Telecommunication Networks

Computer Networks review

Year 2023/2024

Dr. Pere Tuset-Peiró

([email protected])

Computer networks
Preliminary concepts
The Internet is a network of networks
• Based on packet switching
• Based on the TCP/IP protocol stack
• Based on Ethernet technology
Main aspects to solve:
• How to resolve IP addresses to Ethernet
addresses?
• How to perform dynamic IP address
acquisition for network hosts?
• How to check for network connectivity
between hosts?
• How to connect to a host from its
resource name (i.e., www.google.com)?
• How to reduce the number of public IP
addresses given that it is a scarce
resource?

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Telecommunication networks
Circuit switching
• A call has dedicated end-to-end
resources
• 125 us/sample and 8 bits/sample (64
kbps) within the PDH/SDH/SONET
transport matrix
• A call has three phases
• Establishment, communication and
closure suing the network control plane
• Advantages
• It allows to guarantee congestion and
quality of service
• Disadvantages
• Inefficient resource use, especially for
data networks

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Telecommunication networks
Packet switching
History
• Invented in the early 60's by Paul Baran at the
RAND Corporation for DARPA
• Research in queuing theory in the mid-60s by
Leonard Kleinrock at MIT
• Construction of the first ARPANET prototype in
the early 70s by Lawrence Roberts
Objectives:
• Develop a distributed telecommunications
network that can survive the destruction of any
of its nodes
Basic operation:
• Decentralized network with multiple paths
between two points
• Breaking messages into blocks of data that can
be sent independently
• Message forwarding via store-and-forward
switching

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Telecommunication networks
Packet switching
Two modes of operation:
Datagrams
• No establishment required before transmission
• Addressing is based on the destination address
of each packet
• There is no circuit, each node makes the routing
decision for each packet
• Congestion cannot be controlled and quality of
service ensured due to shared resources
Virtual circuits
• Emulates circuit switching, circuit establishment
and closure required
• Addressing is based on a label that determines
the circuit
• The circuit determines a path through the
network, all packets follow it
• It allows you to manage congestion and offer
quality of service (resource reservation required)

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Telecommunication networks
Datagrams vs virtual-circuits

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Computer Network protocols https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall06/cos561/papers/cerf74.pdf
IP protocol overview
• IP (Internet Protocol) invented by
Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn in
1974
• IETF RFC 760 standard in 1980,
different versions: IPv4, IPv5 and IPv6
• Designed for sharing resources in
circuit switching networks, regardless
of underlying network technology
• Supports the following features:
• Independent of packet size
• Hop-by-hop transmission error checks
• End-to-end error checking
• It does not guarantee the delivery of
datagrams or the order in delivery

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Computer Network protocols

IP protocol overview
The IP protocol is independent of transport technology
• On April 1, 1990, the IPoAC protocol (RFC 1149: A
Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian
Carriers) was published
• On April 1, 1999, the QoS version was released (RFC
2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service)
• On April 1, 2011, the IPv6 update (RFC6214:
Adaptation of RFC 1149 for IPv6) was released
Some tests conducted show that:
• The gross transmission rate may be higher than that of
an ADSL line of the time (i.e., 256 kbps)
• The round trip time (RTT, Round-Time Trip) is between
3000 and 6000 seconds
• The package loss rate is 55%
• Does it make sense to use it? If so, where?

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Computer Network protocols
IPv4 protocol overview

Main characteristics
• Network protocol: Independent of
the link layer
• Datagram mode: Each packet is
forwarded independently
• Best effort: Delivery and order are
not guaranteed
• Addressing: 32-bit addresses with
network mask

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Computer Network protocols

IPv4 header (20+ bytes)
1
An IPv4 address has 32 bits and uniquely
identifies a host on the Internet
• It is represented in a.b.c.d format where
each letter is an octet in decimal notation
(for example: 158.109.64.35)
• Network mask allows you to know if the
host is on the network or indirect delivery
(via router) is required
• 255.255.255.0 indicates that the first 24 bits
indicate the network and the last 8 bits
indicate the hosts address
Different types of networks classes:
• Class A: 8 network + 24 host
• Class B: 16 network + 16 host
• Class C: 24 network + 8 host
• Currently classes are no longer used thanks
to the use CIDR/VLSM (i.e., network mask)

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Computer Network protocols
IPv4 packet forwarding

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Computer Network protocols

IPv4 packet forwarding
Preliminary checks:
• If the level 2 address of the frame (i.e., MAC)
belongs to the router, the frame is accepted
and processed. If it is not valid, it is discarded.
• The version of the IP protocol, the size of the
datagram are examined and the checksum is
validated. If it is not valid, it is discarded.
• The TTL of the datagram is decremented and
the checksum is updated
• The TTL of the datagram is checked. If it is 0
the datagram is discarded to avoid routing
loops.
• The destination IP address of the datagram is
analyzed, if it is in the forwarding table it is
forwarded using the LPM (Longest Prefix
Match) algorithm

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Computer Network protocols
IPv4 packet forwarding
Longest Prefix Match algorithm
• Each datagram contains the address of
the destination host to which it is to be
forwarded
• At each jump the router must decide
which interface to forward the datagram
for
• If there is direct connection to the
network, the packet is forwarded to the
host
• If the network is not directly connected,
the forwarding table is checked
• The entry in the forwarding table is
chosen with the network that has the
largest (most specific) prefix
• How is the router forwarding table
constructed? We'll see later

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Computer Network protocols

IPv4 packet fragmentation

An IP datagram can traverse links with different MTU (Maximum

Transmission Unit)
• In this case, intermediate routers fragment the packet to fit it
• Reassembly of the IP datagram fragments occurs on the destination host
• All IP fragments must be smaller than the MTU link and must be multiples of
8 bytes

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Computer Network protocols
IPv4 packet fragmentation

Example
• An IP datagram containing 1400 bytes
of data passes through a PPI link with
an MTU of 540 bytes and a header of
8 bytes
• The original IP datagram is
fragmented into 3 datagrams: 2
datagrams of 512 bytes and 1
datagram of 376 bytes
• Each datagram contains the original
IP header, but the fragmentation bit
(More Fragments) is marked and the
offset of each datagram is included

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Computer Network protocols

ARP protocol
• Protocol ARP (Address Resolution
Protocol)
• Defined by IETF in RFC 826 and RFC
903
• Data link layer protocol, responsible
for translating level 2 (Ethernet)
addresses to level 3 (IP) addresses
and vice versa
• Each host/router stores a local table
of MAC addresses so packet
forwarding
• Set two message types: ARP Request
and ARP Reply

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Computer Network protocols
ARP protocol (Request and response)

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Computer Network protocols

DHCP protocol
Protocol DHCP (Dynamic Host
Control Protocol)
• Defined by the IETF in RFC 1531
and updated in RFC 2131
• It is responsible for dynamically
assigning/renewing/releasing IP
addresses to host a subnet
• It is an application layer protocol, it
is transported over IP/UDP
• It uses a client/server model, the
server uses port 67 and the client
uses port 68

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Computer Network protocols
DHCP protocol (DORA)

https://www.netmanias.com/en/post/techdocs/5998/dhcp-
network-protocol/understanding-the-basic-operations-of-dhcp
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Computer Network protocols

DHCP protocol (DORA)

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Computer Network protocols
DHCP protocol (Discover packet)

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Computer Network protocols

DHCP protocol (Offer packet)

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Computer Network protocols
DHCP protocol (Request packet)

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Computer Network protocols

DHCP protocol (Acknowledge packet)

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Computer Network protocols
DHCP protocol (Renewal and Release)

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Computer Network protocols

ICMP protocol

ICMP is a management protocol

for IP networks
• IETF RFC 792 Standard
• Communicates network status
information to hosts and routers
• Reports error conditions and
allows diagnosing problems
• Used in ping and traceroute tools

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Computer Network protocols
ICMP protocol
ICMP defines error messages
(type and code) that are sent back
to the source host whenever a
router or host cannot process an
IP datagram
• The IP datagram cannot be
forwarded to the destination host
due to a link
• IP datagram reassembly process
failed (checksum)
• TTL value has reached 0 and IP
datagram is discarded

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Computer Network protocols

ICMP protocol

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