CNE 314: Computer Networks II

Lecture 01: The Internet Protocol (IP)

 Roadmap

• IP header format

• IP addressing

• IP forwarding
 Internetworking

• What is internetwork
– An arbitrary collection of networks interconnected to provide some sort
of host-host to packet delivery service

A simple internetwork where H represents hosts and R represents routers

 Internetworking
• What is IP
– IP stands for Internet Protocol
– Key tool used today to build scalable, heterogeneous internetworks
– It runs on all the nodes in a collection of networks and defines the
infrastructure that allows these nodes and networks to function as a
single logical internetwork

A simple internetwork showing the protocol layers

 IP Service Model

• Packet Delivery Model

– Connectionless model for data delivery
– Best-effort delivery (unreliable service)
• packets are lost
• packets are delivered out of order
• duplicate copies of a packet are delivered
• packets can be delayed for a long time
• Global Addressing Scheme
– Provides a way to identify all hosts in the network
 Basic IP functions
• Things you need to understand to do lab2
– Internet protocol
• IP header
• IP addressing
• IP forwarding
– Address resolution protocol
– Error reporting and control
• Internet Control Message Protocol
 Basic IP functions
• Things you need to understand to do lab2
– Internet protocol
• IP header
• IP addressing
• IP forwarding
– Address resolution protocol
– Error reporting and control
• Internet Control Message Protocol
 IP header format

• 20 bytes fixed length header + variable-length

Options
 IP header format

• Version (4 bits): 4
 IP header format

• HLen (4bits): the length of header in 32-bit words

– Maximum header length?
 IP header format

• TOS (8): type of service (not widely used)

– How to treat a packet, e.g., low delay
 IP header format

• Length (16 bits): packet length in bytes, including

the header
– 65,535 bytes
– Fragmentation and reassembly
 IP header format

• Ident, Flags, Offset

–Used for fragmentation and assembly
 IP header format

• Time To Live (TTL) (1byte):

– Specifies the longest path before a datagram is dropped
– Role of TTL field: Ensure that a packet is eventually dropped when a routing loop occurs

Used as follows:
– Sender sets the value (e.g., 64)
– Each router decrements the value by 1
– When the value reaches 0, the datagram is dropped
 IP header format

4 = IP-in-IP
encapsulation
• Protocol (1 byte):
– Specifies the higher-layer protocol. 6 = TCP 17 = UDP

– De-multiplexing to higher layers. 2 = IGMP

1 = ICMP

IP
 IP header format

• Header checksum (16 bits): header checksum

– Header only
– Computed at every hop
 Internet Checksum Algorithm
• Sender
– Consider the header as a sequence of 16-bit integers.
– Add them together using 16-bit ones complement
arithmetic (explained next slide) and then take the ones
complement of the result.
– That 16-bit number is the checksum
• Receiver
– Perform the same calculation on the received header and
compare the result with the received checksum
– If any transmitted header, including the checksum itself, is
corrupted, then the results will not match, so the receiver
knows that an error occurred
 Internet Checksum Algorithm

• When adding numbers in ones complement

arithmetic, a carryout from the most significant bit
needs to be added to the result.
 Internet Checksum Algorithm

• If we add 1010 and 1100 ignoring the carry, we get

0110
• In ones complement arithmetic, the fact that this
operation caused a carry from the most significant bit
causes us to increment the result, giving 0111
 IP header format

• SourceAddr, DestinationAddr
– Source & destination IP addresses
 IP header format

• Options:
• Record Route: each router that processes the packet adds its IP
address to the header.
• Timestamp: each router that processes the packet adds its IP
address and time to the header.
• (loose) Source Routing: specifies a list of routers that must be
traversed.
• (strict) Source Routing: specifies a list of the only routers that
can be traversed.
• IP options increase routers processing overhead

• Pad:
– Padding bytes are added to ensure that header ends
on a 4-byte boundary
 Overview

• IP header format

• IP addressing

• IP forwarding
 What is an IP Address?
• An IP address is a unique global identifier for a
network interface
– An IP address uniquely identifies a network location

• Routers forward a packet based on the destination

address of the packet

• Uniqueness ensures global reachability

 IP versions

• IPv4 (32-bit)
– Classful IP addresses (obsolete)
– Classless inter-domain routing (CIDR) (RFC 854,
current standard)

• IP Version 6 addresses (128-bit)

 Dotted Decimal Notation

• Each byte is identified by a decimal number in

the range [0…255]:

10000000 10001111 10001001 10010000

1st Byte 2nd Byte 3rd Byte 4th Byte

= 128 = 143 = 137 = 144

128.143.137.144
 Structure of an IP address
0 31
network prefix host number

• An IP address has a structure

– Network prefix identifies a network
– Host number identifies a specific host interface

• Improves the scalability of routing

– Scales better than flat addresses
 How long is a network prefix?

• Before 1993: The network prefix is implicitly

defined (class-based addressing)

• After 1993: The network prefix is indicated by

a netmask
 Before 1993: Class-based addressing

• The Internet address space was divided up into

classes:
– Class A: Network prefix is 8 bits long
– Class B: Network prefix is 16 bits long
– Class C: Network prefix is 24 bits long
– Class D is multicast address
– Class E is reserved
Classful IP Addresses (Until 1993)
• Each IP address contained a key which
identifies the class:
– Class A: IP address starts with “0”
– Class B: IP address starts with “10”
– Class C: IP address starts with “110”
– Class D: IP address starts with “1110”
– Class E: IP address starts wit “11110”
Classful IP Addresses (before 1993)
bit # 0 1 7 8 31

Class A 0
Network Prefix Host Number
8 bits 24 bits

bit # 0 1 2 15 16 31

Class B 10 network id host

Network Prefix Host Number

16 bits 16 bits

bit # 0 1 2 3 23 24 31

Class C 110 network id host

Network Prefix Host Number

24 bits 8 bits
Classful IP Addresses (before 1993)
bit # 0 1 2 3 4 31

Class D 1110 multicast group id

bit # 0 1 2 3 4 5 31

Class E 11110 (reserved for future use)

 Problems with Classful IP Addresses

• A,B too large, C too small

• Local admins must request another network number

before installing a new network at their site
Solution: Classless Inter-domain routing (CIDR)

• Network prefix is of variable length

– No rigid class boundary

• Addresses are allocated hierarchically

• Routers can aggregate multiple address

prefixes into one routing entry

• Hierarchy is the key

 CIDR network prefix has variable length
128 143 137 144
Addr 10000000 10001111 10001001 10010000
255 255 255 0
Mask 11111111 11111111 1111111 00000000

• A network mask specifies the number of

prefix bits used to identify a network in an IP
address.
 CIDR notation
• CIDR notation of an IP address:
– 128.143.137.144/24
– /24 is the prefix length. It states that the first 24 bits are the
network prefix of the address (and the remaining 8 bits are
available for specific host addresses)

• CIDR notation can nicely express blocks of addresses

– An address block
[128.195.0.0, 128.195.255.255]
can be represented by an address prefix
128.195.0.0/16
– How many IP addresses are there in a /x address block?
• 2 (32-x)
 Overview

• IP header format

• IP addressing

• IP forwarding
 Forwarding of IP datagrams
• There are two distinct processes for delivering
IP datagrams:
1. Forwarding (data plane): How to pass a
packet from an input interface to the output
interface?
2. Routing (control plane): How to find and
setup the forwarding tables?
 Key points
• Each IP datagram contains the IP destination address

• The “network part” of an IP address identifies a

single physical network

• All hosts and routers that share the same network part
of their address are connected to the same physical
network

• Each physical network on the Internet has at least one

router that connects this network to other physical
networks
 Forwarding basics

• Routers forward packets according to network

prefixes
– network prefixes are called NetworkNum
– Each router has a forwarding table
• Entry: (NetworkNum, NextHop)
 Forwarding table – an example

Forwarding table for R2

 Forwarding algorithm

Yes
Is dst on the same Deliver the packet to the
physical network? Network directly

1. How to determine
No whether a dst is on the
same physical network?
2. How to determine the
Forward to next-hop
router next hop router?
– Routing
 Detailed forwarding algorithm
• If (networkNum == networkNum of one of my
interfaces) then
– Deliver packet over the interface

• Else
– if (NetworkNum is in my forwarding table) then
• Deliver to the NextHop router
– Else
• Deliver packet to the default router
 How to determine the
NetworkNum of a destination
address?
• Destination address & network mask =
NetworkNum
128 143 137 144
Addr 10000000 10001111 10001001 10010000
255 255 255 0
Mask 11111111 11111111 1111111 00000000

• Equivalent: NetworkNum=network prefix bits

 Type of forwarding table entries
• Network route
– Destination addresses is a network address (e.g., 10.0.2.0/24)
– Most entries are network routes

• Host route
– Destination address is an interface address (e.g., 10.0.1.2/32)
– Used to specify a separate route for certain hosts

• Default route
– Used when no network or host route matches

• Loopback address
– Routing table for the loopback address (127.0.0.1)
– The next hop lists the loopback interface as outgoing interface
 Unified forwarding algorithm

1. Look up destination address in the forwarding

table using longest prefix match
2. Forward the packet to the next hop indicated by
the matched entry
 The longest prefix matching
algorithm
1. Search for a match on all 32 bits
2. Search for a match for 31 bits
…..
32. Search for a match on 0 bits

Host route, loopback entry

à 32-bit prefix match
Default route is represented as 0.0.0.0/0
à 0-bit prefix match
 An Example
128.143.71.21

Destination addressNext hop

10.0.0.0/8 eth0
128.143.0.0/16 R2
128.143.64.0/20 R3
128.143.192.0/20 R3
128.143.71.0/24 R4
128.143.71.55/32 R3
0.0.0.0/0 (default) R5

The longest prefix match for

128.143.71.21 is for 24 bits
with entry 128.143.71.0/24

Datagram will be sent to R4

 Summary

• IP header format

• IP addressing

• IP forwarding