to retrieve the values. In such situations,
GetNextRequest message is used to define an object.

GetResponse: The GetResponse message is sent from an agent to the manager in response to the GetRequest
and GetNextRequest message. This message contains the value of a variable requested by the manager.

SetRequest: The SetRequest message is sent from a manager to the agent to set a value in a variable.

Trap: The Trap message is sent from an agent to the manager to report an event. For example, if the agent is
rebooted, then it informs the manager as well as sends the time of rebooting.
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IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest revision of the Internet Protocol (IP) and the first version of the
protocol to be widely deployed. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with
the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion. This tutorial will help you in understanding IPv6 and
its associated terminologies along with appropriate references and examples.

Internet Protocol version 6 is a new addressing protocol designed to incorporate all the possible requirements of
future Internet known to us as Internet version 2. This protocol as its predecessor IPv4, works on the Network
Layer (Layer-3). Along with its offering of an enormous amount of logical address space, this protocol has
ample features to which address the shortcoming of IPv4.

Why New IP Version?

So far, IPv4 has proven itself as a robust routable addressing protocol and has served us for decades on its best
effort-delivery mechanism. It was designed in the early 80’s and did not get any major change afterward. At the
time of its birth, Internet was limited only to a few universities for their research and to the Department of
Defense. IPv4 is 32 bits long and offers around 4,294,967,296 (232) addresses. This address space was
considered more than enough that time. Given below are the major points that played a key role in the birth of
IPv6:
∙ Internet has grown exponentially and the address space allowed by IPv4 is saturating. There is a
requirement to have a protocol that can satisfy the needs of future Internet addresses that is expected to
grow in an unexpected manner.
∙ IPv4 on its own does not provide any security feature. Data has to be encrypted with some other security
application before being sent on the Internet.
∙ Data prioritization in IPv4 is not up to date. Though IPv4 has a few bits reserved for Type of Service or
Quality of Service, but they do not provide much functionality.
∙ IPv4 enabled clients can be configured manually or they need some address configuration mechanism. It
does not have a mechanism to configure a device to have globally unique IP address.

Why Not IPv5?

Till date, Internet Protocol has been recognized has IPv4 only. Version 0 to 3 were used while the protocol was
itself under development and experimental process. So, we can assume lots of background activities remain
active before putting a protocol into production. Similarly, protocol version 5 was used while experimenting
with the stream protocol for Internet. It is known to us as Internet Stream Protocol which used Internet Protocol
number 5 to encapsulate its datagram. It was never brought into public use, but it was already used.
Here is a table of IP versions and how they are used:
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Brief History

After IPv4’s development in the early 80s, the available IPv4 address pool begun to shrink rapidly as the
demand of addresses exponentially increased with Internet. Taking pre-cognizance of the situation that might
arise, IETF, in 1994, initiated the development of an addressing protocol to replace IPv4. The progress of IPv6
can be tracked by means of the RFC published:
∙ 1998 – RFC 2460 – Basic Protocol
∙ 2003 – RFC 2553 – Basic Socket API
∙ 2003 – RFC 3315 – DHCPv6
∙ 2004 – RFC 3775 – Mobile IPv6
∙ 2004 – RFC 3697 – Flow Label Specification
∙ 2006 – RFC 4291 – Address architecture (revision)
 ∙ 2006 – RFC 4294 – Node requirement
On June 06, 2012, some of the Internet giants chose to put their Servers on IPv6. Presently they are using Dual
Stack mechanism to implement IPv6 parallel in with IPv4.

IPv6 - Features
The successor of IPv4 is not designed to be backward compatible. Trying to keep the basic functionalities of IP
addressing, IPv6 is redesigned entirely. It offers the following features:
∙ Larger Address Space
In contrast to IPv4, IPv6 uses 4 times more bits to address a device on the Internet. This much of extra
bits can provide approximately 3.4×1038 different combinations of addresses. This address can
accumulate the aggressive requirement of address allotment for almost everything in this world.
According to an estimate, 1564 addresses can be allocated to every square meter of this earth.
∙ Simplified Header
IPv6’s header has been simplified by moving all unnecessary information and options (which are
present in IPv4 header) to the end of the IPv6 header. IPv6 header is only twice as bigger than IPv4
provided the fact that IPv6 address is four times longer.
∙ End-to-end Connectivity
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Every system now has unique IP address and can traverse through the Internet without using NAT or
other translating components. After IPv6 is fully implemented, every host can directly reach other hosts
on the Internet, with some limitations involved like Firewall, organization policies, etc.
∙ Auto-configuration

IPv6 supports both stateful and stateless auto configuration mode of its host devices. This way, absence
of a DHCP server does not put a halt on inter segment communication.
∙ Faster Forwarding/Routing

Simplified header puts all unnecessary information at the end of the header. The information contained
in the first part of the header is adequate for a Router to take routing decisions, thus making routing
decision as quickly as looking at the mandatory header.
∙ IPSec

Initially it was decided that IPv6 must have IPSec security, making it more secure than IPv4. This
feature has now been made optional.
∙ No Broadcast
Though Ethernet/Token Ring are considered as broadcast network because they support Broadcasting,
IPv6 does not have any broadcast support any more. It uses multicast to communicate with multiple
hosts.
∙ Anycast Support
This is another characteristic of IPv6. IPv6 has introduced Anycast mode of packet routing. In this
mode, multiple interfaces over the Internet are assigned same Anycast IP address. Routers, while
routing, send the packet to the nearest destination.
∙ Mobility

IPv6 was designed keeping mobility in mind. This feature enables hosts (such as mobile phone) to roam
 around in different geographical area and remain connected with the same IP address. The mobility
feature of IPv6 takes advantage of auto IP configuration and Extension headers.
∙ Enhanced Priority Support
IPv4 used 6 bits DSCP (Differential Service Code Point) and 2 bits ECN (Explicit Congestion
Notification) to provide Quality of Service but it could only be used if the end-to-end devices support it,
that is, the source and destination device and underlying network must support it.
In IPv6, Traffic class and Flow label are used to tell the underlying routers how to efficiently process
the packet and route it.
∙ Smooth Transition

Large IP address scheme in IPv6 enables to allocate devices with globally unique IP addresses. This
mechanism saves IP addresses and NAT is not required. So devices can send/receive data among each
other, for example, VoIP and/or any streaming media can be used much efficiently.
Other fact is, the header is less loaded, so routers can take forwarding decisions and forward them as
quickly as they arrive.
∙ Extensibility
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One of the major advantages of IPv6 header is that it is extensible to add more information in the option
part. IPv4 provides only 40-bytes for options, whereas options in IPv6 can be as much as the size of
IPv6 packet itself.

IPv6 - Addressing Modes

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In computer networking, addressing mode refers to the mechanism of hosting an address on the network. IPv6
offers several types of modes by which a single host can be addressed. More than one host can be addressed at
once or the host at the closest distance can be addressed.

Unicast

In unicast mode of addressing, an IPv6 interface (host) is uniquely identified in a network segment. The IPv6
packet contains both source and destination IP addresses. A host interface is equipped with an IP address which
is unique in that network segment.When a network switch or a router receives a unicast IP packet, destined to a
single host, it sends out one of its outgoing interface which connects to that particular host.
Multicast

The IPv6 multicast mode is same as that of IPv4. The packet destined to multiple hosts is sent on a special
multicast address. All the hosts interested in that multicast information, need to join that multicast group first.
All the interfaces that joined the group receive the multicast packet and process it, while other hosts not
interested in multicast packets ignore the multicast information.
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Anycast

IPv6 has introduced a new type of addressing, which is called Anycast addressing. In this addressing mode,
multiple interfaces (hosts) are assigned same Anycast IP address. When a host wishes to communicate with a
host equipped with an Anycast IP address, it sends a Unicast message. With the help of complex routing
mechanism, that Unicast message is delivered to the host closest to the Sender in terms of Routing cost.
Let’s take an example of TutorialPoints.com Web Servers, located in all continents. Assume that all the Web
Servers are assigned a single IPv6 Anycast IP Address. Now when a user from Europe wants to reach
TutorialsPoint.com the DNS points to the server that is physically located in Europe itself. If a user from India
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tries to reach Tutorialspoint.com, the DNS will then point to the Web Server physically located in Asia. Nearest
or Closest terms are used in terms of Routing Cost.

IPv6 - Address Types & Formats

Hexadecimal Number System

Before introducing IPv6 Address format, we shall look into Hexadecimal Number System. Hexadecimal is a
positional number system that uses radix (base) of 16. To represent the values in readable format, this system
uses 0-9 symbols to represent values from zero to nine and A-F to represent values from ten to fifteen. Every
digit in Hexadecimal can represent values from 0 to 15.
 [Image: Conversion Table]
Address Structure

An IPv6 address is made of 128 bits divided into eight 16-bits blocks. Each block is then converted into 4-digit
Hexadecimal numbers separated by colon symbols.
For example, given below is a 128 bit IPv6 address represented in binary format and divided into eight 16-bits
blocks:
0010000000000001 0000000000000000 0011001000111000 1101111111100001 0000000001100011
0000000000000000 0000000000000000 1111111011111011

Each block is then converted into Hexadecimal and separated by ‘:’ symbol:
2001:0000:3238:DFE1:0063:0000:0000:FEFB

Even after converting into Hexadecimal format, IPv6 address remains long. IPv6 provides some rules to
shorten the address. The rules are as follows:
Rule.1: Discard leading Zero(es):
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In Block 5, 0063, the leading two 0s can be omitted, such as (5th block):
2001:0000:3238:DFE1:63:0000:0000:FEFB

Rule.2: If two of more blocks contain consecutive zeroes, omit them all and replace with double colon sign ::,
such as (6th and 7th block):
2001:0000:3238:DFE1:63::FEFB

Consecutive blocks of zeroes can be replaced only once by :: so if there are still blocks of zeroes in the address,
they can be shrunk down to a single zero, such as (2nd block):
2001:0:3238:DFE1:63::FEFB

Interface ID
IPv6 has three different types of Unicast Address scheme. The second half of the address (last 64 bits) is always
used for Interface ID. The MAC address of a system is composed of 48-bits and represented in Hexadecimal.
MAC addresses are considered to be uniquely assigned worldwide. Interface ID takes advantage of this
uniqueness of MAC addresses. A host can auto-configure its Interface ID by using IEEE’s Extended Unique
Identifier (EUI-64) format. First, a host divides its own MAC address into two 24-bits halves. Then 16-bit Hex
value 0xFFFE is sandwiched into those two halves of MAC address, resulting in EUI-64 Interface ID.

[Image: EUI-64 Interface ID]

Conversion of EUI-64 ID into IPv6 Interface Identifier
To convert EUI-64 ID into IPv6 Interface Identifier, the most significant 7th bit of EUI-64 ID is complemented.
For example:
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[Image: IPV6 Interface

ID] Global Unicast Address
This address type is equivalent to IPv4’s public address. Global Unicast addresses in IPv6 are globally
identifiable and uniquely addressable.

[Image: Global Unicast Address]

Global Routing Prefix: The most significant 48-bits are designated as Global Routing Prefix which is assigned
to specific autonomous system. The three most significant bits of Global Routing Prefix is always set to 001.
Link-Local Address

Auto-configured IPv6 address is known as Link-Local address. This address always starts with FE80. The first
16 bits of link-local address is always set to 1111 1110 1000 0000 (FE80). The next 48-bits are set to 0, thus:

[Image: Link-Local
Address]

Link-local addresses are used for communication among IPv6 hosts on a link (broadcast segment) only. These
addresses are not routable, so a Router never forwards these addresses outside the link.

Unique-Local Address

This type of IPv6 address is globally unique, but it should be used in local communication. The second half of
this address contain Interface ID and the first half is divided among Prefix, Local Bit, Global ID and Subnet ID.
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[Image: Unique-Local
Address]

Prefix is always set to 1111 110. L bit, is set to 1 if the address is locally assigned. So far, the meaning of L bit
to 0 is not defined. Therefore, Unique Local IPv6 address always starts with ‘FD’.
Scope of IPv6 Unicast Addresses:

[Image: IPv6 Unicast Address Scope]

The scope of Link-local address is limited to the segment. Unique Local Address are locally global, but are not
routed over the Internet, limiting their scope to an organization’s boundary. Global Unicast addresses are
globally unique and recognizable. They shall make the essence of Internet v2 addressing.

IPv6 - Special Addresses

Version 6 has slightly complex structure of IP address than that of IPv4. IPv6 has reserved a few addresses and
address notations for special purposes. See the table below:

∙ As shown in the table,

the address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0/128 does not specify anything and is said to be an unspecified address. After
simplifying, all the 0s are compacted to ::/128.
∙ In IPv4, the address 0.0.0.0 with netmask 0.0.0.0 represents the default route. The same concept is also
applied to IPv6, address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 with netmask all 0s represents the default route. After applying
IPv6 rule, this address is compressed to ::/0.
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∙ Loopback addresses in IPv4 are represented by 127.0.0.1 to 127.255.255.255 series. But in IPv6, only
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1/128 represents the Loopback address. After loopback address, it can be represented as
::1/128.

Reserved Multicast Address for Routing Protocols

∙ The
above table shows the reserved multicast addresses used by interior routing protocol.
∙ The addresses are reserved following the same rules of IPv4.

Reserved Multicast Address for Routers/Node

∙ These
addresses help
routers and hosts to speak to available routers and hosts on a segment without being configured with an
IPv6 address. Hosts use EUI-64 based auto-configuration to self-configure an IPv6 address and then speak
to available hosts/routers on the segment by means of these addresses.

IPv6 - Headers

The wonder of IPv6 lies in its header. An IPv6 address is 4 times larger than IPv4, but surprisingly, the header
of an IPv6 address is only 2 times larger than that of IPv4. IPv6 headers have one Fixed Header and zero or
more Optional (Extension) Headers. All the necessary information that is essential for a router is kept in the
Fixed Header. The Extension Header contains optional information that helps routers to understand how to
handle a packet/flow.
Fixed Header
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[ IPv6 fixed header is 40 bytes long and contains the following information.
S.N. Field & Description

1 Version (4-bits): It represents the version of Internet Protocol, i.e. 0110.

2 Traffic Class (8-bits): These 8 bits are divided into two parts. The most
significant 6 bits are used for Type of Service to let the Router Known what
services should be provided to this packet. The least significant 2 bits are used
for Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN).

3 Flow Label (20-bits): This label is used to maintain the sequential flow of the
packets belonging to a communication. The source labels the sequence to help
the router identify that a particular packet belongs to a specific flow of
information. This field helps avoid re-ordering of data packets. It is designed for
streaming/real
time media.

4 Payload Length (16-bits): This field is used to tell the routers how much
information a particular packet contains in its payload. Payload is composed of
Extension Headers and Upper Layer data. With 16 bits, up to 65535 bytes can be
indicated; but if the Extension Headers contain Hop-by-Hop Extension Header,
then the payload may exceed 65535 bytes and this field is set to 0.

5 Next Header (8-bits): This field is used to indicate either the type of Extension
Header, or if the Extension Header is not present then it indicates the Upper
Layer PDU. The values for the type of Upper Layer PDU are same as IPv4’s.

6 Hop Limit (8-bits): This field is used to stop packet to loop in the network
infinitely. This is same as TTL in IPv4. The value of Hop Limit field is
decremented by 1 as it passes a link (router/hop). When the field reaches 0 the
packet is discarded.
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7 Source Address (128-bits): This field indicates the address of originator of the
packet.

8 Destination Address (128-bits): This field provides the address of intended

recipient of the packet.

Extension Headers

In IPv6, the Fixed Header contains only that much information which is necessary, avoiding those information
which is either not required or is rarely used. All such information is put between the Fixed Header and the
Upper layer header in the form of Extension Headers. Each Extension Header is identified by a distinct value.
When Extension Headers are used, IPv6 Fixed Header’s Next Header field points to the first Extension Header.
If there is one more Extension Header, then the first Extension Header’s ‘Next-Header’ field points to the
second one, and so on. The last Extension Header’s ‘Next-Header’ field points to the Upper Layer Header.
Thus, all the headers points to the next one in a linked list manner.
If the Next Header field contains the value 59, it indicates that there are no headers after this header, not even
Upper Layer Header.
The following Extension Headers must be supported as per RFC 2460:

The sequence of Extension Headers should be:

These headers:
∙ 1. should be processed by First and subsequent destinations.
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 ∙ 2. should be processed by Final Destination.
Extension Headers are arranged one after another in a linked list manner, as depicted in the following diagram:

IPv6 - Communication
In IPv4, a host that wants to communicate with another host on the network needs to have an IP address
acquired either by means of DHCP or by manual configuration. As soon as a host is equipped with some valid
IP address, it can speak to any host on the subnet. To communicate on layer-3, a host must also know the IP
address of the other host. Communication on a link, is established by means of hardware embedded MAC
Addresses. To know the MAC address of a host whose IP address is known, a host sends ARP broadcast and in
return, the intended host sends back its MAC address.
In IPv6, there are no broadcast mechanisms. It is not a must for an IPv6 enabled host to obtain an IP address
from DHCP or manually configured, but it can auto-configure its own IP.
ARP has been replaced by ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol.

Neighbor Discovery Protocol

A host in IPv6 network is capable of auto-configuring itself with a unique link-local address. As soon as host
gets an IPv6 address, it joins a number of multicast groups. All communications related to that segment take
place on those multicast addresses only. A host goes through a series of states in IPv6:
∙ Neighbor Solicitation: After configuring all IPv6’s either manually, or by DHCP Server or by auto
configuration, the host sends a Neighbor Solicitation message out to FF02::1/16 multicast address for all
its IPv6 addresses in order to know that no one else occupies the same addresses.
∙ DAD (Duplicate Address Detection): When the host does not listen from anything from the segment
regarding its Neighbor Solicitation message, it assumes that no duplicate address exists on the segment.
∙ Neighbor Advertisement: After assigning the addresses to its interfaces and making them up and
running, the host once again sends out a Neighbor Advertisement message telling all other hosts on the
segment, that it has assigned those IPv6 addresses to its interfaces.
Once a host is done with the configuration of its IPv6 addresses, it does the following things:
∙ Router Solicitation: A host sends a Router Solicitation multicast packet (FF02::2/16) out on its segment
to know the presence of any router on this segment. It helps the host to configure the router as its default
gateway. If its default gateway router goes down, the host can shift to a new router and makes it the
default gateway.
∙ Router Advertisement: When a router receives a Router Solicitation message, it response back to the
host, advertising its presence on that link.
∙ Redirect: This may be the situation where a Router receives a Router Solicitation request but it knows
that it is not the best gateway for the host. In this situation, the router sends back a Redirect message
telling the host that there is a better ‘next-hop’ router available. Next-hop is where the host will send its
data destined to a host which does not belong to the same segment.
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IPv6 - Routing
Routing concepts remain same in case of IPv6 but almost all routing protocols have been redefined accordingly.
We discussed earlier, how a host speaks to its gateway. Routing is a process to forward routable data choosing
the best route among several available routes or path to the destination. A router is a device that forwards data
that is not explicitly destined to it.
There exists two forms of routing protocols:
∙ Distance Vector Routing Protocol: A router running distance vector protocol advertises its connected
routes and learns new routes from its neighbors. The routing cost to reach a destination is calculated by
means of hops between the source and destination. A router generally relies on its neighbor for best path
selection, also known as “routing-by-rumors”. RIP and BGP are Distance Vector Protocols.
∙ Link-State Routing Protocol: This protocol acknowledges the state of a Link and advertises to its
neighbors. Information about new links is learnt from peer routers. After all the routing information has
been converged, the Link-State Routing Protocol uses its own algorithm to calculate the best path to all
available links. OSPF and IS-IS are link state routing protocols and both of them use Dijkstra’s Shortest
Path First algorithm.
Routing protocols can be divided in two categories:
∙ Interior Routing Protocol: Protocols in this categories are used within an autonomous system or
organization to distribute routes among all routers inside its boundary. Examples: RIP, OSPF.
∙ Exterior Routing Protocol: An Exterior Routing Protocol distributes routing information between two
different autonomous systems or organization. Examples: BGP.

Routing protocols

∙ RIPng

RIPng stands for Routing Information Protocol Next Generation. This is an Interior Routing Protocol
and is a Distance Vector Protocol. RIPng has been upgraded to support IPv6.
∙ OSPFv3

Open Shortest Path First version 3 is an Interior Routing Protocol which is modified to support IPv6.
This is a Link-State Protocol and uses Djikrasta’s Shortest Path First algorithm to calculate best path to
all destinations.
∙ BGPv4

BGP stands for Border Gateway Protocol. It is the only open standard Exterior Gateway Protocol
available. BGP is a Distance Vector protocol which takes Autonomous System as calculation metric,
instead of the number of routers as Hop. BGPv4 is an upgrade of BGP to support IPv6 routing.

Protocols Changed to Support IPv6

∙ ICMPv6: Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 is an upgraded implementation of ICMP to

accommodate IPv6 requirements. This protocol is used for diagnostic functions, error and information
message, statistical purposes. ICMPv6’s Neighbor Discovery Protocol replaces ARP and helps discover
neighbor and routers on the link.
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∙ DHCPv6: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 is an implementation of DHCP. IPv6 enabled
hosts do not require any DHCPv6 Server to acquire IP address as they can be auto-configured. Neither
do they need DHCPv6 to locate DNS server because DNS can be discovered and configured via
ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol. Yet DHCPv6 Server can be used to provide these information.
 ∙ DNS: There has been no new version of DNS but it is now equipped with extensions to provide support
for querying IPv6 addresses. A new AAAA (quad-A) record has been added to reply IPv6 query
messages. Now the DNS can reply with both IP versions (4 & 6) without any change in the query
format.
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Difference Between IPv4 and IPv6 Addresses

IPv4 & IPv6 are both IP addresses that are binary numbers. Comparing IPv6 vs IPv4, IPv4 is 32 bit binary
number while IPv6 is 128 bit binary number address. IPv4 address are separated by periods while IPv6 address
are separated by colons.

Both are used to identify machines connected to a network. In principle, they are the same, but they are different
in how they work. Below are the main differences between IPv4 and IPv6:
Checksum Has checksum fields Does not hav

Example 12.244.233.165 2001:0db8:0

Type of Unicast, broadcast, and Unicast, mul

Addresses multicast.

Number of IPv4 offers five different lPv6 allows

Basis for IPv4 classes classes of IP Address. Class A Address.
differences to E.

Size of IP IPv4 is a 32-Bit IP Address. Configuratio You have to configure a In IPv6, the
address n newly installed system before on
it can communicate with other functions ne
Addressing IPv4 is a numeric address, systems.
method and its binary bits are
separated by a dot (.) VLSM IPv4 support VLSM (Variable IPv6 does no
support Length Subnet mask).
Number of 12
header fields

Length of 20
header filed

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Basis for IPv4 IPv6
differences

Fragmentatio Fragmentation is done by Fragmentation is done by the sender.

n sending and forwarding
routes.
Routing RIP is a routing protocol RIP does not support IPv6. It uses static
Information supported by the routed routes.
Protocol daemon.
(RIP)

Network Networks need to be

Configuratio configured either manually or
n with DHCP. IPv4 had several IPv6 support autoconfiguration
overlays to handle Internet capabilities.
growth, which require more
maintenance efforts.

Best feature Widespread use of NAT

(Network address translation)
devices which allows single
NAT address can mask It allows direct addressing because of vast address
thousands of non-routable Space.
addresses, making end-to-end
integrity achievable.

Address Use for the designated Not used.

Mask network from host portion.

SNMP SNMP is a protocol used for SNMP does not support IPv6.
system management.

Mobility & Relatively constrained IPv6 provides interoperability and mobility

Interoperabilit network topologies to which capabilities which are embedded in network
y move restrict mobility and devices.
interoperability capabilities.
 Packet size Packet size 576 bytes 1208 bytes r
required, fragmentation
optional

Packet Allows from routers and Sending hos

fragmentatio sending host
n

Packet Does not identify packet flow Packet head

header for QoS handling which packet flow
includes checksum options.

DNS records Address (A) records, maps Address (AA

hostnames

Address Manual or via DHCP Stateless add

configuration Control Mes
DHCPv6

IP to MAC Broadcast ARP Multicast Ne

resolution

Local subnet Internet Group Management Multicast Li

Group Protocol GMP)
management

ds Has Optional Fields Does not hav

are available

IPSec Internet Protocol Security Internet Prot

(IPSec) concerning network security is m
security is optional
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Basis for IPv4
differences

Security Security is dependent on

applications – IPv4 was not
designed with security in
mind.

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Basis for IPv4 IPv6
differences
Dynamic host Clients have approach DHCS A Client does not have to approach any such server as
configuration (Dynamic Host Configuration they
Server server) whenever they want to are given permanent addresses.
connect to a network.

Mapping Uses ARP(Address Uses NDP(Neighbour Discovery Protocol) to map to

Resolution Protocol) to map MAC address
to MAC address

Combability IPv4 address uses the dot IPv6 address is represented in hexadecimal, colon
with mobile decimal notation. That’s why separated notation. IPv6 is better suited to mobile
devices it is not suitable for mobile networks.
networks.

Ipv6
Ipv4

Address length IPv4 is a 32-bit address. IPv6 is a 128-bit address.

Fields IPv4 is a numeric address that consists of IPv6 is an alphanumeric address

4 fields which are separated by dot (.). that consists of 8 fields, which are
separated by colon.

Classes IPv4 has 5 different classes of IP address IPv6 does not contain classes of IP
that includes Class A, Class B, Class C, addresses.
Class D, and Class E.

Number of IP IPv4 has a limited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has a large number of IP
address addresses.

VLSM It supports VLSM (Virtual Length Subnet It does not support VLSM.
Mask). Here, VLSM means that Ipv4
converts IP addresses into a subnet of
different sizes.

Address It supports manual and DHCP It supports manual, DHCP, auto

configuration configuration. configuration, and renumbering.

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Address space It generates 4 billion unique addresses It generates 340 undecillion
unique addresses.

End-to-end In IPv4, end-to-end connection integrity In the case of IPv6, end-to-end

connection is unachievable. connection integrity is achievable.
integrity
 Security features In IPv4, security depends on the In IPv6, IPSEC is developed for
application. This IP address is not security purposes.
developed in keeping the security feature
in mind.

Address In IPv4, the IP address is represented in In IPv6, the representation of the

representation decimal. IP address in hexadecimal.

Fragmentation Fragmentation is done by the senders and Fragmentation is done by the

the forwarding routers. senders only.

Packet flow It does not provide any mechanism for It uses flow label field in the
identification packet flow identification. header for the packet flow
identification.

Checksum field The checksum field is available in IPv4. The checksum field is not
available in IPv6.

Transmission IPv4 is broadcasting. On the other hand, IPv6 is

scheme multicasting, which provides
efficient network operations.

Encryption and It does not provide encryption and It provides encryption and
Authentication authentication. authentication.

Number of octets It consists of 4 octets. It consists of 8 fields, and each

field contains 2 octets. Therefore,
the total number of octets in IPv6
is 16.

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Application Support for IPv6 Addressing

Many critical Solaris network services recognize and support IPv6 addresses, for example:

∙ Name services, such as DNS, LDAP, and NIS. For more information on IPv6 support by these name
services, see System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP). ∙
Authentication and privacy applications, such as IP Security Architecture (IPsec) and Internet Key
Exchange (IKE). For more information, see Part III, IP Security.
∙ Differentiated services, as provided by IP Quality of Service (IPQoS). For more information, see Part IV,
IP Quality of Service (IPQoS).
∙ Failover detection, as provided by IP network multipathing (IPMP). For more information, see Failure and
Repair Detection in IPMP in System Administration Guide: Network Interfaces and Network
Virtualization.
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Distance Vector Routing Vs Link State Routing

Distance Vector Routing Link State Routing

Distance vector protocols use a distance Link State protocols track the status and
calculation plus an outgoing network connection type of each link and produces a
interface (a vector) to choose the best calculated metric based on these and other
path to a destination network factors, including some set by the network
administrator

Each router maintains routing table It is the advanced version of distance vector
indexed by and containing one entry for routing
each router in the subnet

Algorithm took too large to converge Algorithm is faster

Distance Vector routing protocols support Link State routing protocols support
dis-contiguous subnets contiguous subnets

Distance Vector routing protocols uses Cost is the metric of the Link State routing
hop count and composite metric protocols

Bandwidth is less Wide bandwidth is available

Router measure delay directly with special All delays measured and distributed to every
ECHO packets router

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Distance Vector Routing Link State Routing

It doesn’t take line bandwidth into account It considers the line bandwidth into account
when choosing the routes when choosing the routes
Distance Vector routing protocols are less Link State routing protocols are very much
scalable such as RIP supports 16 hops scalable; supports infinite hops
and IGRP has a maximum of 100 hops

Distance vector require less memory Link state require more memory