IP as the IoT Network Layer

N Amanquah
Overview
• What is IP, what is it used for?
• Why relevant for IoT?
• Challenges with using IP in IoT for constrained devices
• Optimizing for IoT
• Adapting vs Adopting
• Common Protocols

• Objective:
• To understand how IP may be used to good advantage in IoT networks, and
adjustments that may be need.
• Also explore options for routing factoring in IP
 What is IP
• IP is a protocol:
• “set of rules, for routing and addressing packets of data so that they can travel
across networks and arrive at the correct destination”
• Delivery is solely based on addresses in packet header.
• IP address uniquely identifies a device on Internet or network
• Routers use IP addresses and a routing algorithm to forward packets
• Eg IP address: 192.168.1.5
• Private addresses
• Public addresses (static & dynamic)

Check your IP address with ipconfig/ifconfig

IPv4 & IPv6
• IPv4 introduced in 1983
• Not enough addresses in IPv4, (4.3 billion addresses)
• IPv6 gives us more unique addresses
• IoT can take advantage of IPv6!

• 32-bit address vs 128-bit address

• IPv4 binary bits separated by a dot(.), IPv6 binary bits separated by colon(:)
• >>>see your PC 4 groups vs 8 groups of 4
• 172.16.4.23 vs fe80::ef:ccca:5738:8674
• fe80:0000:0000:0000:00ef:ccca:5738:8674 (16 bytes)
• IPv6 is not yet completely adopted
 IP packet
IPv6 addresses are 16 bytes long
Min header =40bytes

IPv4: 20-bytes mandatory

Packet encapsulation review
• Looked at wireshark log, for accessing example.com

1-HTTP 2-TCP

3-IP
 An architectural design for L3:

What IP does for us

Assorted Lower (connectivity)
layers
Assorted Upper (application)
HTTP FTP SMTP POP layers

TCP UDP
L3 (network layer) independent of
IP (network layer)
L1 & L2 or >L4

CSMA/CA CSMA/CD 802.15.4e MAC

FHSS DSSS CDMA 802.15.4 PHY

802.15.4 wont work this way

Why is IP relevant for IoT?
 Routing
• Need to reach a remote DB or server.
• For message to reach destination,
• IP addresses should be on same network (same prefix)
• Suitable Mask
• subnet mask splits the IP address into the host and network addresses,
• Need for routers otherwise

Check hops taken using tracert/traceroute

Why consider IP for IoT?
• IP is
• Ubiquitous. –both general purpose & embedded systems
• Used in both IT and OT
• IP is scalable >> billions of internet users
• robust, some optimizations needed for voice, video etc
• Open and standards based, enables interoperability
• Versatile - handles both wired & wireless
• Stability & resilient – use in critical infrastructure & services -military, financial
• Manageable – well understood NW management * security
• Adoption in consumer market –common protocol to add on IoT devices to
• Basis for further innovation. Taken as a given, leverage IoT underpinning.
Strategies for networking with or w/o IP
• Without IP, need multiprotocol routers
• Adopt: Replace all non-IP layers with IP versions
• Adapt: Use gateways to translate between networks

• Examples:
• SCADA devices tend to tunnel serial data through IP network
• Zigbee devices forward data to gateway which translates between IP and
Zigbee
Challenges with using IP in IoT for
constrained devices
Challenges using IP in IoT (constrained devices)
• Some networks pass unidirectional data. eg
• Infrequent reporting of few bytes of data eg switch state, water meter reading
• Full IP stack is overkill.
• Without 2-way data, cannot update firmwire OTA
• Overhead of implementing IP
• IPv4 -20byte header, IPv6 is 40bytes,
• On top of this: UDP has 8, TCP has 20bytes
• For small infrequent data, overhead likely >> actual data
• Should IP be run? Should control plane IP based network services be run?
• Data Flow model: between which devices does data flow
• In IP, peers communicate. In IoT, most data is limited to a few application servers.
• Network Diversity:
• Adaptation is PHY+MAC combo specific. There will be islands of different technologies joined
by a gateway
Challenges using IP in IoT (constrained devices)
• Constrained devices may not have power and memory to run full IP
stack
• IoT devices often communicate over LLN. Lost packets compound
• Topology changes may occur. Convergence may be a challenge.
• Devices may be sleeping, to conserve power, not available to route for
others.

Good reasons to optimize

Adaptation or Adoption
 Adaptation or Adoption of IP
• 3 options:
• Class 0: Constrained devices/constrained resources:
• limited security & limited management features, few bytes of communications: use
adaptation model. [uses gateways and proxies]
• Class 1: Devices with enough power to implement stripped down IP stack OR
non-IP stack
• Can connect to IP network directly but cant run routing protocols like OSPF etc
• Adopt IP OR use gateway for non-IP stack
• Class 2: Devices with constrained networking (but capable) eg limited bw.
• Adoption model.
• Benefit for lightweight comms

• IETF RFC 7228 defines classes:

The working environment:
Working on Lossy networks
• LLN – low-power and lossy networks
• (lossy refers to network unreliability caused by disruptions in data flow or
packet loss)

• In general for lossy networks, underreact to failure

• Over reaction leads to network collapse.
• Keep control plane messaging to a minimum
• Conserve power, save bandwidth
Which IP version to support in an IoT network
• There is a move to IPv6 for IoT (lots of addresses available)
• IPv4 is entrenched.
• èsupport both IPv4 and v6 (because of legacy nodes)
• Considerations:
• Old cellular technologies for links use IPv4
• Legacy serial communications are supported on IPv4
• Some newer technologies only support IPv6 eg IEEE802.15.4 (WPAN), 1901.2
and Routing protocol for LLNs (RPL) is IPv6 only
Adaptation:
• Adaptation layer: Packages IP into lower layer protocols
• 6LoWPAN is an adaptation protocol
Adaptation strategies
• Header compression
Adaptation strategies -II
• Fragmentation
• IPv6 Max Transmission Unit (MTU) is at least 1280, max of 64 KiB
• For 802.15.4, MTU is 127.
• Fragmentation of IPv6 packets required. Done seamlessly
• Mesh-Under routing
• Can occur only in a single IP subnet, is a Layer 2 routing technique
• “Mesh addresses” from 6LowPAN are used for routing in the adaptation layer
• Multiple link hops may be needed for a single IP hop
• An edge gateway ends the mesh-under domain
• If different Link Layer technologies used, should use Mesh-Over routing
instead.
Common Protocol Examples
#1: TSCH: An adaptation layer for a deterministic
MAC
• TSCH- Time Slotted Channel Hopping 6LowPAN-Header Compression

• An add on to the 802.15.4 MAC

• TDMA schedule used for communication
• Deterministic. Suitable for industrial applications.
• IPv6 over TSCH is called 6TiSCH
• 6top is the sublayer b/t MAC and 6LoWPAN
#2: Routing Protocol over LLNs(RPL)
• Routing Protocol over Low-Power Lossy Networks à IPv6 based
• All nodes act as routers.
• Storing mode à keep full routing table
• Power and memory intensive, but shorter paths taken bt src and dest.
• All nodes make their own decisions
• Non-storing mode à store list of parents
• Results in directed acyclic graph (DAG). Only gateways store full table
• Data moves up to root to make decisions
• Suitable for constrained device.
• Bridging OT and IT with 6TiSCH
• Interview: https://www.iot-inc.com/bridging-ot-it-with-6tisch-video/
• Or : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M44PGBuBT0o
Supplementary information
Courtesy Mr Gatsi
 TCP/IP Protocol Suite

OSI & TCP/IP Models

IPv4 Addresses: Classful IP addressing
Exceptions & Special Cases
• Special cases:
• "loopback address" : 127.0.0.1 ❖ Non-routable addresses :
• 10.0.0.0 to
• 172.16.0.0 to
• 192.168.0.0 to
• Non-routable addresses cannot connect to the Internet
• Used within organizations to manage IP addresses
• IANA – Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
• Exemptions
• if hostid = 000....0 => IP address of the local network
• if hostid = 111....1 => "broadcast" address of the local network
IP Addresses and Subnetworks
• Subnetting allows arbitrary complexity of internetworked LANs within
an organization and insulates overall Internet from growth of network
numbers and routing complexity
• To the Internet, the network a appears like a single network
• CIDR: Classless Inter-Domain Routing →Classless addressing
• Other notation used to represent the netmask: CIDR notation
• CIDR format: IP address/’number bits for network portion’
• number after the ‘/’ represents the number of 1’s in the netmask
• E.g. : 132.212.203.0/24 indicates that the netmask is 255.255.255.0
Example of subnets
IPv6 addresses
• Three types of addresses:
• Unicast: The address corresponds to a single computer. A datagram sent to
the address is routed along a shortest path to the computer
• Multicast: The address corresponds to a set of computers, and membership in
the set can change at any time. IPv6 delivers one copy of the datagram to
each member of the set
• Anycast: The address corresponds to a set of computers that share a common
prefix. A datagram sent to the address is delivered to exactly one of the
computers (e.g. the computer closest to the sender),
IPV6 format
• Colon Hex format
• Optimization is achieved by using zero compression
• FF0C:0:0:0:0:0:0:B1 ➔FF0C::B1
• Representation of IPv4 in IPv6 addresses:
• Any IPv6 address that begins with 80 zero bits followed by 16 one bits
contains an IPv4 address in the low-order 32 bits
• IPv6 uses multicast addresses instead of broadcast