Computer Networks

CS F303

DATA LINLK LAYER

Ashutosh Bhatia
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
BITS Pilani Birla Institute of Technology and Science
Pilani|Dubai|Goa|Hyderabad Pilani Campus, Pilani
 Data-Link Layer
• Frame-by-Frame next-hop delivery
– Frame: Block of data exchanged at link layer
• Uses services of PHY layer (which delivers bits) to
deliver frames

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Link Layer Protocols
• Link could be point-to-point or broadcast
– Broadcast: Many nodes connected to same communication
channel (e.g. wireless)
• Protocol:
– Define format of frames to be exchanged over the link
– In response to frames, action to be taken by nodes
– Examples: Ethernet, Token-Ring, WiFi, PPP etc

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 Services
• Logical Link Control (LLC): Interface between Network layer and
MAC sub-layer
– Multiplexing
– Error Detection
– Error Recovery (optional)
– Flow Control (optional)
• Media Access Control (MAC): Controls access to physical media
(Broadcast Channels)
• Switching (Interconnecting LANs)

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Data Link Layer
Error Control
 Error Detection
• What cause errors?
– Distortion of signals due to frequency dependant
attenuation, noise (PHY layer)
– Random single-bit vs Bursty errors
• Why detect errors?
– Data fidelity, prevent wastage of resources

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 What next?
• After Detection:
– Drop Frame
• Higher layers (e.g TCP) will recover or few losses dont hurt
applications (e.g. audio)
– Recover Frame
• Error Correction: Frame carries enough information to correct
errors
• Retransmission: Receiver signals sender on error, sender
retransmits the frame

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 Error correction vs Retransmission

• Error correction requires more redundant bits per frame

than error detection
– Redundancy bits are sent all the time (every frame)
• Retransmission requires another copy to be transmitted
– Copy sent only on error

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 Usage
• Error correction useful when
– Error rate if high (e.g. wireless)
– Cost (e.g. latency) of retransmission is too high (e.g. satellite
link)

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 Framework
• Add redundant information to a frame to detect or correct errors
• At Sender: Add k bits of redundant data to a m bit message
– k derived from original message through some algorithm
• At Receiver: Reapply same algorithm as sender to detect errors;
take corrective action if necessary
• Examples:
– Detection: k << m; k = 32; m ~12,000 for Ethernet
– Correction: Code Rate: m/(m+k)
• WiFi code rates range from 1/2 to 5/6

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 Hamming Distance
• Code word: n=m+k bits
• Hamming distance between two codewords:
• Number of bits they differ in
– XOR the two codewords
• Example:
– Codewords: 01110110, 00011101
– Distance is 5

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 Hamming Distance of a Code
• Number of possible code words is 2n
• Legal code words = 2m (determined by the algorithm)
• Among the list of legal code words, find the smallest
hamming distance between two code words
– This is the hamming distance of a code (=d)

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 Rules
• The error detection/correction capabilities are a
function of the code’s hamming distance
• Error Detection: Can detect up to d-1 errors
– To change one codeword to another require atleast d bit
changes
• Error Correction: Can correct up to (d-1)/2 errors
– The received codeword (in error) is still closer to the original
codeword than any other codeword

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 Example

• Repetition code
– 0 -> 000; 1 -> 111
– m=1, k=2; n=3
– Hamming distance is 3, code rate is 1/3
• Can detect up to 2 errors and correct up to 1 error

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 Design Considerations of a Code

• Reduce k to achieve high code rate

• For given values of n and k, maximize d
• Easy encoding and decoding
–Minimal memory and processing time

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 Focus

• Error Detection
• Reliable Transfer (retransmissions)
• Error Correction
–E.g. Reed-Solomon codes, Convolution codes,
–Turbo codes

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 Summary
• Important to detect errors in frames
• Error Recovery: FEC or Retransmission
– Inherent tradeoffs
• Framework (Overview)
– Hamming distance and error detection/correction
capabilities
– Design considerations
• Going forward: Error detection (in detail)
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 General Approach

• Add redundant information to a frame

• At Sender:
– Add k bits of redundant data to a m bit message
– k << m; k = 32; m = 12,000 for Ethernet
– k derived from original message through some algorithm
• At Receiver:
– Reapply same algorithm as sender to detect errors; take corrective action
if necessary

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 Parity Bit

• Even Parity: 1100, send 11000

• Detects odd number of errors

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 Two Dimensional Parity
• Used by BISYNC protocol for
ASCII characters

• “N + 8” bits of redundancy for

“N” ASCII characters (character
is 7 bits)

• Catches all 1, 2, 3 bit errors and

most 4 bit errors

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 Internet Checksum

• Used at the network layer (IP header)

• Algorithm:
– View data to be transmitted as a sequence of 16-bit integers.
– Add the integers using 16 bit one's complement arithmetic.
– Take the one's complement of the result – this result is the
checksum
– Receiver performs same calculation on received data and
compares result with received checksum
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 Example
• Sender: IPV4 header in hexadecimal
– 4500 0073 0000 4000 4011 c0a8 0001 c0a8 00c7 (16-bit words)
– Sum up the words (can use 32 bits): 0002 479c
– Add carry to the 16-bit sum: 479e
– Take the complement: b861 checksum
• Receiver:
– Sum up the words including checksum (use 32 bits): 2fffd
– Add carry to the 16 bit sum: ffff (= 0 in 1’s complement) no error
was detected
example values from wikipedia
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 Internet Checksum

• Not very strong in detecting errors

– Pair of single-bit errors, one which increments a word, other
decrements a word by same amount
• Why is it used still?
– Very easy to implement in software
– Majority of errors picked by CRC at link-level (implemented
in hardware)

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 Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)

• Used by many link-level protocols: HDLC, DDCMP,

Ethernet, Token-Ring
• Uses powerful math based on finite fields
• Background: Polynomial Arithmetic

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 Polynomial Arithmetic

• Represent a m bit message with a polynomial of

degree “m-1”
–11000101 = x7 + x6 +x2 + 1
• Arithmetic over the field of integers modulo 2
(coefficients are 1 or 0)
• Addition or subtraction are identical: XOR

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 Polynomial Arithmetic

• Polynomial division (very similar to integer

division)
–X/Y is X = q*Y + r
–For integers: 0<=r<Y
–For polynomials: degree of r (remainder polynomial)
is less than divisor polynomial

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 Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
• Message polynomial M(x): m bit message represented with a
polynomial of degree “m-1”;
– 11000101 = x7 + x6 +x2 + 1
• Sender and receiver agree on a divisor polynomial C(x) of degree k
– k: Number of redundancy bit
– E.g. C(x) = x3+x2+1 (degree k = 3)
– Choice of C(x) significantly effects error detection and is derived carefully
based on observed error patterns
– Ethernet uses CRC of 32 bits, HDLC, DDCMP use 16 bits
– Ethernet: x32+x26+x23+x22+x16+x12+x11+x10+x8+x7+x5+x4+x2+x+1

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 Idea
• Sender sends m+k bits => Transmitted message P(x)
• Contrive to make P(x) exactly divisibly by C(x)
• Received message R(x)
– No errors: R(x) = P(x), exactly divisible by C(x)
– Errors: R(x) ~= P(x); likely not divisible by C(x)

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 Generate P(x)

• You have M(x) and C(x). Generate P(x)

• Multiply M(x) by xk to get T(x)
– Add k zeros at the end of the message
– Divide T(x) by C(x) to get remainder R(x)
• Subtract remainder R(x) from T(x) to get P(x)
• P(x) is now exactly divisible by C(x)

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 Details

• T(x) = x^k M(x) = Q(x) C(x) + R(x)

• P(x) = x^k M(x) –R(x) = x^kM(x) +R(x) =Q(x)C(x)
– Coefficients of R(x) are the redundant bits
– Transmitted Bits: Messaged (n) bits, followed by redundant
bits (k)

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 Example

• Message (M): 11001011

• Divisor (C): 1101

• T: 11001011000

• Remainder (R): 101

• Transmitted Bits (P): 11001011101

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 Error Detection

• Received polynomial = P(x) + E(x)

• E(x) captures bit map of the positions of errors
• Cannot detect errors if E(x) is also divisible by C(x)
• Goal: Design C(x) such that for anticipated error
patterns, E(x) is not divisible by C(x)

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 Example
• Detect all instances of odd number of bit errors
• E(x) contains odd number of terms with coefficient of ‘1’
– Implies E(1) = 1

• If C(x) were a factor of E(x), then C(1) would also have to be 1

• If C(1) = 0, we can conclude C(x) does not divide E(x)
• If C(x) has some factor of the form x^i+1, then C(1)=0

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 Capabilities
• All single-bit errors, if xk and x0 have non-zero coefficients
• All double-bit errors, if C(x) has at least three terms
• All odd bit errors, if C(x) contains the factor (x + 1)
• Any bursts of length <= k, if C(x) includes a constant term (x0
term)
• CRC is easily implementable on shift registers

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 Data Link Layer :
Media Access Control
(MAC)
 Problem
• Status: Can transfer data reliably between two point-to-point
nodes
• Next: How to make a few tens of nodes talk?

?
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 Outline
• How to interconnect nodes? Network Topology
• How to mediate access among the nodes? Media Access
Control (MAC)
– Categorize and discuss some popular MAC protocols
• Overview, merits and demerits

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 Network Topologies

Note: Shared Wire or Medium is broadcast

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 Types of Transmission
• Unicast:
– Packet is intended for one node only
• Broadcast
– Packet intended for everyone
• Multicast
– Packet intended for a subset.

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 Media Access Control (MAC)

• Two or more simultaneous transmissions by nodes 

interference (collision)
• MAC: Protocol that determines how nodes share
channel
– Determine when a node can transmit
– Communication about channel sharing must use channel
itself!

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 Ideal MAC
• Broadcast channel of rate R bps
– When one node wants to transmit, it can send at rate R.
– When M nodes want to transmit, each can send at average
rate R/M
– Simple and easy to implement
– Fault tolerant

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 Human Analogy

• Speed Dating Party: Couples want to talk with each

other
– Assumption: Everyone talks loudly, so everyone can hear
everyone else in the room  If two speaker talk at same
time, none can understand what was talked
• How would you facilitate meaningful conversations (no
interference)?

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Channel Partitioning Protocols

Divide resource into smaller “pieces”.

Allocate piece to node for exclusive use.
 Time Division Multiplexing
• Allocate couples different time slots  Time Division
Multiplexing (TDM)
• Time divided into time frames. Time frames divided into N
time slots. Each sender allocated one time slot.
• Disadvantage: Sender limited to R/N even when other senders
are idle, channel access delay

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 Frequency Division Multiplexing
• Move couples to different rooms Frequency Division
Multiplexing (FDM)
• Spectrum divided into frequency bands
– Sender/Receivers tune in to assigned frequency band
– If there are N senders, each sender gets R/N bandwidth
• Disadvantages:
– A sender limited to R/N even when other senders are idle
– Sender-Receiver channel coordination

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Frequency Division Multiplexing

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 Human Analogy

• Speed Dating Party: Couples need to talk with each

other
– Assumption: Everyone talks loudly, so everyone can hear
everyone else in the room
• How would you facilitate meaningful conversations (no
interference)?

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 Random Access Protocols

• Polite Speaker: Listen. If its quiet, start talking. If this

clashes with others, backoff and try again.
• No a priori coordination among nodes
• Sender transmits at full rate. If two or more transmit at
same time  Collision

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 Random Access Protocols

• Specify:
– How to detect collisions?
– How to recover from collisions?
• Disadvantages:
– High load leads to too many collisions and wastage of
resources

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 Taking Turns Protocols
• Quickly poll to see who wants to talk, give time slots to only
speakers
• Channel partitioning MAC protocols: efficient and fair at high
load, inefficient at low load
• Random access MAC protocols: efficient at low load, inefficient
at high load
• Taking Turns protocols: Make the best of both worlds!

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 Polling (Centralized)
• A central coordinator polls nodes in a round robin fashion
• Disadvantages:
– Polling overhead (single user will get rate < R)
– Single point of failure (coordinator)

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 Token Passing (Decentralized)
• Control token passed from one node to next in certain order
• Concerns
– Token overhead
– Single point of failure (token)

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 Summary
• Many nodes sharing a link  Need Media Access Control
• Three broad classes of Protocols:
– Channel Partitioning: Divide resource into smaller “pieces” (time
slots, frequency, code); Allocate piece to node for exclusive use
– Random Access: Allow full access to resource but provide means to
recover from collisions
– Taking turns: Take turns using the resource, but nodes with more
need get longer turns
• Next: Explore some popular technologies along with their
corresponding MAC

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Aloha
 Background
• 1970’s : Wireless computer network developed at University of
Hawaii to interconnect Hawaiian islands
– First operational packet radio network
• Inspiration to many standards: Ethernet, WiFi, Cellular (random
access channels)
• Simple and relatively easy to analyze

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 Pure Aloha
• Senders transmit whenever they have a packet to send
• Sender can determine status of packet (intact or collision) at
end of transmission
• If collision, sender waits a random amount of time and tries
again

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 Efficiency
• What is the efficiency of ALOHA?
– What is the probability that a transmitted frame does not suffer
collision?

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 Assumptions
• Frames are of equal length
• Probability of k transmission attempts per frame time (old
retransmissions and new) is Poisson with mean G per frame
time.
– Pr[k] = Gk e-G / k!

(Infinite user population generating new frames with a poisson

distribution with mean rate less than 1 per frame)

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 Throughput

• Throughput S = G * Ps
– Ps: probability that a frame is successful i.e. did not suffer
collision
• Determine Ps
– Under what conditions will a frame not suffer collision?

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Vulnerable Period

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 Analysis
• Consider the sequence of successive transmission attempts on
the channel.
• For some given i, let Ti be the time interval between the ith and
the i+1th transmission attempt
• ith attempt will be successful if both Ti and Ti-1 exceed frame
time
– Intervals are independent

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 Analysis

• From Poisson distribution, the inter arrival time

between attempts is exponential
– Pr (T > frame time) = e-G
– Prob of success = Ps = e-G * e-G = e-2G
– S = GPs = G e-2G
• Maximum Throughput: G = 0.5, S = 0.184 (18%)

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BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Slotted Aloha

• Time divided into discrete intervals (slots)

– Slot interval corresponds to frame time
• Nodes can transmit frames only at beginning of slots
– Nodes are time synchronized
• Vulnerable period reduced by half

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Vulnerable Period (Slotted Aloha)

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 Analysis
• S = G e-G
• Maximum Throughput: G=1, S = 1/e = 0.368 (36.8%)
• At G=1, empty slots is 37%, successes is 37% and collisions is
26%
• Higher values of G decrease empty slots, but increase collisions
exponentially

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 Another Method
• N nodes with many frames to send
• A node transmits with probability p in a slot
• Prob that a given node succeeds = p (1-p)N-1
• Prob that a slot is a success = E(N,p) = prob any node succeeds =
Np(1-p)N-1
• For maximum efficiency, find p such that maximizes Np(1-p)N-1
• p* turns out to be 1/N
• Efficiency = 1/e, In the limit N -> infinity

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 Theory vs Practice
• Assumptions very important
• Reality can be very different from theory
• Example:
– Poisson arrivals not true
– Fixed packet size not true
– Infinite population not true
– Other parameters, buffering, slotting

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 Summary
• Looked at two simple random access protocols – Pure Aloha
and Slotted Aloha
• Looked at how such protocols can be theoretically evaluated
• Maximum efficiency of both is rather poor
• Another class of random access protocols: CSMA (Carrier Sense
Multiple Access)

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 Outline
• CSMA class of protocols
– Persistent and Non-persistent
• Ethernet MAC : CSMA/CD
– Applicable for Bus or Star topology in shared mode

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 Problems with Aloha

• What causes collisions?

–Pure Aloha: Transmissions without care or concern for
channel state
–Slotted Aloha: Multiple arrivals in previous slot ->
collision in current slot (greedy to access channel)

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 CSMA
• ‘Listen before Talk’ – Carrier Sense
• If a node has a frame to send, listen to channel first
– If busy, don’t send frame --- don’t disrupt ongoing transmission
– If idle, send frame
• Two categories: persistent and non-persistent

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 1-Persistent CSMA
• Employed by Ethernet
• If a node has a frame to send:
– If channel busy, wait till it becomes idle, then transmit
– If channel idle, transmit
– If collision, wait a random amount of time and start over
• Better than Pure Aloha, but is it better than Slotted Aloha?

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 Non Persistent CSMA
• Used in 802.15.4 (Zigbee/Sensor technology)
• If a node has a frame to send:
– If channel busy, do not sense anymore. Wait a random amount of
time and try again
– If channel idle, transmit
– If collision, wait a random amount of time and start over
• Better channel utilization than 1-persistent but longer delays

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 P-persistent
• Employed by 802.11 (WiFi)
• Assumes a slotted system
• If a sender has a frame to send:
– If channel idle, transmit with probability p (defer to next slot with
probability q=1-p). Repeat till frame sent or channel busy due to
another transmission
– If channel busy, wait till idle. Repeat above.
– If collision, wait a random time and try again
• Good Tradeoff between non-persistent and 1-persistent

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 QUIZ
• In which of the following protocols can a channel be idle at the end of a transmission even when there are
nodes with traffic to send?
– Slotted aloha
– 1-persistent
– Non-persistent
– P-persisitent

• Which of the following protocols does better in terms of channel utilization at high loads?
– Slotted aloha
– 1 persistent
– Non persistent
– 0.5 persistent

• Which among the following is a slotted system?

– Pure aloha
– 1 persistent CSMA
– Non persistent CSMA
– P persistent CSMA

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 Ethernet MAC
• CSMA/CD: Carrier Sense Multiple Access (1-persistent) with
Collision Detection
– ‘Listen before talk’
– Simultaneous talking, stop talking reduces wastage of resource
• Following explanation applicable to 10Mbps Ethernet

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 Collision Detection

• Cases under which collision occurs?

– Two stations waiting for channel to become idle
– Two stations attempting transmission at same time on an idle
channel
– Two stations attempting transmission at slightly different times on an
idle channel
• Effect of propagation delay

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 Collision Detection

• Collision detection done by hardware

• Propagation delay affects efficiency
– Longer the propagation delay, higher chances of collision
• Worst case delay of detecting collision?
– One RTT

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 Collision Detection

• On detecting collision send a jamming signal of 32 bits

• Why jamming signal?
– Ethernet Frame is 96 bits (64 bits preamble + 32 jamming)
– Jamming extends the frame to allow collision detection

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 Frame Size
• Minimum frame size is 64 bytes (512 bits)
– 46 bytes of payload (18 byte header)
• Why this restriction?
– A host must transmit for one RTT to detect all collisions
– This RTT for 2500m long cable with 4 repeaters is about 51.2us
(10Mbps -> 512 bits)
• Maximum number of hosts: 1024 in a collision domain

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 CSMA/CD

• Adaptor has a frame to send:

– If channel idle (for 96 bit time), start transmission. If busy,
wait until channel idle (+96 bits time) and then transmit.
– If no collision detected, done
– If collision detected, stop transmission, send jamming signal.
Enter exponential backoff
• (For 10Mbps, bit time is 0.1us)

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 Exponential Backoff

• When transmitting a frame after mth collision

– Wait for K*512 bit times and return to step 1
– K chosen at random from {0,1,2 ….. 2m-1} m = min (n,10)
– 1st collision: choose K from {0,1}
– 2nd collision: choose K from {0,1,2,3}
– After 10th collisions, choose K from {0,1,2,3,4,…,1023}
– Maximum number of transmissions of a frame: 16 (15
retransmissions)
– Size of k grows exponentially after each collision

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 Exponential Backoff

• Why exponential backoff?

– Adapts to current load
– Not very fair (Capture effect)
• Why 512 bit time?
– Ensures that if a node chose a lower value of K than any
other node, it can transmit without collision

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 Efficiency
• Long run fraction of ‘useful’ time on the channel
– Large number of nodes with large number of frames to transmit
– Efficiency = 1 / [1+5(Tprop/Ttx)]

• Tprop = max prop time between 2 nodes in LAN

• Ttx = time to transmit a frame
• As Tprop approaches 0 or Ttx becomes large, efficiency
approaches 1

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 Exercise
• Suppose you want to employ CSMA/CD (not the Ethernet
standard as such) on a bus topology of length 2km and rate
10Mbps. What minimum size frame in bytes would you use?
Format X. Assume speed of light is 2* 10^8m/s

Ans. 25
• The propogation delay is 2 * 10^3/2*10^8 = 10us. RTT = 20us.
Bits that can be sent during 20us = 200 bits = 25 bytes.
Hence we need a frame size of at least 25 bytes.

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 Ethernet Capture Effect
• Two stations A, B employing Ethernet standard are competing for access. Suppose,
both stations have many frames to send (labelled A1, A2, ... for A and B1, B2, .... for
B). Suppose A and B simultaneously transmit their respective first frames and
collide. After their first collision, A chooses k=0, while B chooses k=1. This ensures
that transmission of A1 is successful while B1 is yet to meet with success. At the end
of A1's transmission, A attempts to send A2 and B attempts to send B1. What is the
probability that A2's transmission succeeds over B1's?
•
Ans. 0.625.
A is choosing between k = {0,1}, while B is choosing between k = {0,1,2,3}. The number
of possible combinations is 2 * 4 = 8. Out of these, if A chose k=0, it will win if B chose
{1,2,3} = 3 choices But if A chose k=1, it will win if B chose {2,3} = 2 choice. Hence A2
will succeed = 5/8.

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Exercise
• Suppose two nodes A and B both transmit packets at the same time and
collide. As soon as they collide, they send the jamming signal and enter
exponential backoff. Assume the time at which both A and B finish
transmitting the last bit of the jamming signal is set to 0, and the one way
propagation delay between the nodes is 250 bit times. Also suppose that A
chose a value of k=0 and B chose a value of k=1 (waits 512 bit times).
1. When does node A begin transmission? Express the answer in terms of
bit times.
2. When does node A's first bit reaches B relative to time 0? Express answer
in bit times.
3. When does node B attempt to transmit its first bit?

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Computer Networks
CS F303

Obtaining IP Addresses
Ashutosh Bhatia
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
BITS Pilani Birla Institute of Technology and Science
Pilani|Dubai|Goa|Hyderabad Pilani Campus, Pilani
 Problem Statement

• IP layer forwarding is based on IP addresses

• Next-hop delivery based on Link addresses (MAC)

• Need to perform IP to MAC address translation

• Answer: Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
• Operates at Link layer (Frame type = 0x0806)

• Based on broadcast: What is the MAC address corresponding

to given IP address?
– Host with matching IP address replies

• Each host maintains a cache with IP to MAC translations

– Entries in cache timed out periodically (15 min)
– arp –a shows all the ARP cache entries

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

• Originator: Add entry to cache corresponding to target

• Target: Add entry to cache corresponding to the originator

(sender)

• Intermediate hosts: Refresh existing entries

• When forwarding a datagram, check cache, if no mapping,
invoke ARP

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 ARP Packet Format

Numbers in brackets capture mapping IP

addresses to Ethernet addresses

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Proxy ARP
• Router answers ARP requests for a host on of the network on another
interface
• The sender of the ARP request thinks that the router is the destination host
• The router acts as proxy agent for the destination host, and relays its packets
• Motivation
– Can hide a number of machines
– All packets for these machines have to pass through the router running
Proxy ARP, where the packets can be examined
– The sender does not know that its packets are passing through a machine
and are being checked

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 How Does Proxy ARP Work?
• The Host A (172.16.10.100) on Subnet A needs to send
packets to Host D (172.16.20.200) on Subnet B.

• As Host A has a /16 subnet mask, it believes that it is

directly connected to Host D, so it sends an ARP request
to Host D. But does not reach Host D.

• The router sends Proxy ARP reply to Host A telling its

own MAC address as the host D MAC address .

• Upon receipt of this ARP reply, Host A updates its ARP

table

• Later whenever router receives a packet for host D at

interface e0 from anybody in subnet A, it relays the
packet to interface e1
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Gratuitous ARP
• Wireshark/Tcpdump Output
– arp who-has IP_x tell IP_y
– Source protocol address: IP_y
– Target protocol address: IP_x

• Sometimes, one sees IP_x= IP_y

– The sender knows its address; yet it issues a request asking to resolve its address
– Hence “gratuitous”
– Does not expect a reply

• But if a reply arrives: misconfigured system!

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Gratuitous ARP

• A feature of ARP
– Host H has an entry in its ARP cache for IP address X
– It receives an ARP request from IP address X for some
address Y
– Even though H does not reply to the ARP request, it updates
its ARP cache with X’s hardware address (contained in the
ARP Req)
– “Latest” hardware address is maintained

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Uses of Gratuitous ARPs
• Backup server taking over from a failed server

• After detecting that the primary server has failed, the backup
server

– Issues a gratuitous ARP request, with the primary server’s IP address and
its own hardware address

– Causes all machines to update their ARP cache entries, so that the
backup’s hardware address is noted

– Henceforth, all traffic is directed to the backup server

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956