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Chapter 3-1 - TCP-IP Protocol Fundamental

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33 views17 pages

Chapter 3-1 - TCP-IP Protocol Fundamental

Uploaded by

Afendey Arthur
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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TCP/IP Protocol

Fundamental
TCP/IP Protocol Suite
Communications between computers on a network is done through
protocol suits. The most widely used and most widely available
protocol suite is TCP/IP protocol suite. A protocol suite consists of
a layered architecture where each layer depicts some
functionality which can be carried out by a protocol.

Each layer usually has more than one protocol options to carry out
the responsibility that the layers adheres to. TCP/IP is normally
considered to be a 4 layer system. The 4 layers are as follows:
1. Application layer
2. Transport layer
3. Network layer
4. Data Link layer
The TCP/IP Layers
1. Application layer
This is the top layer of TCP/IP protocol suite. This layer
includes applications or processes that use transport layer
protocols to deliver the data to destination computers.

At each layer there are certain protocol options to carry out


the task designated to that particular layer. So, application
layer also has various protocols that applications use to
communicate with second layer, the transport layer. Some of
the popular application protocols are:
● HTTP (Hypertext transfer protocol
● FTP (File transfer protocol)
● SMTP (Simple mail transfer protocol)
● SNMP (Simple network management protocol)
2. Transport Layer
This layer provides backbone to data flow
between two hosts. This layer receives data
from the application layer above it. There are
many protocols that work at this layer but the
two most commonly used protocols at
transport layer are TCP and UDP.
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol
TCP divides the data (coming from the application layer) into proper
sized chunks and then passes these chunks onto the network. It
acknowledges received packets, waits for the acknowledgements are
not received in time.

The term ‘reliable connection’ is used where it is not desired to loose


any information that is being transferred over the network through
this connection. So, the protocol used for this type of connection
must provide the mechanism to achieve this desired characteristic.

For example, while downloading a file, it is not desired to loose any


information (bytes) as it may lead to corruption of download content.
UDP - User Datagram Protocol
UDP provides a comparatively simpler but unreliable
service by sending packets from one host to another. UDP
does not take any extra measures to ensure that data sent
is received by the target host or not.

The term ‘unreliable connection’ are used where loss of


some information does not hamper the task being fulfilled
through this connection.

For example while streaming a video, loss of few bytes of


information due to some reason is acceptable as this does
not harm the user experience much.
3. Network Layer
This layer is also known as internet layer. The
main purpose of this layer is to organize or
handle the movement of data on network.

By movement of data, we generally mean


routing of data over the network. The main
protocol used at this layer is IP. While ICMP
(used by popular ‘ping’ command) and IGMP
are also used at this layer.
4. Data Link Layer
This layer is also known as network interface layer. This
layer normally consists of device drivers in the OS and the
network interface card take care of the communication
details with the media being used to transfer the data
over the network.

In most of the cases, this media is in the form of cables.


Some of the famous protocols that are used at this layer
include ARP (Address Resolution Protocol), PPP (Point to
point protocol) etc.
TCP/IP Concept Example
One thing which is worth taking note is that the
interaction between two computers over the network
through TCP/IP protocol suite takes place in the form of a
client server architecture.

Client requests for a service while the server processes


the request for client.

Lets take a very simple example to make TCP/IP concept


more clear.
Consider the data flow when you open a
website.
TCP/IP Concept Example
As seen in the above figure, the information flows
downward through each layer on the host machine. At the
first layer, since http protocol is being used, so an HTTP
request is formed and sent to the transport layer.

Here the protocol TCP assigns some more information


(like sequence number, source port number, destination
port number, time etc) to the data coming from upper
layer so that the communication remains reliable i.e, a
track os sent data and received data could be maintained.
At the next lower layer, IP adds its own information over
the data coming from transport layer. This information
would help in packet travelling over the network.

Lastly, the data link layer makes sure the data transfer
to/from the physical media is done properly. Here again
the communication done at the data link layer can be
reliable or unreliable.

This information travels on the physical media (like


Ethernet) and reaches the target machine.
Consider the data flow when you open a
website.
Now, at the target machine (which in our case is the
machine at which the website is hosted) the same series
of interactions happen, but in reverse order.

The packet is first received at the data link layer. At this


layer the information (that was stuffed by the data link
layer protocol of the host machine) is read and the rest of
the data is passed to the upper layer.
Similarly at the Network layer, the information set by the
Network layer protocol of host machine is read and rest of the
information is passed on the next upper layer. Same happens at
the transport layer and finally the HTTP request sent by the
host application (your browser) is received by the target
application (website server).

One would wonder what happens when information particular


to each layer is read by the corresponding protocols at the
target machine or why is it required? Well, lets understand this
by an example of TCP protocol present at transport layer. At
the host machine this protocol adds information like sequence
number to each packet sent by this layer.
At the target machine, when packet reaches at this layer,
the TCP at this layer makes note of the sequence number
of the packet and sends an acknowledgment (which is
received sequence number +1).

Now, if the host TCP does not receive the


acknowledgement within some specified time, it resends
the same packet. So this way TCP makes sure that no
packet gets lost. So we see that protocol at every layer
reads the information set by its counterpart to achieve
the functionality of the layer it represents.

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