An Overview of TCP/IP Protocols

and the Internet

Gary C. Kessler
[email protected]
9 November 2010
This paper was originally submitted to the InterNIC and posted on their Gopher
site on 5 August 1994. This document is a continually updated version of that paper.

Contents
1. Introduction
2. What are TCP/IP and the Internet?
2.1. The Evolution of TCP/IP (and the Internet)
2.2. Internet Growth
2.3. Internet Administration
2.4. Domain Names and IP Addresses (and Politics)
3. The TCP/IP Protocol Architecture
3.1. The Network Interface Layer
3.1.1. PPP
3.2. The Internet Layer
3.2.1. IP Addressing and Subnet Masks
3.2.2. Conserving IP Addresses: CIDR, DHCP, NAT, and PAT
3.2.3. The Domain Name System
3.2.4. ARP and Address Resolution
3.2.5. IP Routing: OSPF, RIP, and BGP
3.2.6. IP version 6
3.3. The Transport Layer Protocols
3.3.1. Ports
3.3.2. TCP
3.3.3. UDP
3.3.4. ICMP
3.3.5. TCP Logical Connections and ICMP
3.4. The TCP/IP Application Layer
3.4.1. TCP and UDP Applications
3.4.2. Protocol Analysis
3.5. Summary
4. Other Information Sources
5. Acronyms and Abbreviations
6. Author's Address

1. Introduction
An increasing number of people are using the Internet and, many for the first time, are
using the tools and utilities that at one time were only available on a limited number of
computer systems (and only for really intense users!). One sign of this growth in use has
been the significant number of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
and Internet books, articles, courses, and even TV shows that have become available in
the last several years; there are so many such books that publishers are reluctant to
authorize more because bookstores have reached their limit of shelf space! This memo
provides a broad overview of the Internet and TCP/IP, with an emphasis on history,
terms, and concepts. It is meant as a brief guide and starting point, referring to many
other sources for more detailed information.

2. What are TCP/IP and the Internet?

While the TCP/IP protocols and the Internet are different, their histories are most
definitely intertwingled! This section will discuss some of the history. For additional
information and insight, readers are urged to read two excellent histories of the Internet:
Casting The Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond... by Peter Salus (AddisonWesley, 1995) and Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet by Katie
Hafner and Mark Lyon (Simon & Schuster, 1997). In addition, the Internet Society
maintains a number of on-line "Internet history" papers at
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/.
2.1. The Evolution of TCP/IP (and the Internet)
While the Internet today is recognized as a network that is fundamentally changing
social, political, and economic structures, and in many ways obviating geographic
boundaries, this potential is merely the realization of predictions that go back nearly forty
years. In a series of memos dating back to August 1962, J.C.R. Licklider of MIT
discussed his "Galactic Network" and how social interactions could be enabled through
networking. The Internet certainly provides such a national and global infrastructure and,
in fact, interplanetary Internet communication has already been seriously discussed.
Prior to the 1960s, what little computer communication existed comprised simple text
and binary data, carried by the most common telecommunications network technology of
the day; namely, circuit switching, the technology of the telephone networks for nearly a
hundred years. Because most data traffic is bursty in nature (i.e., most of the
transmissions occur during a very short period of time), circuit switching results in highly
inefficient use of network resources.
The fundamental technology that makes the Internet work is called packet switching, a
data network in which all components (i.e., hosts and switches) operate independently,
eliminating single point-of-failure problems. In addition, network communication

resources appear to be dedicated to individual users but, in fact, statistical multiplexing

and an upper limit on the size of a transmitted entity result in fast, economical networks.
In the 1960s, packet switching was ready to be discovered. In 1961, Leonard Kleinrock
of MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory (and the first book on the
subject in 1964). In 1962, Paul Baran of the Rand Corporation described a robust,
efficient, store-and-forward data network in a report for the U.S. Air Force. At about the
same time, Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury suggested a similar idea from work at
the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the U.K. The research at MIT (1961-1967),
RAND (1962-1965), and NPL (1964-1967) occurred independently and the principal
researchers did not all meet together until the Association for Computing Machinery
(ACM) meeting in 1967. The term packet was adopted from the work at NPL.
The modern Internet began as a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) funded experiment to
interconnect DoD-funded research sites in the U.S. The 1967 ACM meeting was also
where the initial design for the so-called ARPANET named for the DoD's Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was first published by Larry Roberts. In December
1968, ARPA awarded a contract to Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) to design and
deploy a packet switching network with a proposed line speed of 50 kbps. In September
1969, the first node of the ARPANET was installed at the University of California at Los
Angeles (UCLA), followed monthly with nodes at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the
University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the University of Utah. With four
nodes by the end of 1969, the ARPANET spanned the continental U.S. by 1971 and had
connections to Europe by 1973.
The original ARPANET gave life to a number of protocols that were new to packet
switching. One of the most lasting results of the ARPANET was the development of a
user-network protocol that has become the standard interface between users and packet
switched networks; namely, ITU-T (formerly CCITT) Recommendation X.25. This
"standard" interface encouraged BBN to start Telenet, a commercial packet-switched data
service, in 1974; after much renaming, Telenet became a part of Sprint's X.25 service.
The initial host-to-host communications protocol introduced in the ARPANET was called
the Network Control Protocol (NCP). Over time, however, NCP proved to be incapable
of keeping up with the growing network traffic load. In 1974, a new, more robust suite of
communications protocols was proposed and implemented throughout the ARPANET,
based upon the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for end-to-end network
communication. But it seemed like overkill for the intermediate gateways (what we
would today call routers) to needlessly have to deal with an end-to-end protocol so in
1978 a new design split responsibilities between a pair of protocols; the new Internet
Protocol (IP) for routing packets and device-to-device communication (i.e., host-togateway or gateway-to-gateway) and TCP for reliable, end-to-end host communication.
Since TCP and IP were originally envisioned functionally as a single protocol, the
protocol suite, which actually refers to a large collection of protocols and applications, is
usually referred to simply as TCP/IP.

The original versions of both TCP and IP that are in common use today were written in
September 1981, although both have had several modifications applied to them (in
addition, the IP version 6, or IPv6, specification was released in December 1995). In
1983, the DoD mandated that all of their computer systems would use the TCP/IP
protocol suite for long-haul communications, further enhancing the scope and importance
of the ARPANET.
In 1983, the ARPANET was split into two components. One component, still called
ARPANET, was used to interconnect research/development and academic sites; the
other, called MILNET, was used to carry military traffic and became part of the Defense
Data Network. That year also saw a huge boost in the popularity of TCP/IP with its
inclusion in the communications kernel for the University of California s UNIX
implementation, 4.2BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) UNIX.
In 1986, the National Science Foundation (NSF) built a backbone network to
interconnect four NSF-funded regional supercomputer centers and the National Center
for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). This network, dubbed the NSFNET, was originally
intended as a backbone for other networks, not as an interconnection mechanism for
individual systems. Furthermore, the "Appropriate Use Policy" defined by the NSF
limited traffic to non-commercial use. The NSFNET continued to grow and provide
connectivity between both NSF-funded and non-NSF regional networks, eventually
becoming the backbone that we know today as the Internet. Although early NSFNET
applications were largely multiprotocol in nature, TCP/IP was employed for
interconnectivity (with the ultimate goal of migration to Open Systems Interconnection).
The NSFNET originally comprised 56-kbps links and was completely upgraded to T1
(1.544 Mbps) links in 1989. Migration to a "professionally-managed" network was
supervised by a consortium comprising Merit (a Michigan state regional network
headquartered at the University of Michigan), IBM, and MCI. Advanced Network &
Services, Inc. (ANS), a non-profit company formed by IBM and MCI, was responsible
for managing the NSFNET and supervising the transition of the NSFNET backbone to T3
(44.736 Mbps) rates by the end of 1991. During this period of time, the NSF also funded
a number of regional Internet service providers (ISPs) to provide local connection points
for educational institutions and NSF-funded sites.
In 1993, the NSF decided that it did not want to be in the business of running and funding
networks, but wanted instead to go back to the funding of research in the areas of
supercomputing and high-speed communications. In addition, there was increased
pressure to commercialize the Internet; in 1989, a trial gateway connected MCI,
CompuServe, and Internet mail services, and commercial users were now finding out
about all of the capabilities of the Internet that once belonged exclusively to academic
and hard-core users! In 1991, the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) Association was
formed by General Atomics, Performance Systems International (PSI), and UUNET
Technologies to promote and provide a commercial Internet backbone service.
Nevertheless, there remained intense pressure from non-NSF ISPs to open the network to
all users.

FIGURE 1. NSFNET structure initiated in 1994 to merge the academic and commercial networks.

In 1994, a plan was put in place to reduce the NSF's role in the public Internet. The new
structure comprises three parts:
1. Network Access Points (NAPs), where individual ISPs would interconnect,
as suggested in Figure 1. The NSF originally funded four such NAPs:
Chicago (operated by Ameritech), New York (really Pensauken, NJ,
operated by Sprint), San Francisco (operated by Pacific Bell, now SBC),
and Washington, D.C. (MAE-East, operated by MFS, now part of
Worldcom).
2. The very High Speed Backbone Network Service, a network
interconnecting the NAPs and NSF-funded centers, operated by MCI. This
network was installed in 1995 and operated at OC-3 (155.52 Mbps); it was
completely upgraded to OC-12 (622.08 Mbps) in 1997.
3. The Routing Arbiter, to ensure adequate routing protocols for the Internet.
In addition, NSF-funded ISPs were given five years of reduced funding to become
commercially self-sufficient. This funding ended by 1998 and a proliferation of
additional NAPs have created a "melting pot" of services. Today's terminology refers to
three tiers of ISP:

Tier 1 refers to national ISPs, or those that have a national presence and
connect to at least three of the original four NAPs. National ISPs include
AT&T, Sprint, and Worldcom.
Tier 2 refers to regional ISPs, or those that have primarily a regional
presence and connect to less than three of the original four NAPs.
Regional ISPs include Adelphia, BellAtlantic.net, and BellSouth.net.
Tier 3 refers to local ISPs, or those that do not connect to a NAP but offer
services via an upstream ISP.

It is worth saying a few words about the NAPs. The NSF provided major funding for the
four NAPs mentioned above but they needed to have additional customers to remain
economically viable. Some companies such as then-Metropolitan Fiber Systems
(MFS) decided to build other NAP sites. One of MFS' first sites was MAE-East,
where "MAE" stood for "Metropolitan Area Ethernet." MAE-East was merely a point
where ISPs could interconnect which they did by buying a router and placing it at the
MAE-East facility. The original MAE-East provided a 10 Mbps Ethernet LAN to
interconnect the ISPs' routers, hence the name. The Ethernet LAN was eventually
replaced with a 100 Mbps FDDI ring and the "E" then became "Exchange." Over the
years, MFS/MCI Worldcom has added sites in San Jose, CA (MAE-West), Los Angeles,
Dallas, and Houston.

Other companies also operate their own NAPs. Savvis, for example, operates an
international Internet service and has built more than a dozen private NAPs in North
America. Many large service providers go around the NAPs entirely by creating bilateral
agreement whereby the directly route traffic coming from one network and going to the
other. Before their merger in 1998, for example, MCI and LDDS Worldcom had more
than 10 DS-3 (44.736 Mbps) lines interconnecting the two networks.
The North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) provides a forum for the
exchange of technical information and the discussion of implementation issues that
require coordination among network service providers. Meeting three times a year,
NANOG is an essential element in maintaining stable Internet services in North America.
Initially funded by the NSF, NANOG currently receives funds from conference
registration fees and vendor donations.
In 1988, meanwhile, the DoD and most of the U.S. Government chose to adopt OSI
protocols. TCP/IP was now viewed as an interim, proprietary solution since it ran only on
limited hardware platforms and OSI products were only a couple of years away. The
DoD mandated that all computer communications products would have to use OSI
protocols by August 1990 and use of TCP/IP would be phased out. Subsequently, the
U.S. Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) defined the set of protocols that would have to be
supported by products sold to the federal government and TCP/IP was not included.
Despite this mandate, development of TCP/IP continued during the late 1980s as the
Internet grew. TCP/IP development had always been carried out in an open environment
(although the size of this open community was small due to the small number of
ARPA/NSF sites), based upon the creed "We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We
believe in rough consensus and running code" [Dave Clark, M.I.T.]. OSI products were
still a couple of years away while TCP/IP became, in the minds of many, the real open
systems interconnection protocol suite.
It is not the purpose of this memo to take a position in the OSI vs. TCP/IP debate
(although it is absolutely clear that TCP/IP offers the primary goals of OSI; namely, a
universal, non-proprietary data communications protocol. In fact, TCP/IP does far more
than was ever envisioned for OSI or for TCP/IP itself, for that matter). But before
TCP/IP prevailed and OSI sort of dwindled into nothingness, many efforts were made to
bring the two communities together. The ISO Development Environment (ISODE) was
developed in 1990, for example, to provide an approach for OSI migration for the DoD.
ISODE software allows OSI applications to operate over TCP/IP. During this same
period, the Internet and OSI communities started to work together to bring about the best
of both worlds as many TCP and IP features started to migrate into OSI protocols,
particularly the OSI Transport Protocol class 4 (TP4) and the Connectionless Network
Layer Protocol (CLNP), respectively. Finally, a report from the National Institute for
Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1994 suggested that GOSIP should incorporate
TCP/IP and drop the "OSI-only" requirement. [NOTE: Some industry observers have
pointed out that OSI represents the ultimate example of a sliding window; OSI protocols
have been "two years away" since about 1986.]

None of this is meant to suggest that the NSF isn't funding Internet-class research
networks anymore. That is just the function of Internet2, a consortium of nearly 400
universities, corporations, and non-profit research oriented organizations working in
partnership to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies for
the next generation Internet. Goals of Internet2 are to create a leading edge network
capability for the national research community, enable the development of new Internetbased applications, and to quickly move these new network services and applications to
the commercial sector.
2.2. Internet Growth
In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Pocket Books, 1979), the
hitchhiker describes outer space as being "...big. Really big. ...vastly hugely mindbogglingly big..." A similar description can be applied to the Internet. To paraphrase the
hitchhiker, you may think that your 750 node LAN is big, but that's just peanuts
compared to the Internet.
The ARPANET started with four nodes in 1969 and grew to just under 600 nodes before
it was split in 1983. The NSFNET also started with a modest number of sites in 1986.
After that, the network experienced literally exponential growth. Internet growth between
1981 and 1991 is documented in "Internet Growth (1981-1991)" (RFC 1296).

The Internet Software Consortium hosts the Internet Domain Survey (with technical
support from Network Wizards, who originated the survey). According to their chart, the
Internet had nearly 30 million reachable hosts by January 1998 and over 56 million by
July 1999. Dedicated residential access methods, such as cable modem and asymmetrical
digital subscriber line (ADSL) technologies, are undoubtedly the reason that this number
has shot up to over 171 million by January 2003. During the boom-1990s, the Internet
was growing at a rate of about a new network attachment every half-hour,
interconnecting hundreds of thousands of networks. It was estimated that the Internet was
doubling in size every ten to twelve months and traffic was doubling every 100 days (for
1000% annual growth). For the last several year, the number of nodes has been growing
at a rate of about 50% annually and traffic continues to keep pace with that growth.
And what of the original ARPANET? It grew smaller and smaller during the late 1980s
as sites and traffic moved to the Internet, and was decommissioned in July 1990. Cerf &
Kahn ("Selected ARPANET Maps," Computer Communications Review, October 1990)

re-printed a number of network maps documenting the growth (and demise) of the
ARPANET.
2.3. Internet Administration
The Internet has no single owner, yet everyone owns (a portion of) the Internet. The
Internet has no central operator, yet everyone operates (a portion of) the Internet. The
Internet has been compared to anarchy, but some claim that it is not nearly that well
organized!
Some central authority is required for the Internet, however, to manage those things that
can only be managed centrally, such as addressing, naming, protocol development,
standardization, etc. Among the significant Internet authorities are:

The Internet Society (ISOC), chartered in 1992, is a non-governmental

international organization providing coordination for the Internet, and its
internetworking technologies and applications. ISOC also provides
oversight and communications for the Internet Activities Board.
The Internet Architecture (nee Activities) Board (IAB) governs
administrative and technical activities on the Internet.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is one of the two primary
bodies of the IAB. The IETF's working groups have primary responsibility
for the technical activities of the Internet, including writing specifications
and protocols. The impact of these specifications is significant enough that
ISO accredited the IETF as an international standards body at the end of
1994. RFCs 2028 and 2031 describe the organizations involved in the
IETF standards process and the relationship between the IETF and ISOC,
respectively, while RFC 2418 describes the IETF working group
guidelines and procedures.
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is the other body of the
IAB. The IESG provides direction to the IETF.
The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comprises a number of longterm reassert groups, promoting research of importance to the evolution of
the future Internet.
The Internet Engineering Planning Group (IEPG) coordinates worldwide
Internet operations. This group also assists Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) to interoperate within the global Internet.
The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is the
coordinator of a number of Computer Emergency Response Teams
(CERTs) representing many countries, governmental agencies, and ISPs
throughout the world. Internet network security is greatly enhanced and
facilitated by the FIRST member organizations.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is not an Internet administrative
body, per se, but since October 1994 has taken a lead role in developing
common protocols for the World Wide Web to promote its evolution and
ensure its interoperability. W3C has more than 400 Member organizations

internationally. The W3C, then, is leading the technical evolution of the

Web, having already developed more than 20 technical specifications for
the Web's infrastructure.
2.4. Domain Names and IP Addresses (and Politics)
Although not directly related to the administration of the Internet for operational
purposes, the assignment of Internet domain names (and IP addresses) is the subject of
some controversy and a lot of current activity. Internet hosts use a hierarchical naming
structure comprising a top-level domain (TLD), domain and subdomain (optional), and
host name. The IP address space, and all TCP/IP-related numbers, have historically been
managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Domain names are
assigned by the TLD naming authority; until April 1998, the Internet Network
Information Center (InterNIC) had overall authority of these names, with NICs around
the world handling non-U.S. domains. The InterNIC was also responsible for the overall
coordination and management of the Domain Name System (DNS), the distributed
database that reconciles host names and IP addresses on the Internet.
The InterNIC is an interesting example of the recent changes in the Internet. Since early
1993, Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) operated the registry tasks of the InterNIC on behalf
of the NSF and had exclusive registration authority for the .com, .org, .net, and .edu
domains. NSI's contract ran out in April 1998 and was extended several times because no
other agency was in place to continue the registration for those domains. In October
1998, it was decided that NSI would remain the sole administrator for those domains but
that a plan needed to be put into place so that users could register names in those domains
with other firms. In addition, NSI's contract was extended to September 2000, although
the registration business was opened to competition in June 1999. Nevertheless, when
NSI's original InterNIC contract expired, IP address assignments moved to a new entity
called the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). (And NSI itself was
purchased by VeriSign in March 2000.)
The newest body to handle governance of global Top Level Domain (gTLD) registrations
is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Formed in
October 1998, ICANN is the organization designated by the U.S. National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to administer the DNS.
Although surrounded in some early controversy (which is well beyond the scope of this
paper!), ICANN has received wide industry support. ICANN has created several Support
Organizations (SOs) to create policy for the administration of its areas of responsibility,
including domain names (DNSO), IP addresses (ASO), and protocol parameter
assignments (PSO).
In April 1999, ICANN announced that five companies had been selected to be part of this
new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org domains. The
concept was that these five organizations could accept applications for names in these
gTLD name spaces, with final approval by ICANN. By the end of 1999, ICANN had
added an additional 29 registrars and there are several hundred registrars accredited by

ICANN today. Definitive ICANN registrar accreditation information can be found at the
ICANN-Accredited Registrars page.
The hierarchical structure of domain names is best understood if the domain name is read
from right-to-left. Internet host names end with a top-level domain name. Worldwide
generic top-level domains (TLDs) include the original .com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, and
.org. In November 2000, the first new set of TLDs were approved by ICANN, namely,
.aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. This has been followed by additional
TLDs over the years.
At this time, ICANN administers the following TLDs:

.aero: Reserved for the global aviation community, sponsored by Societe

Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques SC (SITA)
.asia: Reserved for the Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific region, sponsored by
DotAsia Organisation
.biz: Restricted to businesses, operated by NeuStar, Inc.
.cat: Reserved for the Catalan linguistic and cultural community,
sponsored by Fundaci puntCat.
.com: Used by commercial organizations, operated by VeriSign, Inc.
.coop: Reserved for business cooperatives, sponsored by Dot Cooperation
LLC
.info: A general-purpose domain, operated by Afilias Limited
.jobs: Reserved for the human resource management community,
sponsored by Employ Media LLC
.mobi: Reserved for consumers and providers of mobile products and
services, sponsored by mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd.
.museum: Reserved for museums and related persons, sponsored by the
Museum Domain Management Association International (MDI)
.name: Restricted to individuals, operated by Verisign Information
Services, Inc.
.net: Originally reserved for network service providers, operated by
VeriSign, Inc.
.org: Reserved for non-profit organizations, operated by Public Interest
Registry
.pro: Reserved for licensed professionals, operated by Registry Services
Corporation (dba RegistryPro)
.tel: Reserved for individuals and businesses to store and manage their
contact information in the DNS, sponsored by Telnic Limited
.travel: Reserved for entities whose primary area of activity is in the travel
industry, sponsored by Tralliance Registry Management Company, LLC

Additional TLDs in use today are:

.edu: Educational institutions; largely limited to 4-year colleges and

universities from about 1994 to 2001, but also includes some community
colleges; administered by EDUCAUSE)
.int: Organizations established by international treaty, administered by
IANA
.gov: U.S. Federal government agencies (managed by the U.S. General
Services Administration, including the fed.us domain)
.mil: U.S. military (managed by the U.S. Department of Defense Network
Information Center< /li>

Other top-level domain names use the two-letter country codes defined in ISO standard
3166; munnari.oz.au, for example, is the address of the 1990's Internet gateway to
Australia and myo.inst.keio.ac.jp is a host at the Science and Technology Department of
Keio University in Yokohama, Japan. Other ISO 3166-based domain country codes are
ca (Canada), de (Germany), es (Spain), fr (France), gb (Great Britain) [NOTE: For some
historical reasons, the TLD .gb is rarely used; the TLD .uk (United Kingdom) seems to be
preferred although UK is not an official ISO 3166 country code.], ie (Ireland), il (Israel),
mx (Mexico), and us (United States). It is important to note that there is not necessarily
any correlation between a country code and where a host is actually physically located.
In addition, some countries allow their country codes to be used for other, commercial
purposes. E.g., the " Web site" domain .ws actually belongs to the country of Samoa and
the tv.com domain belongs to the country of Tuvalu.
One of the most authoritative and up-to-date listings can be found at the "Domain name
registries around the world" page maintained by UNINETT Norid AS.
The host name www.latimes.com, for example, is assigned to a computer named www
(probably, but not necessarily, a Web server) at the Los Angeles Times (latimes), within
the commercial gTLD (com). The host name mail.sover.net refers to a host (mail) in the
SoverNet domain (sover) within the network provider gTLD (net). Guidelines for
selecting host names is the subject of RFC 1178.
There are several registries responsible for blocks of IP addresses and domain naming
policies around the globe. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), was
originally responsible for the Americas (western hemisphere) and parts of Africa. In
2002, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) was
officially recognized and now covers Central and South America, as well as some
Caribbean nations. The African Regional Internet Registry (AfriNIC)has responsibility
for sub-Sahara Africa. At this time, ARIN only covers North America. The European and
Asia-Pacific naming registries are managed by Rseaux IP Europen (RIPE) and the
Asia-Pacific NIC (APNIC), respectively.
These authorities, in turn, delegate most of the country TLDs to national registries (such
as RNP in Brazil and NIC-Mexico), which have ultimate authority to assign local domain
names. An excellent overview of the recent history and anticipated future of the registry

system can be found in "Development of the Regional Internet Registry System" (D.
Karrenberg et al.) in the IP Journal, Vol. 4, No. 4.
Different countries may organize the country-based subdomains in any way that they
want. Many countries use a subdomain similar to the TLDs, so that .com.mx and .edu.mx
are the suffixes for commercial and educational institutions in Mexico, and .co.uk and
.ac.uk are the suffixes for commercial and educational institutions in the United
Kingdom.
The us domain is largely organized on the basis of geography or function. Geographical
names in the us name space use names of the form entity-name.city-telegraph-code.statepostal-code.us. The domain name cnri.reston.va.us, for example, refers to the
Corporation for National Research Initiatives in Reston, Virginia. Functional branches
are also reserved within the name space for schools (K12), community colleges (CC),
technical schools (TEC), state government agencies (STATE), councils of governments
(COG), libraries (LIB), museums (MUS), and several other generic types of entities.
Domain names in the state government name space usually take the form
department.state.state-postal-code.us (e.g., the domain name dps.state.vt.us points to the
Vermont Department of Public Safety). The K12 name space can vary widely, usually
using the form school.school-district.k12.state-postal-code.us (e.g., the domain
ccs.cssd.k12.vt.us refers to the Charlotte Central School in the Chittenden South School
District which happens to be in Charlotte, Vermont.) More information about the us
domain may be found in RFC 1480.
The biggest change to the TLD process was the introduction, in 2010, of TLDs that do
not use Latin characters. These Internationalized Domain Names are described in detail at
ICANN's Web site. More information about TLDs, the registration process, and new
TLDs can be found at the ICANN New TLD Program Web page.
Last but not least, there is the never-ending issue of who owns domain names and IP
addresses. I will make no claim to provide an authoritative answer but... domain names
are owned by whoever registers them. This alone is a potential problem. Some ISPs are
obtaining names on behalf of their customers and paying the annual fee. The issue has
already arisen, "Who owns the name? The registrar or the customer?" Most ISPs have
stated that they believe that the customer owns the name, even if the ISP registers the
name, because there would be no reason for them to keep the name. Consider, however,
that if an ISP insisted that it owned a name, it essentially ties a customer to an ISP
forever, destroying the concept of domain name portability.
There is also an issue of violation of trademark, service mark, or copyright in the choice
and ownership of domain names. Consider this example from the 2001 era. A common
Microsoft tag line is Where Would You Like to go Today? It so happens that the domain
name wherewouldyouliketogotoday.com was registered to The Eagles Nest in Corfu, NY.
I don't know anything about The Eagles Nest of Corfu, NY but it should not be mistaken
for either Eagles Nest Enterprises of Grapevine, TX (the owner of eaglesnest.com) nor
The Eagles Nest Internet Services of Newark, OH (owner of theeaglesnest.com).

In any case, suppose that Microsoft decided that someone using their service mark was
not in their best interest and they pursued the issue; could they wrestle that domain name
away from another registrant? Today's general rule of thumb is that if an organization
believes that it's name or mark is being used in someone else's domain name in an unfair
or misleading way, then they can take legal action against the name holder and the
assignment of the name will be held up pending the outcome of the legal action. More
information about this issue can be found at ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name DisputeResolution Policy Web page. By the way, this is, of course, the question behind the new
industry of cybersquatting; someone registers a domain name hoping that someone else
with buy it from them later on!
And what about IP addresses? Prior to the widespread use of CIDR (see Section 3.2.1),
individual organizations were assigned an address (usually a Class C!) and domain name
at the same time. In general, the holder of the domain name owned the IP address and if
they changed ISP, routing tables throughout the Internet were updated.
After 1994, domain name and IP number ownership were separated. Today, ISPs are
assigned addresses in blocks called CIDR blocks. A customer today, whether they already
own a domain name or are obtaining a new one, will be assigned an IP address from the
ISP's CIDR block. If the customer changes ISP, they have to relinquish the IP address.
A good overview of the naming and addressing procedures can be found in RFC 2901,
titled "Guide to Administrative Procedures of the Internet Infrastructure."

3. The TCP/IP Protocol Architecture

TCP/IP is most commonly associated with the Unix operating system. While developed
separately, they have been historically tied, as mentioned above, since 4.2BSD Unix
started bundling TCP/IP protocols with the operating system. Nevertheless, TCP/IP
protocols are available for all widely-used operating systems today and native TCP/IP
support is provided in OS/2, OS/400, all Windows versions since Windows 9x, and all
Linux and Unix variants.
Figure 2 shows the TCP/IP protocol architecture; this diagram is by no means exhaustive,
but shows the major protocol and application components common to most commercial
TCP/IP software packages and their relationship.
DNS SNMP
HTTP FTP Telnet Finger SSH
RIP
Applicati
DNS
RADIUS Archi
on
Ping
e
Layer POP3/IMAP SMTP Gopher BGP
Time/NTP Whois TACACS+ SSL Traceroute tft
p

Transport
Layer

TCP

Internet
Layer

UDP

IP

ICM OSP
P
F
AR
P

Ethernet/802.3 Token Ring

(802.5)
SNAP/802.2 X.25 FDDI ISDN
Network
Interface
Frame Relay SMDS ATM Wireless (WAP, CDPD, 802.11)
Layer Fibre Channel DDS/DS0/T-carrier/E-carrier SONET/SDH DWDM
PPP HDLC SLIP/CSLIP xDSL Cable Modem (DOCSIS)
FIGURE 2. Abbreviated TCP/IP protocol stack.

The sections below will provide a brief overview of each of the layers in the TCP/IP suite
and the protocols that compose those layers. A large number of books and papers have
been written that describe all aspects of TCP/IP as a protocol suite, including detailed
information about use and implementation of the protocols. Some good TCP/IP
references are:

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume I: The Protocols by W.R. Stevens (AddisonWesley, 1994)

Troubleshooting TCP/IP by Mark Miller (John Wiley & Sons, 1999)
Guide to TCP/IP, 2/e by Laura A. Cappell and Ed Tittel (Thomson Course
Technology, 2004)
TCP/IP: Architecture, Protocols, and Implementation with IPv6 and IP
Security by S. Feit (McGraw-Hill, 2000)
Internetworking with TCP/IP, Vol. I: Principles, Protocols, and
Architecture, 2/e, by D. Comer (Prentice-Hall, 1991)
"TCP/IP Tutorial" by T.J. Socolofsky and C.J. Kale ( RFC 1180, Jan.
1991)
" TCP/IP and tcpdump Pocket Reference Guide," developed by the author
for The SANS Institute

3.1. The Network Interface Layer

The TCP/IP protocols have been designed to operate over nearly any underlying local or
wide area network technology. Although certain accommodations may need to be made,
IP messages can be transported over all of the technologies shown in the figure, as well
as numerous others. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe most of these
underlying protocols and technologies.

Two of the underlying network interface protocols, however, are particularly relevant to
TCP/IP. The Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP, RFC 1055) and Point-to-Point Protocol
(PPP, RFC 1661), respectively, may be used to provide data link layer protocol services
where no other underlying data link protocol may be in use, such as in leased line or dialup environments. Most commercial TCP/IP software packages for PC-class systems
include these two protocols. With SLIP or PPP, a remote computer can attach directly to
a host server and, therefore, connect to the Internet using IP rather than being limited to
an asynchronous connection.
3.1.1. PPP
It is worth spending a little bit of time discussing PPP because of its importance in
Internet access today. As its name implies, PPP was designed to be used over point-topoint links. In fact, it is the prevalent IP encapsulation scheme for dedicated Internet
access as well as dial-up access. One of the significant strengths of PPP is its ability to
negotiate a number of things upon initial connection, including passwords, IP addresses,
compression schemes, and encryption schemes. In addition, PPP provides support for
simultaneous multiple protocols over a single connection, an important consideration in
those environments where dial-up users can employ either IP or another network Layer
protocol. Finally, in environments such as ISDN, PPP supports inverse multiplexing and
dynamic bandwidth allocation via the Multilink-PPP (ML-PPP) described in RFCs 1990
and 2125.
+----------+----------+----------+-------------+---------+--------+---------+
|
Flag
| Address | Protocol | Information | Padding |
FCS
|
Flag
| | 01111110 | 11111111 | 8/16 bits|
*
|
*
| 8 bits | 01111110 | +----------+----------+----------+------------+---------+--------+----------+
FIGURE 3. PPP frame format (using HDLC).

PPP generally uses an HDLC-like (bit-oriented protocol) frame format as shown in

Figure 3, although RFC 1661 does not demand use of HDLC. HDLC defines the first and
last two fields in the frame:

Flag: The 8-bit pattern "01111110" used to delimit the beginning and end
of the transmission.
Address: For PPP, uses the 8-bit broadcast address, "11111111".
Frame Check Sequence (FCS): An 8-bit remainder from a cyclic
redundancy check (CRC) calculation, used for bit error detection.

RFC 1661 actually describes the use of the three other fields in the frame:

Protocol: An 8- or 16-bit value that indicates the type of datagram carried

in this frame's Information field. This field can indicate use of a particular
Network Layer protocol (such as IP, IPX, or DDP), a Network Control
Protocol (NCP) in support of one of the Network Layer protocols, or a

PPP Link-layer Control Protocol (LCP). The entire list of possible PPP
values in this field can be found in the IANA list of PPP protocols.
Information: Contains the datagram for the protocol specified in the
Protocol field. This field is zero or more octets in length, up to a (default)
maximum of 1500 octets (although a different value can be negotiated).
Padding: Optional padding to add length to the Information field. May be
required in some implementations to ensure some minimum frame length
and/or to ensure some alignment on computer word boundaries.

The operation of PPP is as follows:

1. After the link is physically established, each host sends LCP packets to
configure and test the data link. It is here where the maximum frame
length, authentication protocol (Password Authentication Protocol, PAP,
or Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol, CHAP), link quality
protocol, compression protocol, and other configuration parameters are
negotiated. Authentication, if it used, will occur after the link has been
established.
2. After the link is established, one or more Network Layer protocol
connections are configured using the appropriate NCP. If IP is to be used,
for example, it will be set up using PPP's IP Control Protocol (IPCP).
Once each of the Network Layer protocols has been configured, datagrams
from those protocols can be sent over the link. Control protocols may be
used for IP, IPX (NetWare), DDP (AppleTalk), DECnet, and more.
3. The link will remain configured for communications until LCP and/or
NCP packets close the link down.

3.2. The Internet Layer

The Internet Protocol (RFC 791), provides services that are roughly equivalent to the OSI
Network Layer. IP provides a datagram (connectionless) transport service across the
network. This service is sometimes referred to as unreliable because the network does not
guarantee delivery nor notify the end host system about packets lost due to errors or
network congestion. IP datagrams contain a message, or one fragment of a message, that
may be up to 65,535 bytes (octets) in length. IP does not provide a mechanism for flow
control.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|Version|
IHL |
TOS
|
Total Length
| +-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Identification
|Flags|
Fragment Offset
| +-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
TTL
|
Protocol
|
Header Checksum
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Source Address
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Destination Address
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Options....
(Padding)
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+ |
Data... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+FIGURE 4. IP packet (datagram) header format.

The basic IP packet header format is shown in Figure 4. The format of the diagram is
consistent with the RFC; bits are numbered from left-to-right, starting at 0. Each row
represents a single 32-bit word; note that an IP header will be at least 5 words (20 bytes)
in length. The fields contained in the header, and their functions, are:

Version: Specifies the IP version of the packet. The current version of IP

is version 4, so this field will contain the binary value 0100. [NOTE:
Actually, many IP version numbers have been assigned besides 4 and 6;
see the IANA's list of IP Version Numbers.]
Internet Header Length (IHL): Indicates the length of the datagram header
in 32 bit (4 octet) words. A minimum-length header is 20 octets, so this
field always has a value of at least 5 (0101) Since the maximum value of
this field is 15, the IP Header can be no longer than 60 octets.
Type of Service (TOS): Allows an originating host to request different
classes of service for packets it transmits. Although not generally
supported today in IPv4, the TOS field can be set by the originating host
in response to service requests across the Transport Layer/Internet Layer
service interface, and can specify a service priority (0-7) or can request
that the route be optimized for either cost, delay, throughput, or reliability.
Total Length: Indicates the length (in bytes, or octets) of the entire packet,
including both header and data. Given the size of this field, the maximum
size of an IP packet is 64 KB, or 65,535 bytes. In practice, packet sizes are
limited to the maximum transmission unit (MTU).
Identification: Used when a packet is fragmented into smaller pieces while
traversing the Internet, this identifier is assigned by the transmitting host
so that different fragments arriving at the destination can be associated
with each other for reassembly.
Flags: Also used for fragmentation and reassembly. The first bit is called
the More Fragments (MF) bit, and is used to indicate the last fragment of a
packet so that the receiver knows that the packet can be reassembled. The
second bit is the Don't Fragment (DF) bit, which suppresses
fragmentation. The third bit is unused (and always set to 0).
Fragment Offset: Indicates the position of this fragment in the original
packet. In the first packet of a fragment stream, the offset will be 0; in
subsequent fragments, this field will indicates the offset in increments of 8
bytes.
Time-to-Live (TTL): A value from 0 to 255, indicating the number of hops
that this packet is allowed to take before discarded within the network.

Every router that sees this packet will decrement the TTL value by one; if
it gets to 0, the packet will be discarded.
Protocol: Indicates the higher layer protocol contents of the data carried in
the packet; options include ICMP (1), TCP (6), UDP (17), or OSPF (89).
A complete list of IP protocol numbers can be found at the IANA's list of
Protocol Numbers. An implementation-specific list of supported protocols
can be found in the protocol file, generally found in the /etc
(Linux/Unix), c:\windows (Windows 9x, ME), or
c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc (Windows NT, 2000, et seq.)
directory.
Header Checksum: Carries information to ensure that the received IP
header is error-free. Remember that IP provides an unreliable service and,
therefore, this field only checks the IP header rather than the entire packet.
Source Address: IP address of the host sending the packet.
Destination Address: IP address of the host intended to receive the packet.
Options: A set of options which may be applied to any given packet, such
as sender-specified source routing or security indication. The option list
may use up to 40 bytes (10 words), and will be padded to a word
boundary; IP options are taken from the IANA's list of IP Option
Numbers.

3.2.1. IP Addresses
IP (version 4) addresses are 32 bits in length (Figure 5). They are typically written as a
sequence of four numbers, representing the decimal value of each of the address bytes.
Since the values are separated by periods, the notation is referred to as dotted decimal. A
sample IP address is 208.162.106.17.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 3 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 0 1
--+-------------+----------------------------------------------- Class A
|0|
NET_ID |
HOST_ID
|
|-+-+-----------+---------------+------------------------------|
Class B
|1|0|
NET_ID
|
HOST_ID
|
|-+-+-+------------------------+---------------+---------------| Class C
|1|1|0|
NET_ID
|
HOST_ID
|
|-+-+-+-+--------------------------------------+---------------| Class D
|1|1|1|0|
MULTICAST_ID
|
|-+-+-+-+------------------------------------------------------| Class E
|1|1|1|1|
EXPERIMENTAL_ID
|
--+-+-+-+------------------------------------------------------FIGURE 5. IP Address Format.

IP addresses are hierarchical for routing purposes and are subdivided into two subfields.
The Network Identifier (NET_ID) subfield identifies the TCP/IP subnetwork connected

to the Internet. The NET_ID is used for high-level routing between networks, much the
same way as the country code, city code, or area code is used in the telephone network.
The Host Identifier (HOST_ID) subfield indicates the specific host within a subnetwork.
To accommodate different size networks, IP defines several address classes. Classes A,
B, and C are used for host addressing and the only difference between the classes is the
length of the NET_ID subfield:

A Class A address has an 8-bit NET_ID and 24-bit HOST_ID. Class A

addresses are intended for very large networks and can address up to
16,777,214 (224-2) hosts per network. The first bit of a Class A address is a
0 and the NETID occupies the first byte, so there are only 128 (27)
possible Class A NETIDs. In fact, the first digit of a Class A address will
be between 1 and 126, and only about 90 or so Class A addresses have
been assigned.
A Class B address has a 16-bit NET_ID and 16-bit HOST_ID. Class B
addresses are intended for moderate sized networks and can address up to
65,534 (216-2) hosts per network. The first two bits of a Class B address
are 10 so that the first digit of a Class B address will be a number between
128 and 191; there are 16,384 (214) possible Class B NETIDs. The Class B
address space has long been threatened with being used up and it is has
been very difficult to get a new Class B address for some time.
A Class C address has a 24-bit NET_ID and 8-bit HOST_ID. These
addresses are intended for small networks and can address only up to 254
(28-2) hosts per network. The first three bits of a Class C address are 110
so that the first digit of a Class C address will be a number between 192
and 223. There are 2,097,152 (221) possible Class C NETIDs and most
addresses assigned to networks today are Class C (or sub-Class C!).

The remaining two address classes are used for special functions only and are not
commonly assigned to individual hosts. Class D addresses may begin with a value
between 224 and 239 (the first 4 bits are 1110), and are used for IP multicasting (i.e.,
sending a single datagram to multiple hosts); the IANA maintains a list of Internet
Multicast Addresses. Class E addresses begin with a value between 240 and 255 (the first
4 bits are 1111), and are reserved for experimental use.
Several address values are reserved and/or have special meaning. A HOST_ID of 0 (as
used above) is a dummy value reserved as a place holder when referring to an entire
subnetwork; the address 208.162.106.0, then, refers to the Class C address with a
NET_ID of 208.162.106. A HOST_ID of all ones (usually written "255" when referring
to an all-ones byte, but also denoted as "-1") is a broadcast address and refers to all hosts
on a network. A NET_ID value of 127 is used for loopback testing and the specific host
address 127.0.0.1 refers to the localhost.
Several NET_IDs have been reserved in RFC 1918 for private network addresses and
packets will not be routed over the Internet to these networks. Reserved NET_IDs are the

Class A address 10.0.0.0 (formerly assigned to ARPANET), the sixteen Class B

addresses 172.16.0.0-172.31.0.0, and the 256 Class C addresses 192.168.0.0192.168.255.0. (These addresses are not routable over the Internet because all ISPs have
agreed not to route them. They are unusable as public addresses just as the telephone
number 555-1234 is unusable on the telephone network because the telephone service
providers have "agreed" not to use the 555 exchange.)
An additional addressing tool is the subnet mask. Subnet masks are used to indicate the
portion of the address that identifies the network (and/or subnetwork) for routing
purposes. The subnet mask is written in dotted decimal and the number of 1s indicates the
significant NET_ID bits. For "classful" IP addresses, the subnet mask and number of
significant address bits for the NET_ID are:
Class Subnet Mask Number of Bits
A
255.0.0.0
8
B
255.255.0.0
16
C 255.255.255.0
24

Depending upon the context and literature, subnet masks may be written in dotted
decimal form or just as a number representing the number of significant address bits for
the NET_ID. Thus, 208.162.106.17 255.255.255.0 and
208.162.106.17/24 both refer to a Class C NET_ID of 208.162.106. Some, in fact,
might refer to this 24-bit NET_ID as a "slash-24."
Subnet masks can also be used to subdivide a large address space into subnetworks or to
combine multiple small address spaces. In the former case, a network may subdivide their
address space to define multiple logical networks by segmenting the HOST_ID subfield
into a Subnetwork Identifier (SUBNET_ID) and (smaller) HOST_ID. For example, user
assigned the Class B address space 172.16.0.0 could segment this into a 16-bit NET_ID,
4-bit SUBNET_ID, and 12-bit HOST_ID. In this case, the subnet mask for Internet
routing purposes would be 255.255.0.0 (or "/16"), while the mask for routing to
individual subnets within the larger Class B address space would be 255.255.240.0 (or
"/20").
But how a subnet mask work? To determine the subnet portion of the address, we simply
perform a bit-by-bit logical AND of the IP address and the mask. Consider the following
example: suppose we have a host with the IP address 172.20.134.164 and a subnet mask
255.255.0.0. We write out the address and mask in decimal and binary as follows:
172.020.134.164
AND 255.255.000.000
--------------172.020.000.000

10101100.00010100.10000110.10100100
11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000
----------------------------------10101100.00010100.00000000.00000000

From this we can easily find the NET_ID 172.20.0.0 (and can also infer the HOST_ID
134.164).

As an aside, most ISPs use a /30 address for the WAN links between the network and the
customer. The router on the customer's network will generally have two IP addresses; one
on the LAN interface using an address from the customer's public IP address space and
one on the WAN interface leading back to the ISP. Since the ISP would like to be able to
ping both sides of the router for testing and maintenance, having an IP address for each
router port is a good idea.
By using a /30 address, a single Class C address can be broken up into 64 smaller
addresses. Here's an example. Suppose an ISP assigns a particular customer the address
24.48.165.130 and a subnet mask 255.255.255.252. That would look like the following:
024.048.165.130
AND 255.255.255.252
--------------024.048.165.128

00011000.00110000.10100101.10000010
11111111.11111111.11111111.11111100
----------------------------------00011000.00110000.10100101.10000000

So we find the NET_ID to be 24.48.165.128. Since there's a 30-bit NET_ID, we are left
with a 2-bit HOST_ID; thus, there are four possible host addresses in this subnet:
24.48.165.128 (00), .129 (01), .130 (10), and .131 (11). The .128 address isn't used
because it is all-zeroes; .131 isn't used because it is all-ones. That leave .129 and .130,
which is ok since we only have two ends on the WAN link! So, in this case, the
customer's router might be assigned 24.48.165.130/30 and the ISP's end of the link might
get 24.48.165.129/30. Use of this subnet mask is very common today (so common that
there is a proposal to allow the definition of 2-address NET_IDs specifically for point-topoint WAN links).
A very good IP addressing tutorial can be found in Chuck Semeria's Understanding IP
Addressing: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3). If you are
really interested in subnet masks, there are a number of subnet calculators on the Internet,
including jafar.com's IP Subnet/Supernet Calculator and WildPacket's IP Subnet
Calculator.
A last and final word about IP addresses is in order. Most Internet protocols specify that
addresses be supplied in the form of a fully-qualified host name or an IP address in dotted
decimal form. However, spammers and others have found a way to obfuscate IP
addresses by supplying the IP address as a single large decimal number. Remember that
IP addresses are 32-bit quantities. We write the address in dotted decimal for the
convenience of humans; the computer still interprets dotted decimal as a 32-bit quantity.
Therefore, writing the address as a single large decimal number will still allow the
computer to see the address as a 32-bit number. For that reason, the following URLs will
all take you to the same Web page (on many browses):

http://www.garykessler.net
http://207.204.17.246
http://3486257654

3.2.2. Conserving IP Addresses: CIDR, DHCP, NAT, and PAT

The use of class-based (or classful) addresses in IP is one of the reasons that IP address
exhaustion has been a concern since the early 1990s. Consider an organization, for
example, that needs 1000 IP addresses. A Class C address is obviously to small so a Class
B address would get assigned. But a Class B address offers more than 64,000 address, so
over 63,000 addresses are wasted in this assignment.
An alternative approach is to assign this organization a block four Class C addresses,
such as 192.168.128.0, 192.168.129.0, 192.168.130.0, and 192.168.131.0. By using a 22bit subnet mask 255.255.252.0 (or "/22") for routing to this "block," the NET_ID
assigned to this organization is 192.168.128.0.
This use of variable-size subnet masks is called Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR),
described in RFCs 1518 and 1519. In the example here, routing information for what is
essentially four Class C addresses can be specified in a single router table entry.
But this concept can be expanded even more. CIDR is an important contribution to the
Internet because it has dramatically limited the size of the Internet backbone's routing
tables. Today, IP addresses are not assigned strictly on a first-come, first-serve basis, but
have been preallocated to various numbering authorities around the world. The
numbering authorities in turn, assign blocks of addresses to major (or first-tier) ISPs;
these address blocks are called CIDR blocks. An ISP's customer (which includes ISPs
that are customers of a first-tier ISP) will be assigned an IP NET_ID that is part of the
ISP's CIDR block. So, for example, let's say that Gary Kessler ISP has a CIDR block
containing the 256 Class C addresses in the range 196.168.0.0-196.168.255.0. This range
of addresses could be represented in a routing table with the single entry 196.168.0.0/16.
Once a packet hits the Gary Kessler ISP, it will be routed it to the correct end destination.
But don't stop now! By shrinking the size of the subnet mask so that a single NET_ID
refers to multiple addresses (resulting in shrinking router tables), we could extend the size
of the subnet mask to actually assign to an organization something smaller than a Class C
address. As the Class C address space falls in danger of being exhausted, users are under
increasing pressure to accept assignment of these sub-Class C addresses. An organization
with just a few servers, for example, might be assigned, say, 64 addresses rather than the
full 256. The standard subnet mask for a Class C is 24 bits, yielding a 24-bit NET_ID and
8-bit HOST_ID. If we use a "/26" mask (255.255.255.192), we can assign the same
"Class C" to four different users, each getting 1/4 of the address space (and a 6-bit
HOST_ID). So, for example, the IP address space 208.162.106.0 might be assigned as
follows:
HOST_ID
Valid
range HOST_IDs
208.162.106.0
0-63
1-62
208.162.106.64
64-127
65-126
208.162.106.128 128-191
129-190
NET_ID

208.162.106.192 192-255

193-254

Note that in ordinary Class C usage, we would lose two addresses from the space 0
and 255 because addresses of all 0s and all 1s cannot be assigned as a HOST_ID. In
the usage above, we would lose eight addresses from this space, because 0, 64, 128, and
192 have an all 0s HOST_ID and 63, 127, 191, and 255 have an all 1s HOST_ID. Each
user, then, has 62 addresses that can be assigned to hosts.
The pressure on the Class C address space is continuing in intensity. Today, the pressure
is not only to limit the number of addresses assigned, but organizations need to show why
they need as many addresses as they want. Consider a company with 64 hosts and 3
servers. The ISP may request that that company only obtain 32 IP addresses. The
rationale: the 3 servers need 3 addresses but the other hosts might be able to "share" the
remaining pool of 27 addresses (recall that we lost HOST_ID addresses 0 and 31).
A pool of IP addresses can be shared by multiple hosts using a mechanism called
Network Address Translation (NAT). NAT, described in RFC 1631, is typically
implemented in hosts, proxy servers, or routers. The scheme works because every host on
the user's network can be assigned an IP address from the pool of RFC 1918 private
addresses; since these addresses are never seen on the Internet, this is not a problem.

FIGURE 6. Network Address Translation (NAT).

Consider the scenario shown in Figure 6. When the user accesses a Web site on the
Internet, the NAT server will translate the "private" IP address of the host
(192.168.50.50) into a "public" IP address (220.16.16.5) from the pool of assigned
addresses. NAT works because of the assumption that, in this example, no more than 27
of the 64 hosts will ever be accessing the Internet at a single time.
But suppose that assumption is wrong. Another enhancement, called Port Address
Translation (PAT) or Network Address Port Translation (NAPT), allows multiple hosts to
share a single IP address by using different "port numbers" (ports are described more in
Section 3.3).

FIGURE 7. Port Address Translation (PAT).

Port numbers are used by higher layer protocols (e.g., TCP and UDP) to identify a higher
layer application. A TCP connection, for example, is uniquely identified on the Internet
by the four values (aka 4-tuple) <source IP address, source port, destination IP address,

destination port>. The server's port number is defined by the standards while client port
numbers can be any number greater than 1023. The scenario in Figure 7 shows the
following three connections:

The client with the "private" IP address 192.168.50.50 (using port number
12002) connects to a Web server at address 98.10.10.5 (port 80).
The client with the "private" IP address 192.168.50.6 (using port number
22986) connects to the same Web server at address 98.10.10.5 (port 80).
The client with the "private" IP address 192.168.50.6 (using port number
8931) connects to an FTP server at address 99.12.18.6 (port 21).

PAT works in this scenario as follows. The router (running PAT software) can assign
both local hosts with the same "public" IP address (220.16.16.5) and differentiate
between the three packet flows by the source port.
A final note about NAT and PAT. Both of these solutions work and work fine, but they
require that every packet be buffered, dissassembled, provided with a new IP address, a
new checksum calculated, and the packet reassembled. In addition, PAT requires that a
new port number be placed in the higher layer protocol data unit and new checksum
calculated at the protocol layer above IP, too. The point is that NAT, and particularly
PAT, results in a tremendous performance hit.
One advantage of NAT is that it makes IP address renumbering a thing of the past. If a
customer has an IP NET_ID assigned from its ISP's CIDR block and then they change
ISPs, they will get a new NET_ID. With NAT, only the servers need to be renumbered.
Another way to deal with renumbering is to dynamically assign IP addresses to host
systems using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). DHCP is also an
excellent solution for those environments where users move around frequently; it
prevents the user from having to reconfigure their system when they move from, say, the
Los Angeles office network to the New York office. For an introduction to DHCP, see
RFC 2131 or "The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Windows NT" by
G. Kessler and C. Monaghan.
3.2.3. The Domain Name System
While IP addresses are 32 bits in length, most users do not memorize the numeric
addresses of the hosts to which they attach; instead, people are more comfortable with
host names. Most IP hosts, then, have both a numeric IP address and a name. While this
is convenient for people, however, the name must be translated back to a numeric address
for routing purposes.
Earlier discussion in this paper described the domain naming structure of the Internet. In
the early ARPANET, every host maintained a file called hosts that contained a list of
all hosts, which included the IP address, host name, and alias(es). This was an adequate

measure while the ARPANET was small and had a slow rate of growth, but was not a
scalable solution as the network grew.
[NOTE: A hosts file is still found on Unix systems although usually used to reconcile
names of hosts on the local network to cut down on local DNS traffic; the file can usually
be found in the /etc directory. On Microsoft Windows systems, the HOSTS file can
typically be found in the c:\windows folder; in Windows NT, 2000, and later, it can be
found in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc.]
To handle the fast rate of new names on the network, the Domain Name System (DNS)
was created. The DNS is a distributed database containing host name and IP address
information for all domains on the Internet. There is a single authoritative name server
for every domain that contains all DNS-related information about the domain; each
domain also has at least one secondary name server that also contains a copy of this
information. Thirteen root servers around the globe maintain a list of all of these
authoritative name servers. Although most of the root servers have multiple instances
around the globe to improve performance and minimize vulnerability to attack, most of
the primary DNS root servers are in the U.S. with the remainder in Asia and Europe).
When a host on the Internet needs to obtain a host's IP address based upon the host's
name, a DNS request is made by the initial host to a local name server. The local name
server may be able to respond to the request with information that is either configured or
cached at the name server; if necessary information is not available, the local name server
forwards the request to one of the root servers. The root server, then, will determine an
appropriate name server for the target host and the DNS request will be forwarded to the
domain's name server.
Name server data files contain the following types of records including:

A-record: An address record maps a hostname to an IP address.

PTR-record: A pointer record maps an IP address to a hostname.
NS-record: A name server record lists the authoritative name server(s) for
a given domain.
MX-record: A mail exchange record lists the mail servers for a given
domain. As an example, consider the author's e-mail address,
[email protected]. Note that the "garykessler.net" portion of the
address is a domain name, not a host name, and mail has to be sent to a
specific host. The MX-records in the garykessler.net name database
specifies the host mx01.register.com is the preferred mail server for this
domain. (Register.com hosts the garykessler.net domain.)
CNAME-record: Canonical name records provide a mechanism of
assigning aliases to host names, so that a single host with a IP address can
be known by multiple names.

The IANA administers the root zone (i.e., ".") of the DNS. It maintains a list of all
authoritative zone administrations at its Root Zone Database.

More information about the DNS can be found in DNS and BIND, 4th ed. by P. Albitz
and C. Liu (O'Reilly & Associates) and "Setting up Your own DNS" by G. Kessler. The
concepts, structure, and delegation of the DNS are described in RFCs 1034 and 1591. In
addition, the IANA maintains a list of DNS parameters.
[ANOTHER NOTE: For Microsoft NetBIOS applications, the moral equivalent to the
DNS is the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), used to reconcile the NetBIOS
name of a computer (e.g., \\ALTAMONT) to an IP address. A local WINS database can
be created in the LMHOSTS file.]
3.2.4. ARP and Address Resolution
Early IP implementations ran on hosts commonly interconnected by Ethernet local area
networks (LAN). Every transmission on the LAN contains the local network, or medium
access control (MAC), address of the source and destination nodes. MAC addresses are
48-bits in length and are non-hierarchical, so routing cannot be performed using the MAC
address. MAC addresses are never the same as IP addresses.
When a host needs to send a datagram to another host on the same network, the sending
application must know both the IP and MAC addresses of the intended receiver; this is
because the destination IP address is placed in the IP packet and the destination MAC
address is placed in the LAN MAC protocol frame. (If the destination host is on another
network, the sender will look instead for the MAC address of the default gateway, or
router.)
Unfortunately, the sender's IP process may not know the MAC address of the intended
receiver on the same network. The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), described in RFC
826, provides a mechanism so that a host can learn a receiver's MAC address when
knowing only the IP address. The process is actually relatively simple: the host sends an
ARP Request packet in a frame containing the MAC broadcast address; the ARP request
advertises the destination IP address and asks for the associated MAC address. The
station on the LAN that recognizes its own IP address will send an ARP Response with
its own MAC address. As Figure 2 shows, ARP message are carried directly in the LAN
frame and ARP is an independent protocol from IP. The IANA maintains a list of all
ARP parameters.
Other address resolution procedures have also been defined, including:

Reverse ARP (RARP), which allows a disk-less processor to determine its

IP address based on knowing its own MAC address
Inverse ARP (InARP), which provides a mapping between an IP address
and a frame relay virtual circuit identifier
ATMARP and ATMInARP provide a mapping between an IP address and
ATM virtual path/channel identifiers.

LAN Emulation ARP (LEARP), which maps a recipient's ATM address to

its LAN Emulation (LE) address (which takes the form of an IEEE 802
MAC address).

[NOTE: IP hosts maintain a cache storing recent ARP information. The ARP cache can
be viewed from a Unix, Linux, or DOS command line using the arp -a command.]
3.2.5. IP Routing: OSPF, RIP, and BGP
As an OSI Network Layer protocol, IP has the responsibility to route packets. It performs
this function by looking up a packet's destination IP NET_ID in a routing table and
forwarding based on the information in the table. But it is routing protocols, and not IP,
that populate the routing tables with routing information. There are three routing
protocols commonly associated with IP and the Internet, namely, RIP, OSPF, and BGP.
OSPF and RIP are primarily used to provide routing within a particular domain, such as
within a corporate network or within an ISP's network. Since the routing is inside of the
domain, these protocols are generically referred to as interior gateways protocols.
The Routing Information Protocol version 2 (RIP-2), described in RFC 2453, describes
how routers will exchange routing table information using a distance-vector algorithm.
With RIP, neighboring routers periodically exchange their entire routing tables. RIP uses
hop count as the metric of a path's cost, and a path is limited to 16 hops. Unfortunately,
RIP has become increasingly inefficient on the Internet as the network continues its fast
rate of growth. Current routing protocols for many of today's LANs are based upon RIP,
including those associated with NetWare, AppleTalk, VINES, and DECnet. The IANA
maintains a list of RIP message types.
The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol is a link state routing algorithm that is
more robust than RIP, converges faster, requires less network bandwidth, and is better
able to scale to larger networks. With OSPF, a router broadcasts only changes in its links'
status rather than entire routing tables, making it more robust and scalable than RIP.
OSPF Version 2 is described in RFC 1583.
The Border Gateway Protocol version 4 (BGP-4) is an exterior gateway protocol because
it is used to provide routing information between Internet routing domains. BGP is a
distance vector protocol, like RIP, but unlike almost all other distance vector protocols,
BGP tables store the actual route to the destination network. BGP-4 also supports policybased routing, which allows a network's administrator to create routing policies based on
political, security, legal, or economic issues rather than technical ones. BGP-4 also
supports CIDR. BGP-4 is described in RFC 1771, while RFC 1268 describes use of BGP
in the Internet. In addition, the IANA maintains a list of BGP parameters.
As an alternative to using a routing protocol, the routing table can be maintained using
"static routing." One example of static routing is the configuration of a default gateway at
a host system; if the host needs to send an IP packet off of the local LAN segment, it is

just blindly forwarded to the default gateway (router). Edge router's, too, commonly use
static routing; the single router connecting a site to an ISP, for example, will usually just
have a static routing table entry indicating that all traffic leaving the local LAN be
forwarded to the ISP's access router. Since there's only a single path into the ISP, a
routing protocol is hardly necessary.
All IP hosts and routers maintain a table that lists the most up-to-date routing information
that that device knows. On a Windows system, you can examine the routing table by
issuing a route print command; on Unix systems, use netstat -r.
Figure 2 shows the protocol relationship of RIP, OSPF, and BGP to IP. A RIP message is
carried in a UDP datagram which, in turn, is carried in an IP packet. An OSPF message,
on the other hand, is carried directly in an IP datagram. BGP messages, in a total
departure, are carried in TCP segments over IP. Although all of the TCP/IP books
mentioned above discuss IP routing to some level of detail, Routing in the Internet by
Christian Huitema is one of the best available references on this specific subject.
3.2.6. IP version 6
The official version of IP that has been in use since the early 1980s is version 4. Due to
the tremendous growth of the Internet and new emerging applications, it was recognized
that a new version of IP was becoming necessary. In late 1995, IP version 6 (IPv6) was
entered into the Internet Standards Track. The primary description of IPv6 is contained in
RFC 1883 and a number of related specifications, including ICMPv6.
IPv6 is designed as an evolution from IPv4, rather than a radical change. Primary areas of
change relate to:

Increasing the IP address size to 128 bits

Better support for traffic types with different quality-of-service objectives
Extensions to support authentication, data integrity, and data
confidentiality

The architecture and structure of IPv6 addresses is described in RFC 2373. In July 1999,
the IANA delegated the initial IPv6 address space to the worldwide regional registries in
order to begin immediate worldwide deployment of IPv6 addresses. More information
can be found at APNIC, ARIN, and RIPE.
For more information about IPv6, check out:

IPng: Internet Protocol Next Generation by Scott Bradner and Allison

Mankin (Addison-Wesley, 1996)
IPv6: The New Internet Protocol by Christian Huitema (Prentice-Hall,
1996).
"IPv6: The Next Generation Internet Protocol" by Gary Kessler.

IPng and the TCP/IP Protocols by Stephen Thomas (John Wiley & Sons,
1996)
IPng Working Group page (IETF)
IP Next Generation Web Page (Sun)
6bone Testbed

3.3. The Transport Layer Protocols

The TCP/IP protocol suite comprises two protocols that correspond roughly to the OSI
Transport and Session Layers; these protocols are called the Transmission Control
Protocol and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). One can argue that it is a misnomer to
refer to "TCP/IP applications," as most such applications actually run over TCP or UDP,
as shown in Figure 2.
3.3.1. Ports
Higher-layer applications are referred to by a port identifier in TCP/UDP messages. The
port identifier and IP address together form a socket, and the end-to-end communication
between two hosts is uniquely identified on the Internet by the four-tuple (source port,
source address, destination port, destination address).
Port numbers are specified by a 16-bit number. Port numbers in the range 0-1023 are
called Well Known Ports. These port numbers are assigned to the server side of an
application and, on most systems, can only be used by processes with a high level of
privilege (such as root or administrator). Port numbers in the range 1024-49151 are called
Registered Ports, and these are numbers that have been publicly defined as a convenience
for the Internet community to avoid vendor conflicts. Server or client applications can use
the port numbers in this range. The remaining port numbers, in the range 49152-65535,
are called Dynamic and/or Private Ports and can be used freely by any client or server.
Some well-known port numbers include:
Port #
7
9
13
19
20
21
23
25
37
43

Common
Protocol
TCP
TCP
TCP
TCP
TCP
TCP
TCP
TCP
UDP
TCP

Service

Port #

echo
discard
daytime
chargen
ftp-control
ftp-data
telnet
smtp
time
whois

80
110
111
119
123
137
138
139
143
161

Common
Protocol
TCP
TCP
TCP
TCP
UDP
UDP
UDP
TCP
TCP
UDP

Service
http
pop3
sunrpc
nntp
ntp
netbios-ns
netbios-dgm
netbios-ssn
imap
snmp

53
67
68
69
70
79

TCP/UDP
UDP
UDP
UDP
TCP
TCP

dns
bootps
bootpc
tftp
gopher
finger

162
179
443
520
1080
33434

UDP
TCP
TCP
UDP
TCP
UDP

snmp-trap
bgp
https (http/ssl)
rip
socks
traceroute

A complete list of port numbers that have been assigned can be found in the IANA's list
of Port Numbers. An implementation-specific list of supported port numbers and services
can be found in the services file, generally found in the /etc (Linux/Unix),
c:\windows (Windows 9x, ME), or
c:\$systemroot\system32\drivers\etc (Windows NT, 2000, et seq.)
directory.
3.3.2. TCP
TCP, described in RFC 793, provides a virtual circuit (connection-oriented)
communication service across the network. TCP includes rules for formatting messages,
establishing and terminating virtual circuits, sequencing, flow control, and error
correction. Most of the applications in the TCP/IP suite operate over the reliable transport
service provided by TCP.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|
Source Port
|
Destination Port
| +-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Sequence Number
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Acknowledgement Number
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Offset |(reserved) |
Flags
|
Window
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Checksum
|
Urgent Pointer
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Options....
(Padding)
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+ |
Data... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+FIGURE 8. TCP segment format.

The TCP data unit is called a segment; the name is due to the fact that TCP does not
recognize messages, per se, but merely sends a block of bytes from the byte stream
between sender and receiver. The fields of the segment (Figure 8) are:

Source Port and Destination Port: Identify the source and destination
ports to identify the end-to-end connection and higher-layer application.
Sequence Number: Contains the sequence number of this segment's first
data byte in the overall connection byte stream; since the sequence number

refers to a byte count rather than a segment count, sequence numbers in

contiguous TCP segments are not numbered sequentially.
Acknowledgment Number: Used by the sender to acknowledge receipt of
data; this field indicates the sequence number of the next byte expected
from the receiver.
Data Offset: Points to the first data byte in this segment; this field, then,
indicates the segment header length.
Control Flags: A set of flags that control certain aspects of the TCP
virtual connection. The flags include:
o Urgent Pointer Field Significant (URG): When set, indicates that
the current segment contains urgent (or high-priority) data and that
the Urgent Pointer field value is valid.
o Acknowledgment Field Significant (ACK): When set, indicates that
the value contained in the Acknowledgment Number field is valid.
This bit is usually set, except during the first message during
connection establishment.
o Push Function (PSH): Used when the transmitting application
wants to force TCP to immediately transmit the data that is
currently buffered without waiting for the buffer to fill; useful for
transmitting small units of data.
o Reset Connection (RST): When set, immediately terminates the
end-to-end TCP connection.
o Synchronize Sequence Numbers (SYN): Set in the initial segments
used to establish a connection, indicating that the segments carry
the initial sequence number.
o Finish (FIN): Set to request normal termination of the TCP
connection in the direction this segment is traveling; completely
closing the connection requires one FIN segment in each direction.
Window: Used for flow control, contains the value of the receive window
size which is the number of transmitted bytes that the sender of this
segment is willing to accept from the receiver.
Checksum: Provides bit error detection for the TCP segment. The
checksum field covers the TCP segment header and data, as well as a 96bit pseudo header that contains the IP header Source Address, Destination
Address, and Protocol fields, as well as the TCP segment length.
Urgent Pointer: Urgent data is information that has been marked as highpriority by a higher layer application; this data, in turn, usually bypasses
normal TCP buffering and is placed in a segment between the header and
"normal" data. The Urgent Pointer, valid when the URG flag is set,
indicates the position of the first octet of nonexpedited data in the
segment.
Options: Used at connection establishment to negotiate a variety of
options; maximum segment size (MSS) is the most commonly used option
and, if absent, defaults to an MSS of 536. Another option is Selective
Acknowledgement (SACK), which allows out-of-sequence segments to be

accepted by a receiver. The IANA maintains a list of all TCP Option

Numbers.
3.3.3. UDP
UDP, described in RFC 768, provides an end-to-end datagram (connectionless) service.
Some applications, such as those that involve a simple query and response, are better
suited to the datagram service of UDP because there is no time lost to virtual circuit
establishment and termination. UDP's primary function is to add a port number to the IP
address to provide a socket for the application.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|
Source Port
|
Destination Port
| +-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Length
|
Checksum
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
Data... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+FIGURE 9. UDP datagram format.

The fields of a UDP datagram (Figure 9) are:

Source Port: Identifies the UDP port being used by the sender of the
datagram; use of this field is optional in UDP and may be set to 0.
Destination Port: Identifies the port used by the datagram receiver.
Length: Indicates the total length of the UDP datagram.
Checksum: Provides bit error detection for the UDP datagram. The
checksum field covers the UDP datagram header and data, as well as a 96bit pseudo header that contains the IP header Source Address, Destination
Address, and Protocol fields, as well as the UDP datagram length.

3.3.4. ICMP
The Internet Control Message Protocol, described in RFC 792, is an adjunct to IP that
notifies the sender of IP datagrams about abnormal events. This collateral protocol is
particularly important in the connectionless environment of IP. ICMP is not a classic
host-to-host protocols like TCP or UDP, but is host-to-host in the sense that one device
(e.g., a router or computer) is sending a message to another device (e.g., another router or
computer).
The commonly employed ICMP message types include:

Destination Unreachable: Indicates that a packet cannot be delivered

because the destination host cannot be reached. The reason for the non-

delivery may be that the host or network is unreachable or unknown, the

protocol or port is unknown or unusable, fragmentation is required but not
allowed (DF-flag is set), or the network or host is unreachable for this type
of service.
Echo and Echo Reply: These two messages are used to check whether
hosts are reachable on the network. One host sends an Echo message to
the other, optionally containing some data, and the receiving host responds
with an Echo Reply containing the same data. These messages are the
basis for the Ping command.
Parameter Problem: Indicates that a router or host encountered a problem
with some aspect of the packet's Header.
Redirect: Used by a host or router to let the sending host know that
packets should be forwarded to another address. For security reasons,
Redirect messages should usually be blocked at the firewall.
Source Quench: Sent by a router to indicate that it is experiencing
congestion (usually due to limited buffer space) and is discarding
datagrams.
TTL Exceeded: Indicates that a datagram has been discarded because the
TTL field reached 0 or because the entire packet was not received before
the fragmentation timer expired.
Timestamp and Timestamp Reply: These messages are similar to the Echo
messages, but place a timestamp (with millisecond granularity) in the
message, yielding a measure of how long remote systems spend buffering
and processing datagrams, and providing a mechanism so that hosts can
synchronize their clocks.

ICMP messages are carried in IP packets. The IANA maintains a complete list of ICMP
parameters.
3.3.5. TCP Logical Connections and ICMP
It is imperative to understand how a TCP connection is established to get a good feel for
how TCP operates. TCP connections have three main parts: connection establishment,
data exchange, and connection termination. The example below shows a POP3 server
(listening on TCP port 110) being contacted by a client (using TCP port 1967).

CLIENT
SERVER syn, SEQ=800
1 --------------------------------------------------->
1
src_port=1967, dst_port=110
1
1
syn, ack, SEQ=1567, ACK=801
1 CONNECTION
<--------------------------------------------------1
src_port=110, dst_port=1967
1 ESTABLISHMENT
1 ack, SEQ=801, ACK=1568
1 -------------------------------------------------->
1 src_port=1967,

dst_port=110
1
ack, SEQ=1568, ACK=801
2 <-------------------------------------------------2
src_port=110, dst_port=1967
2
DataLen=18 (POP3 Server V1.12\n)
2
2 ack, SEQ=801, ACK=1586
2 -------------------------------------------------->
2 src_port=1967,
dst_port=110
2 DataLen=5 (quit\n)
2 DATA
2
EXCHANGE
ack, SEQ=1586, ACK=806
2 <-------------------------------------------------2
src_port=110, dst_port=1967
2
DataLen=9 (Sayonara\n)
2
2 ack, SEQ=806, ACK=1595
2 -------------------------------------------------->
2 src_port=1967,
dst_port=110
2
fin, ack, SEQ=806,
ACK=1595
3 -------------------------------------------------->
3 src_port=1967, dst_port=110
3
3
ack, SEQ=1595, ACK=807
3 <-------------------------------------------------3
src_port=110, dst_port=1967
3 CONNECTION
3
fin, ack, SEQ=1595, ACK=807
3 TERMINATION <-------------------------------------------------3
src_port=110, dst_port=1967
3
3 ack, SEQ=807, ACK=1596
3 -------------------------------------------------->
3 src_port=1967,
dst_port=110
3
FIGURE 10. TCP logical connection phases.

The connection establishment phase comprises a three-way handshake during which time
the client and server exchange their initial sequence number (ISN) and acknowledge the
other host's ISN. In this example, the client starts by sending the server a TCP segment
with the syn-bit set and a Sequence Number of 800. The syn-bit tells the receiver (i.e., the
server) that the sender (i.e., the client) is in "ISN initialization" mode and that the ISN
hasn't yet been confirmed. The segment's Acknowledgement Number isn't shown because
its value is, at this point, invalid.
The server responds with a segment with the syn- and ack-bits set, a Sequence Number of
1567, and an Acknowledgement Number of 801. The syn-bit and ISN of 1567 have the
same meaning as above. The ack-bit indicates the value of the Acknowledgement
Number field is valid and the ACK value of 801 is the way in which the server confirms
the client's ISN.
The final part of the three-way handshake is when the client sends a segment with just the
ack-bit set. Note that the Acknowledgement Number field (1568) is one greater than the
server's ISN.

This three-way handshake is sometimes referred to as an exchange of "syn, syn/ack, and

ack" segments. It is important for a number of reasons. For individuals looking at packet
traces, recognition of the three-way handshake is how to find the start of a connection.
For firewalls, proxy severs, intrusion detectors, and other systems, it provides a way of
knowing the direction of a TCP connection setup since rules may differ for outbound and
inbound connections.
The second part of the TCP connection is data exchange. The information here is more or
less made up for example purposes only; it shows a POP server sending a banner
message to the client system, the user sending the "quit" command, and the server signing
off. (Note that the "\n" indicates an "end-of-line" indicator.) These segments show the
changing of, and relationship between, the client's and server's sequence and
acknowledgement numbers.
The final phase is connection termination. Although TCP connections are full-duplex
(even if a given application does not allow two-way simultaneous communication), the
TCP protocol views the logical connection as a pair of simplex links. Therefore,
connection termination requires four segments or, more properly, two pair of segments.
In this case, the client sends the server a segment with the fin- and ack-bits set; the server
responds with a segment with just the ack-bit set and the Acknowledgment Number is
incremented. The server then sends a fin/ack segment to the client.
The paragraphs above describe a normal scenario setting up a TCP connection between a
client and server. Two UDP hosts communicate in a similar fashion; one host sends a
UDP datagram to the other which is presumably listening on the port indicated in the
datagram.
But what happens if a host isn't listening on a port to which a connection is attempted or
the host doesn't actually exist? Here's what happens in these "abnormal" conditions:

Host not listening on TCP port: If Host A attempts to contact Host B on a

TCP port that Host B is not listening on, Host B responds with a TCP
segment with the reset (RST) and acknowledge (ACK) flags set.
Host not listening on UDP port: If Host A attempts to contact Host B on a
UDP port that Host B is not listening on, Host B sends an ICMP port
unreachable message to Host A.
Host does not exist: If Host A attempts to contact Host B and Host B is not
listening (e.g., Host B's IP address either doesn't exist or is unavailable),
Host B's subnet's router will send an ICMP host unreachable message to
Host A.

3.4. The TCP/IP Application Layer

The TCP/IP Application Layer protocols support the applications and utilities that are the
Internet. This section will list a number of these applications and show a sample packet
decode of all protocol layers.
3.4.1. TCP and UDP Applications
Commonly used protocols (as shown in Figure 2) include:

Archie: A utility that allows a user to search all registered anonymous FTP
sites for files on a specified topic. Obsolete by the late-1990s, obviated by
the World Wide Web.
BGP: The Border Gateway Protocol version 4 (BGP-4) is a distance
vector exterior gateway routing protocol, commonly used between two
ISPs or between a customer site and ISP if there are multiple links.
(Discussed in Section 3.2.3 above) defines the structure of Internet names
and their association with IP addresses, as well as the association of mail
and name servers with domains.
Finger: Used to determine the status of other hosts and/or users (RFC
1288).
FTP: The File Transfer Protocol allows a user to transfer files between
local and remote host computers (RFC 959).
Gopher: A tool that allows users to search through data repositories using
a menu-driven, hierarchical interface, with links to other sites. Obsolete
today, obviated by the World Wide Web (RFC 1436).
HTTP: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the basis for exchange of
information over the World Wide Web (WWW). Various versions of
HTTP are in use over the Internet, with HTTP version 1.1 (RFC 2616)
being the most current. WWW pages are written in the Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML), an ASCII-based, platform-independent formatting
language (RFC 1866).
IMAP: The Internet Mail Access Protocol defines an alternative to POP as
the interface between a user's mail client software and an e-mail server,
used to download mail from the server to the client and providing
significant flexibility in mailbox management.
OSPF: The Open Shortest Path First version 2 (OSPFv2) protocol is a link
state routing protocol used within an organization's network. This is the
preferred so-called interior gateway protocol. (Discussed in Section 3.2.5
above.)
SSH: The Secure Shell is a protocol that allows remote logon to a host
across the Internet, much like Telnet. Unlike Telnet, however, SSH
encrypts passwords and data traffic.
SMTP: The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol for the
exchange of electronic mail over the Internet (RFC 821). SMTP is used
between e-mail servers on the Internet or to allow an e-mail client to send
mail to a server. RFC 822 specifically describes the mail message body
format, and RFCs 1521 and 1522 describe MIME (Multipurpose Internet

Mail Extensions). Reference books on electronic mail systems include

!%@:: Addressing and Networks by D. Frey and R. Adams (O'Reilly &
Associates, 1993) and THE INTERNET MESSAGE: Closing the Book
With Electronic Mail by M. Rose (PTR Prentice Hall, 1993).
SNMP: The Simple Network Management Protocol defines procedures
and management information databases for managing TCP/IP-based
network devices. SNMP (RFC 1157) is widely deployed in local and wide
area networks. SNMP Version 2 (SNMPv2, RFC 1441) adds security
mechanisms that are missing in SNMP, but is also very complex;
widespread use of SNMPv2 has yet to be seen. Additional information on
SNMP and TCP/IP-based network management can be found in SNMP by
S. Feit (McGraw-Hill, 1994) and THE SIMPLE BOOK: An Introduction to
Internet Management, 2/e, by M. Rose (PTR Prentice Hall, 1994).
SSL: The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), designed by Netscape, provides a
mechanism for secure communications over the Internet, based on
certificates and public key cryptography. The most commonly known SSL
application is HTTP over SSL, commonly designated as https. The newest
version of SSL is called Transport Layer Security (TLS) (RFC 2246). SSL
is not, however, HTTP-specific; protocols such as IMAP4 (imaps), FTP
(ftps), Telnet (telnets), and POP3 (pop3s) all have definitions for operation
over SSL. (Additional details on the operation of SSL/TLS can be found
in the SSL section of the author's cryptography overview paper.)
TACACS+: The Terminal Access Controller Access Control System plus
is a remote access protocol.
Telnet: Short for Telecommunication Network, a virtual terminal protocol
allowing a user logged on to one TCP/IP host to access other hosts on the
network (RFC 854).
TFTP: The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is used for some
specialized simple file transfer applications.
Time/NTP: Time and the Network Time Protocol (NTP) are used so that
Internet hosts can synchronize their system time from well-known Internet
time servers.
Traceroute: A tool that displays the route taken by packets across the
Internet between a local and remote host. The traceroute command is
available on Linux/Unix systems; Windows systems starting with
Windows 95 have a tracert command utility. More information about the
operation and background of traceroute can be found at the InetDaemon
traceroute page.
Whois/NICNAME: Utilities that search databases for information about
Internet domains and domain contact information (RFC 3912).

A guide to using many of these applications can be found in "A Primer on Internet and
TCP/IP Tools and Utilities" (FYI 30/RFC 2151) by Gary Kessler & Steve Shepard (also
available in HTML or PDF).
3.4.2. Protocol Analysis

Full-blown protocol analysis is well beyond the scope of this paper. But a little
introduction is ok!!
Today's protocol analyzers are usually software running on a computer or a specialized
piece of hardware. In either case, the device's network interface card (NIC) operates in
promiscuous mode so that the NIC captures every packet that flies by on the wire rather
than only those packets addressed to this particular NIC. Most protocol analyzers also
provide a display with at least a partial interpretation of the packets.

Figure 11 shows the display from a GN Nettest WinPharoah protocol analyzer. In this
case, we see the contents of a packet containing a POP3 message. The analyzer's display
has three parts:

The top part shows a summary of the frames in the capture buffer. Note
here that we see frames numbered 77-80 (column 1). The second column
shows the frame length (in bytes); all use the Ethernet II frame format
(column 3). The next two columns list the source and destination
addresses; in this example, there are two communicating stations, named
INSTRUCTOR (the server) and WINPHAROAH (the client). The
summary column shows that these are POP3 commands and responses.
The middle section shows the packet decode; a detailed discussion of this
is below.
The bottom section shows the frame in hexadecimal, as transmitted over
the line. This is the raw bit stream.

The middle section is, indeed, the most interesting as this is where the frame contents are
interpreted and displayed. The details of the IP, TCP, and POP3 protocols of Frame 80,
the highlighted one, are shown here; the interpretation of the Ethernet frame itself is also
available but is scrolled off the screen here.
Right after the Ethernet header information is the IP packet header. Note that this
particular packet uses IP version 4, is 53 bytes in length, and carries a TCP segment. Note
also that this packet was sent from the client (WINPHAROAH).
After IP is the TCP information. Note that the destination port number is 110, the port
associated with a POP3 server. Since the POP3 server port is the destination, it means
that this packet contains a POP command to the server from the client (which we knew
anyway by looking at the summary of frame 80 above).
Finally we see the POP3 command itself. When a POP3 client connects to the server, the
first thing it does is send the username using the POP3 USER command. If the username
is valid, the server asks for a password, which is sent from the client in a POP3 PASS
command, which is shown here. Note that the POP3 password is sent unencrypted!!!
The discussion here is only meant to readers a taste of one of the coolest tools that we get
to play with in data communications; it is also an important tool for network managers
and security administrators.
There are a fair number of free or inexpensive software packet sniffers that one can
acquire for Linux or Windows systems. One of the most popular is tcpdump, which
comes with many Linux distributions (e.g., Red Hat 7.1). WinDump is a tcpdump
implementation for Windows, and the same group distributes Analyzer, a GUI packet
sniffer. Ethereal is another GUI analyzer, with version for both Windows and Linux.

More information on these packages can be found at the author's Packet Sniffing and
Protocol Analysis Software page.

3.5. Summary
As this discussion has shown, TCP/IP is not merely a pair of communication protocols
but is a suite of protocols, applications, and utilities. Increasingly, these protocols are
referred to as the Internet Protocol Suite, but the older name will not disappear anytime
soon.
------------------------------| Application |<------ end-to-end connection ------>| Application |
|--------------|
|--------------|
|
TCP
|<--------- virtual circuit --------->|
TCP
|
|--------------|
----------------|--------------|
|
IP
|<-- DG -->|
IP
|<-- DG -->|
IP
|
|--------------|
|-------+-------|
|--------------|
| Subnetwork 1 |<-------->|Subnet1|Subnet2|<-------->| Subnetwork 2 |
-----------------------+----------------------HOST
GATEWAY
HOST
FIGURE 12. TCP/IP protocol suite architecture.

Figure 12 shows the relationship between the various protocol layers of TCP/IP.
Applications and utilities reside in host, or end-communicating, systems. TCP provides a
reliable, virtual circuit connection between the two hosts. (UDP, not shown, provides an
end-to-end datagram connection at this layer.) IP provides a datagram (DG) transport
service over any intervening subnetworks, including local and wide area networks. The
underlying subnetwork may employ nearly any common local or wide area network
technology.
Note that the term gateway is used for the device interconnecting the two subnets, a
device usually called a router in LAN environments or intermediate system in OSI
environments. In OSI terminology, a gateway is used to provide protocol conversion
between two networks and/or applications.

4. Other Information Sources

This memo has only provided background information about the TCP/IP protocols and
the Internet. There is a wide range of additional information that the reader can access to
further use and understand the tools and scope of the Internet. The real fun begins now!

Internet specifications, standards, reports, humor, and tutorials are distributed as Request
for Comments (RFC) documents. RFCs are all freely available on-line, and most are
available in ASCII text format.
Internet standards are documented in a subset of the RFCs, identified with an "STD"
designation. RFC 2026 describes the Internet standards process and STD 1 always
contains the official list of Internet standards.
For Your Information (FYI) documents are another RFC subset, specifically providing
background information for the Internet community. The FYI notes are described in RFC
1150.
Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) lists may be found for a number of topics, ranging
from ISDN and cryptography to the Internet and Gopher. Two such FAQs are of
particular interest to Internet users: "FYI on Questions and Answers - Answers to
Commonly asked 'New Internet User' Questions" (RFC 1594) and "FYI on Questions and
Answers: Answers to Commonly Asked 'Experienced Internet User' Questions" (RFC
1207). All of these documents point to even more information sources.

5. Acronyms and Abbreviations

ARP
ARIN
ARPANET
ASCII
ATM
BGP
BSD
CCITT
CIX
CDPD
CSLIP
DARPA
DDP
DDS
DNS
DOCSIS
DoD
DWDM
FAQ
FDDI
FTP
FYI
GOSIP

Address Resolution Protocol

American Registry for Internet Numbers
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
American Standard Code for Information Interchange
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Border Gateway Protocol
Berkeley Software Development
International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee
Commercial Internet Exchange
Cellular Digital Packet Data protocol
Compressed Serial Line Internet Protocol
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Datagram Delivery Protocol
Digital data service
Domain Name System
Data Over Cable System Interface Specification
U.S. Department of Defense
Dense Wave Division Multiplexing
Frequently Asked Questions lists
Fiber Distributed Data Interface
File Transfer Protocol
For Your Information series of RFCs
U.S. Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile

HDLC
HTML
HTTP
IAB
IANA
ICANN
ICMP
IESG
IETF
IMAP
InterNIC
IP
IPX
ISDN
ISO
ISOC
ITU-T
MAC
Mbps
NICNAME
NSF
NSFNET
NTP
OSI
OSPF
PING
POP3
PPP
RADIUS
RARP
RIP
RFC
SDH
SLIP
SMDS
SMTP
SNAP
SNMP
SONET
SSL
STD
TACACS+
TCP

High-level Data Link Control

Hypertext Markup Language
Hypetext Transfer Protocol
Internet Activities Board
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
Internet Control Message Protocol
Internet Engineering Steering Group
Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet Message Access Protocol
Internet Network Information Center
Internet Protocol
Internetwork Packet Exchange
Integrated Services Digital Network
International Organization for Standardization
Internet Society
International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization
Sector
Medium (or media) access control
Megabits (millions of bits) per second
Network Information Center name service
National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation Network
Network Time Protocol
Open Systems Interconnection
Open Shortest Path First
Packet Internet Groper
Post Office Protocol v3
Point-to-Point Protocol
Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service
Reverse Address Resolution Protocol
Routing Information Protocol
Request For Comments
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
Serial Line Internet Protocol
Switched Multimegabit Data Service
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
Subnetwork Access Protocol
Simple Network Management Protocol
Synchronous Optical Network
Secure Sockets Layer
Internet Standards series of RFCs
Terminal Access Controller Access Control System plus
Transmission Control Protocol

TFTP
TLD
UDP
WAP
xDSL

Trivial File Transfer Protocol

Top-level domain
User Datagram Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol
Digital Subscriber Line family of technologies

6. About the Author

Gary Kessler, Ph.D., CCE, CISSP is the president and janitor of Gary Kessler Associates,
an independent consulting and training firm specializing in computer and network
forensics, information security, Internet access issues, and TCP/IP networking. He has
written over 65 papers for industry publications. Gary's main areas of interest include
TCP/IP and the Internet, computer and network forensics, and network security. His email address is [email protected].