ADDRESSING

The four levels of addresses used

in an internet employing the TCP/IP
protocols are :
◦ Physical address
 MAC address/machine address
◦ Logical address
 IP address
◦ Port address
◦ Specific address
 URL, Email address, domain name
Relationship of layers and
addresses in TCP/IP
 Physical Addresses

The physical address, also known

as the Media Access Control (MAC)
or link address, is the address of a
node as defined by its LAN or WAN.
It is included in the frame used by
the data link layer. It is the lowest-
level address.
The physical addresses have
authority over the network (LAN or
WAN). The size and format of these
addresses vary depending on the
network. For example, ethernet
uses a 6-byte (48-bit) physical
address that is imprinted on the
network interface card (NIC).
Most local-area networks use a 48-
bit (6-byte) physical address
written as 12 hexadecimal digits;
every byte (2 hexadecimal digits)
is separated by a colon,
e.g:
07:01:02:01 :2C:4B
Fig 1: Physical addresses
A node with physical address 10
needs to send a frame to a node
with physical address 87. The two
nodes are connected by a link (bus
topology LAN). As the figure
shows, the computer with physical
address 10 is the sender, and the
computer with physical address 87
is the receiver.
The data link layer at the sender
receives data from an upper layer.It
encapsulates the data in a frame,
adding a header and a trailer. The
header carries the receiver and the
sender physical (link) addresses.
Note that in most data link
protocols, the destination address,
87 in this case, comes before the
source address (10 in this case).
In this bus topology, the frame is
propagated in both directions (left and
right). The frame propagated to the left dies
when it reaches the end of the cable if the
cable end is terminated appropriately. The
frame propagated to the right is
sent to every station on the network. Each
station with a physical address other than
87 drops
the frame because the destination address
in the frame does not match its own
physical address.
The intended destination
computer, however, finds a match
between the destination address in
the frame and its own physical
address. The frame is checked, the
header and trailer are dropped,
and the data part is decapsulated
and delivered to the upper layer.
 Logical Addresses

Logical addresses are necessary for

universal communications that are
independent of underlying physical
networks. Physical addresses are not
adequate in an internetwork
environment where different networks
can have different address formats. A
universal addressing system is
needed in which each host can be
identified uniquely, regardless of the
underlying physical network.
The logical addresses are designed
for this purpose. A logical address
in the Internet is currently a 32-bit
address that can uniquely define a
host connected to the Internet. No
two publicly addressed and visible
hosts on the Internet can have the
same IP address.
Fig 2: IP addresses
Figure 2 shows a part of an internet with
two routers connecting three LANs.
Each device (computer or router) has a
pair of addresses (logical and physical)
for each connection. In this case, each
computer is connected to only one link
and therefore has only one pair of
addresses. Each router, however, is
connected to three networks (only two
are shown in the figure). So each router
has three pairs of addresses, one for
each connection.
The computer with logical address
A and physical address 10 needs to
send a packet to the computer
with logical address P and physical
address 95.Letters are used to
show the logical addresses and
numbers for physical addresses,
but note that both are actually
numbers.
The sender encapsulates its data in a
packet at the network layer and adds
two logical
addresses (A and P). Note that in most
protocols, the logical source address
comes before the logical destination
address (contrary to the order of
physical addresses).The network
layer, however, needs to find the
physical address of the next hop
before the packet can be delivered.
The network layer consults its
routing table and finds the logical
address of the next hop (router 1) to
be F. The ARP finds the physical
address of router 1 that corresponds
to the logical address is 20. Now the
network layer passes this address to
the data link layer, which in turn,
encapsulates the packet with
physical destination address 20 and
physical source address 10.
The frame is received by every device
on LAN 1, but is discarded by all
except router 1, which finds that the
destination physical address in the
frame matches with its own physical
address. The router decapsulates the
packet from the frame to read the
logical destination address P. Since
the logical destination address does
not match the router's logical
address, the router knows that the
packet needs to be forwarded.
The router consults its routing table
and ARP to find the physical
destination address of the next hop
(router 2), creates a new frame,
encapsulates the packet, and sends it
to router 2. Note the physical
addresses in the frame. The source
physical address changes from 10 to
99. The destination physical address
changes from 20 (router 1 physical
address) to 33 (router 2 physical
address).
The logical source and destination
addresses must remain the same;
otherwise the packet will be lost. At
router 2 we have a similar scenario. The
physical addresses are changed, and a
new frame is sent to the destination
computer. When the frame reaches the
destination, the packet is decapsulated.
The destination logical address P matches
the logical address of the computer. The
data is decapsulated from the packet and
delivered to the upper layer
 Port addresses
The IP address and the physical
address are necessary for a quantity
of data to travel from a source to the
destination host. However, arrival at
the destination host is not the final
objective of data communications on
the Internet. A system that sends
nothing but data from one computer
to another is not complete.
Today, computers are devices that can
run multiple processes at the same
time. The end objective of Internet
communica­tion is a process
communicating with another process.
For example, computer A can
communicate with computer C by
using TELNET. At the same time,
computer A com­municates with
computer B by using the File Transfer
Protocol (FTP).
For these processes to receive
data simultaneously, we need a
method to label the different
processes.In other words, they
need addresses. In the TCP/IP
architecture, the label assigned to
a process is called a port address.
A port address in TCP/IP is 16 bits
in length.
Fig 3 :Port addresses
Figure 3 shows two computers
communicating via the Internet. The
sending computer is run­ning three
processes at this time with port
addresses a, b, and c. The receiving
computer is running two processes
at this time with port addresses
j and k. Process a in the sending
computer needs to communicate
with process j in the receiving
computer.
Note that although both computers are
using the same application, FTP, for
example, the port addresses are
different because one is a client
program and the other is a server
program. To show that data from process
a need to be delivered to process j, and
not k, the transport layer encapsulates
data from the application layer in a
packet and adds two port addresses (a
and j), source and destination.
The packet from the transport
layer is then encapsulated in
another packet at the network
layer with logical source and
destination addresses (A and P).
The physical addresses have not
been shown because they change
from hop to hop inside the cloud
designated as the Internet.
 Specific Addresses
Some applications have user-friendly
addresses that are designed for that
specific address.Examples include the e-
mail address (for example,
[email protected] which defines the
recipient of an e-mail and the Universal
Resource Locator (URL (for example,
www.google.com, which is used to find a
document on the World Wide Web. These
addresses, however, get changed to the
corresponding port and logical
addresses by the sending computer