Chapter 20

Network Layer:
Internet Protocol

20.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 20-1 INTERNETWORKING

In this section, we discuss internetworking, connecting

networks together to make an internetwork or an
internet.

Topics discussed in this section:

Need for Network Layer
Internet as a Datagram Network
Internet as a Connectionless Network

20.2
 Figure 20.1 Links between two hosts

20.3
 Figure 20.2 Network layer in an internetwork

20.4
 Figure 20.3 Network layer at the source, router, and destination

20.5
 Figure 20.3 Network layer at the source, router, and destination (continued)

20.6
Packet Switching
 Data transmitted in small packets
 Typically less than 1500 bytes (why?)

 Longer messages split into series of packets

 Each packet contains a portion of user data

plus some control info

 Control info
 Routing (addressing) info

 Packets are received, stored briefly (buffered)

and past on to the next node
 Store and forward

William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
Use of Packets

William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
Switching Technique
 Station breaks long message into
packets
 Packets sent one at a time to the
network
 Packets handled in two ways
 Datagram
 Virtual circuit

William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
Datagram
 Each packet treated independently
 Packets can take any practical route
 Packets may arrive out of order
 Packets may go missing
 Up to receiver to re-order packets
and recover from missing packets

William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
 Datagram
Diagram

William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
Virtual Circuit
 Preplanned route established before any
packets sent
 Call request and call accept packets
establish connection (handshake)
 Each packet contains a virtual circuit
identifier instead of destination address
 No routing decisions required for each
packet
 Clear request to drop circuit
 Not a dedicated path
William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
 Virtual
Circuit
Diagram

William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
Virtual Circuits v Datagram
 Virtual circuits
 Network can provide sequencing and error control

 Packets are forwarded more quickly


No routing decisions to make
 Less reliable


Loss of a node looses all circuits through that
node
 Datagram
 No call setup phase


Better if few packets
 More flexible


Routing can be used to avoid congested parts of
the network
William Stallings.. Data and Computer Communications, 7/E, Prentice Hall, 2004.
 Note

Switching at the network layer in the

Internet uses the datagram approach to
packet switching.

20.15
 Note

Communication at the network layer in

the Internet is connectionless.

20.16
 20-2 IPv4

The Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the delivery

mechanism used by the TCP/IP protocols.

Topics discussed in this section:

Datagram
Fragmentation
Checksum
Options

20.17
 Figure 20.4 Position of IPv4 in TCP/IP protocol suite

20.18
 Note

IPv4 is an unreliable and connectionless

datagram protocol – a best effort
delivery
Best effort means that IPv4 provides no
error control (except for error detection
on the header) or flow control
IPv4 does its best to get a transmission
through to its destination, but with no
guarantees
20.19
 Figure 20.5 IPv4 datagram format

20.20
 IPv4 Datagram Format
 Version (VER): version of the IP protocol.
Currently, the version is 4.
 Header length (HLEN): the total length
of the datagram header in 4-byte words.
 Services: service type or differentiated
services (not used now).
 Total length: total length (header plus
data) of the datagram in bytes.
 Total length of data = total length – header length

20.21
 IPv4 Datagram Format
 Identification: used in fragmentation
(discussed later).
 Flags: used in fragmentation (discussed later).
 Fragmentation offset: used in fragmentation
(discussed later).
 Time to live: it is used to control the
maximum number hops visited by the
datagram.
 Protocol: defines the higher-level protocol that
uses the services of the IPV4 layer.

20.22
 IPv4 Datagram Format
 Checksum: 1’s compliment
checksum (introduced in Chapter
10).
 Source address: is the IPv4 address
of the source.
 Destination address: is the IPv4
address of the source.

20.23
 Note

The total length field defines the total

length of the datagram including the
header.

20.24
 Figure 20.7 Encapsulation of a small datagram in an Ethernet frame

One of the reason why “total length”

field is required.

20.25
 Figure 20.8 Protocol field and encapsulated data

20.26
 Table 20.4 Protocol values

20.27
 Example 20.1

An IPv4 packet has arrived with the first 8 bits as shown:

01000010
The receiver discards the packet. Why?

Solution
There is an error in this packet. The 4 leftmost bits (0100)
show the version, which is correct. The next 4 bits (0010)
show an invalid header length (2 × 4 = 8). The minimum
number of bytes in the header must be 20. The packet has
been corrupted in transmission.

20.28
 Example 20.2

In an IPv4 packet, the value of HLEN is 1000 in binary.

How many bytes of options are being carried by this
packet?

Solution
The HLEN value is 8, which means the total number of
bytes in the header is 8 × 4, or 32 bytes. The first 20 bytes
are the base header, the next 12 bytes are the options.

20.29
 Example 20.3

In an IPv4 packet, the value of HLEN is 5, and the value

of the total length field is 0x0028. How many bytes of
data are being carried by this packet?

Solution
The HLEN value is 5, which means the total number of
bytes in the header is 5 × 4, or 20 bytes (no options). The
total length is 40 bytes, which means the packet is
carrying 20 bytes of data (40 − 20).

20.30
 Example 20.4

An IPv4 packet has arrived with the first few hexadecimal

digits as shown.
0x45000028000100000102 . . .
How many hops can this packet travel before being
dropped? The data belong to what upper-layer protocol?

Solution
To find the time-to-live field, we skip 8 bytes. The time-to-
live field is the ninth byte, which is 01. This means the
packet can travel only one hop. The protocol field is the
next byte (02), which means that the upper-layer protocol
is IGMP.
20.31
 Example 20.4

BITS 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

BINARY 0100 0101 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010 1000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0010
DEC 4 5 0 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2
IP FIELD VER HLEN SERVICE TOTAL LENGTH IDENTIFICATION FLAG AND FRAG OFFSET TIMETOLIVE PROTOCOL
0 x 4 5 0 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2

20.32
 Figure 20.9 Maximum transfer unit (MTU)

20.33
 Table 20.5 MTUs for some networks

20.34
 Fields Related to
Fragmentation
 Identification: identifies a datagram
originating from the source host. A
combination of the identification and
source address must uniquely define a
datagram as it leaves the source node.
 Flags: see next slide.
 Fragmentation offset: is the offset
of the data in the original datagram
measured in units of 8 bytes.
20.35
 Figure 20.10 Flags (3 bits) used in fragmentation

• first bit: reserved (not used)

• second bit: = 1 requires the packet not to be fragmented
drops the packet if it is > MTU

• third bit: =1 more fragmented packets later

=0 the last fragmented packet

20.36
 Figure 20.11 Fragmentation example

20.37
 Figure 20.12 Detailed fragmentation example

20.38
 Example 20.5

A packet has arrived with an M bit value of 0. Is this the

first fragment, the last fragment, or a middle fragment?
Do we know if the packet was fragmented?

Solution
If the M bit is 0, it means that there are no more
fragments; the fragment is the last one. However, we
cannot say if the original packet was fragmented or not. A
non-fragmented packet is considered the last fragment.
We need more information (the value of the
fragmentation offset).
20.39
 Example 20.6

A packet has arrived with an M bit value of 1. Is this the

first fragment, the last fragment, or a middle fragment?
Do we know if the packet was fragmented?

Solution
If the M bit is 1, it means that there is at least one more
fragment. This fragment can be the first one or a middle
one, but not the last one. We don’t know if it is the first
one or a middle one; we need more information (the
value of the fragmentation offset).

20.40
 Example 20.7

A packet has arrived with an M bit value of 1 and a

fragmentation offset value of 0. Is this the first fragment,
the last fragment, or a middle fragment?

Solution
Because the M bit is 1, it is either the first fragment or a
middle one. Because the offset value is 0, it is the first
fragment.

20.41
 Example 20.8

A packet has arrived in which the offset value is 100.

What is the number of the first byte? Do we know the
number of the last byte?

Solution
To find the number of the first byte, we multiply the offset
value by 8. This means that the first byte number is 800.
We cannot determine the number of the last byte unless
we know the length.

20.42
 Example 20.9

A packet has arrived in which the offset value is 100, the

value of HLEN is 5, and the value of the total length field
is 100. What are the numbers of the first byte and the last
byte?
Solution
The first byte number is 100 × 8 = 800. The total length is
100 bytes, and the header length is 20 bytes (5 × 4), which
means that there are 80 bytes in this datagram. If the first
byte number is 800, the last byte number must be 879.

20.43
 IPv4 Checksum

• IPv4 checksum use the 1’s compliment method

(chapter 10)
• Checksum only computes for IP header, not data
• Upper layer has checksum for data portion
• Header always changes in each router
• Header is chunked to 16-bit sections for computing

20.44
 Figure 20.13 Example of checksum calculation in IPv4

20.45
 20-3 IPv6

The network layer protocol in the TCP/IP protocol

suite is currently IPv4. Although IPv4 is well designed,
data communication has evolved since the inception of
IPv4 in the 1970s. IPv4 has some deficiencies that
make it unsuitable for the fast-growing Internet.

Topics discussed in this section:

Advantages
Packet Format
Extension Headers

20.46
IPv6: Advantages
 Larger address space.
 Better header format.
 New options.
 Allowance for extensions.
 Support for resource allocation.
 Support for more security.
 Figure 20.15 IPv6 datagram header and payload

20.48
 Figure 20.16 Format of an IPv6 datagram

Priority
Protocol

20.49
 Table 20.9 Comparison between IPv4 and IPv6 packet headers

20.50
 20-4 TRANSITION FROM IPv4 TO IPv6

Because of the huge number of systems on the

Internet, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 cannot
happen suddenly. It takes a considerable amount of
time before every system in the Internet can move from
IPv4 to IPv6. The transition must be smooth to prevent
any problems between IPv4 and IPv6 systems.

Topics discussed in this section:

Dual Stack
Tunneling
Header Translation
20.51
 Figure 20.18 Three transition strategies

20.52
 Figure 20.19 Dual stack

Host uses DNS query result to determine which IP to use

20.53
 Figure 20.20 Tunneling strategy

Popular used right now in many countries

20.54
 Figure 20.21 Header translation strategy

20.55