Chapter 5: Fundamentals of Ethernet

Undergraduate Program
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Data link layer standards
• The data link layer services and specifications are defined by multiple
standards based on a variety of technologies and media
• Designing interoperable standard

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IEEE standard for LAN
• IEEE 802 reference model
• Specifies functions of the physical layers and the data link layers of
major LAN protocols

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Wired LAN – Ethernet
• The most popular type of LAN currently in use
• Operates in the physical and data-link layer
• Supports wide range of data bandwidth (10 Mbps (standard Ethernet), 100
Mbps (fast Ethernet), 1000 Mbps (gigabit Ethernet), 10,000 Mbps (ten-gigabit
Ethernet), 100,000 Mbps,…
• Family of standards IEEE 802.2 (LLC) and IEEE 802.3 standards
(MAC + Physical layer )

• Frame format
• Min size: 64 B
• Max size: 1518 B

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Ethernet frame
• Preamble:
• contains 7 bytes (56 bits) of alternating 0s and 1s
• alerts the receiving system to the coming frame and enables it to synchronize its input timing.
The pattern provides only an alert and a timing pulse.
• The preamble is actually added at the physical layer and is not (formally) part of the frame.
• Start frame delimiter (SFD):
• The second field (1 byte: 10101011) signals the beginning of the frame.
• The SFD warns the station or stations that this is the last chance for synchronization.
• The last 2 bits is 11 and alerts the receiver that the next field is the destination address.
• Destination address (DA):
• 6 bytes and contains the physical address of the destination station
• Source address (SA):
• 6 bytes and contains the physical address of the sender
• Length or type:
• Used to define the upper-layer protocol using the MAC frame.
• Data (payload):
• This field carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols. It is a minimum of 46 and a
maximum of 1500 bytes.
• CRC:
• The last field contains error detection information, in this case a CRC-32.

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Ethernet: addressing
• Each station on an Ethernet network (such as a PC, workstation, or
printer) has its own network interface card (NIC)
• The NIC fits inside the station and provides the station with a 48-bit (6-
byte) physical address
• Example of an Ethernet address written as 12 hexadecimal digits; every byte (2
hexadecimal digits) is separated by a colon ( : ) or ( - ), as shown below:

07:01:02:01:2C:4B

07-01-02-01-2C-4B

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Cont.…
• A source address is always a
unicast address
• The destination address can be
unicast, multicast or broadcast
• If the least significant bit of the
first byte in a destination
address is 0, the address is
unicast (one to one)
• xxxxxxx0:xx: xx: xx: xx: xx
• Otherwise it is multicast (one to
many)
• xxxxxxx0:xx: xx: xx: xx: xx
• If all bits are 1’s, the
address is broadcast (the
recipients are all the station
on the LAN)
https://www.macvendorlookup.com/
• FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF

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Cont.…. (Unicast MAC address)
• One to one communication:
• If the sender does not know the MAC address of the destination it
will use Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) or Neighbor discovery
(ND)

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Cont.…. (Broadcast MAC address)

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Cont.…. (Multicast MAC address)

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Bridged LAN
• A bridge
• Designed for use between LAN that use identical protocols for the physical
and link layer
• Divides the networks into two more networks
• Raises the bandwidth
• Separate collision domains

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Cont.…
• Functions of a bridge
• The bridge makes no
modification to the
content or format of the
received frames
• simply transfer the
frames from one LAN to
the other
• The bridge should contain
enough buffer space to
meet peak demands
• The bridge must contain
addressing and routing
intelligence
• at least must know
which addresses are on
each network

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Forwarding table (MAC address table)
• Building forwarding table (MAC address table)
• Static - a route is selected for each source-destination pair of LANs
in the configuration
• dynamic configuration
• Dynamic learning

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Cont.…. (Bridged LAN )
• More than one bridges between LANs – loop problem in a
learning bridge

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The spanning tree approach
• The spanning tree approach is a mechanism in which
bridges automatically develop a routing table
• It is loop prevention protocol

• The process to find the spanning tree involves three steps:

• Each bridge is assigned a unique identifier
• Each bridge broadcasts this ID so that all bridges know which one
has the smallest ID
• The bridge with the smallest ID is selected as a root bridge
• The algorithm tries to find the shortest path (a path with the
shortest cost) from the root bridge to every other bridge or LAN
• Based on the spanning tree:
• Forwarding ports-forward a frame that the bridge receives
• Blocking ports -block the frames received by the bridge

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Cont.…

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Switched Ethernet
• Switches operate in full duplex, allowing simultaneous
communication between pair devise
• 100% bandwidth unitization
• It is an upscaled version compared with bridges as
• Bridges forwarding decision is hardware-based, have large number
of ports , and can run multiple STP instances.

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Frame forwarding Methods
• Store-and forward switching:
• Receives the frame and computes CRC for error detection. If the
CRC is correct it will forward it based on the information from MAC
table.
• Will not propagate errors from one node to the next.
• Is required for quality of service(QoS) analysis where traffic
prioritization is necessary.
• Cut through switching:
• Forwards the frame before all the data is received (by only reading
the destination MAC address)
• Can be
• Fast forwarding : offers the min latency by immediately forwarding
• Fragment free forwarding: conduct error checking on the first 64 bytes
of the frame.

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Memory Buffering on switches
• An Ethernet switch may use a buffering technique to store frames
before forwarding then or when the destination port is busy because of
congestion .

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Collusion and Broadcast Domain
• A collision domain is when data transmitted by devices on
a network segment collides with each other.
• A broadcast domain is when a device sends a packet to all
nodes on a network segment.

• 5 collision domain
• 2 Broadcast domain

• It is possible to create virtual segmentations on the network

with Virtual VLAN (VLAN)

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Virtual Local area Network (VLAN)
• Creates logical Layer-2 network segmentation
• VLANs logically segment switched networks based on the functions,
project teams, or applications of the organization regardless of the
physical location or connections to the network
• Segments the broadcast domain specific to each VLAN
• All stations used by a particular workgroup share the same VLAN,
regardless of the physical connection or location.

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Cont.…
• VLANs are created to provide segmentation services traditionally
provided by physical routers in LAN configurations.

• Switches may not bridge any trac between VLANs, as this would
violate the integrity of the VLAN broadcast domain.

• Traffic should only be routed between VLANs.

• Communication between different VLANs require layer 3 device(router)

• VLAN creation Can be based on port ID, MAC address, protocol or

application.

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