Introduction

1.1 What is network and system administration?

Network and system administration is a branch of engineering that concerns the operational
management of human–computer systems. It is unusual as an engineering discipline in that it
addresses both the technology of computer systems and the users of the technology on an equal
basis. It is about putting together a network of computers (workstations, PCs and
supercomputers), getting them running and then keeping them running in spite of the activities of
users who tend to cause the systems to fail.

A system administrator works for users, so that they can use the system to produce work.
However, a system administrator should not just cater for one or two selfish needs, but also work
for the benefit of a whole community. Today, that community is a global community of
machines and organizations, which spans every niche of human society and culture, thanks to the
Internet. It is often a difficult balancing act to determine the best policy, which accounts for the
different needs of everyone with a stake in a system. Once a computer is attached to the Internet,
we have to consider the consequences of being directly connected to all the other computers in
the world.

In the future, improvements in technology might render system administration a somewhat easier
task – one of pure resource administration – but, today, system administration is not just an
administrative job, it is an extremely demanding engineer’s job. It’s about hardware, software,
user support, diagnosis, repair and prevention. System administrators need to know a bit of
everything: the skills are technical, administrative and socio-psychological.

The terms network administration and system administration exist separately and are used both
variously and inconsistently by industry and by academics. System administration is the term
used traditionally by mainframe and Unix engineers to describe the management of computers
whether they are coupled by a network or not. To this community, network administration means
the management of network infrastructure devices (routers and switches). The world of personal
computers (PCs) has no tradition of managing individual computers and their subsystems, and
thus does not speak of system administration.

Ethical issues

Because computer systems are human–computer communities, there are ethical considerations
involved in their administration. Even if certain decisions can be made objectively, e.g. for
maximizing productivity or minimizing cost, one must have a policy for the use and management
of computers and their users.

Some decisions have to be made to protect the rights of individuals. A system administrator has
many responsibilities and constraints to consider. Ethically, the first responsibility must be to the

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greater network community, and then to the users of our system. An administrator’s job is to
make users’ lives bearable and to empower them in the production of real work.

The challenges of system administration

System administration is not just about installing operating systems. It is about planning and
designing an efficient community of computers so that real users will be able to get their jobs
done. That means:

 Designing a network which is logical and efficient.

 Deploying large numbers of machines which can be easily upgraded later.
 Deciding what services are needed.
 Planning and implementing adequate security.
 Providing a comfortable environment for users.
 Developing ways of fixing errors and problems which occur.
 Keeping track of and understanding how to use the enormous amount of knowledge
which increases every year.

Some system administrators are responsible for both the hardware of the network and the
computers which it connects, i.e. the cables as well as the computers. Some are only responsible
for the computers. Either way, an understanding of how data flow from machine to machine is
essential as well as an understanding of how each machine affects every other.

The meta principles of system administration Many of the principles in this book derive from a
single overriding issue: they address the predictability of a system. The term system clearly
implies an operation that is systematic, or predictable – but, unlike simple mechanical systems,
like say a clock, computers interact with humans in a complex cycle of feedback, where
uncertainty can enter at many levels. That makes human–computer systems difficult to predict,
unless we somehow fix the boundaries of what is allowed, as a matter of policy.

Principle 1 (Policy is the foundation).System administration begins with a policy – a decision

about what we want and what should be, in relation to what we can afford.

Policy speaks of what we wish to accomplish with the system, and what we are willing to
tolerate of behavior within it. It must refer to both the component parts and to the environment
with which the system interacts. If we cannot secure predictability, then we cannot expect long-
term conformance with a policy.

Principle 2 (Predictability).The highest level aim in system administration is to work towards a

predictable system. Predictability has limits. It is the basis of reliability, hence trust and therefore
security. Policy and predictability are intertwined. What makes system administration difficult is
that it involves a kind of ‘search’ problem. It is the hunt for a stable region in the landscape of all

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policies, i.e. those policies that can lead to stable and predictable behavior. In choosing policy,
one might easily promote a regime of cascading failure, of increasing unpredictability, that
degenerates into chaos.

Avoiding these regimes is what makes system administration difficult. As networks of computers
and people grow, their interactions become increasingly complex and they become non-
deterministic, i.e. not predictable in terms of any manageable number of variables. We therefore
face another challenge that is posed by inevitable growth:

Principle 3 (Scalability).Scalable systems are those that grow in accordance with policy; i.e.
they continue to function predictably, even as they increase in size.

These meta-themes will recur throughout this book. The important point to understand about
predictability is that it has limits. Human–computer systems are too complex and have too many
interactions and dependencies to be deterministic. When we speak of predictability, it must
always be within a margin of error. If this were not the case, system administration would not be
difficult.

To the student

To study this subject, we need to cultivate a way of thinking which embodies a basic scientific
humility and some core principles:

 Independence or self-sufficiency in learning. We cannot always ask someone for the right
answer to every question.
 Systematic and tidy work practices.
 An altruistic view of the system. Users come first: collectively and only then
individually.
 Balancing a fatalistic view (the inevitability of errors) with a determination to gain firmer
control of the system.

Log File

Log file is a file that lists actions that have occurred. For example, Web servers maintain log files listing
every request made to the server. With log file analysis tools, it's possible to get a good idea of where
visitors are coming from, how often they return, and how they navigate through a site.
Using cookies enables Webmastersto log even more detailed information about how individual users are
accessing a site.

Windows 7 Feature Focus: Backup and Restore

Backup and Restore supports the following types of backups:

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Data Backup If you think of your Documents library as the center of your data universe, and
keep an elaborate series of folders and files there and in other libraries, then you ’ll
understand the necessity of backing up these crucial files on a regular basis. To this end,
Windows 7 supports both automatic and manual data backup options, enabling you to choose
which files to back up and when. You can then restore your backups at any time to
recover previous versions of documents, or to replace a file you may have accidentally
deleted.

System Image There’s nothing worse than discovering that you need to reinstall Windows
for some reason. Not only do you have to take the time and make the effort to reinstall the
operating system again, you also have to ensure that you have drivers for all your hardware,
find and reinstall all the applications you use regularly, reload all your personal data, and
reconfigure all of the system’s options so that it’s exactly the way you used to have it. Rather
than go through this rigmarole, you can use a Windows 7 feature called System Image
Backup to create what is called a system image or snapshot. This image which is essentially
a huge backup file contains the entire contents of your PC as it existed the day you created
the image. If you need to recover your entire PC, you can simply restore the system image
and get right back to work.

In addition to these capabilities, Window 7 also offers a way to access previous versions of
data files (called Previous Versions) and a way to return to a previous state in time, or restore
point (called System Restore). These features are not part of Backup and Restore, but when
you add it all up, what you have is the makings of a full-featured data recovery software
suite.

Note: Microsoft does not offer two kinds of backup that would be useful to have as part of
Windows 7. The first is PC-to-PC data synchronization, or what we might called peer-to-peer
(P2P) synchronization. With a such a solution you could, among other things, make sure that
all of the files in your home PC's Documents library were always duplicated, automatically,
with the Documents library on your laptop; any time you made a change in either place, it
would be replicated in the other. As it turns out, Microsoft does make such a tool, two in
fact. They're called Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh, respectively.

The second type of backup is online backup, where you backup files to the Internet cloud.
Microsoft does have two online storage solutions, Windows Live SkyDrive, which is aimed
at general online storage needs, and Office Live Workspace, which is really about document

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collaboration. However, neither offers any automated way, perhaps through Backup and
Restore, to backup files or system images from your PC to the Internet.

Backing Up Documents, Pictures, and Other Data

If you want to create a data backup, you can use Windows Backup, which is available from
Backup and Restore. To do so, launch Backup and Restore and click the Set up backup link.
This launches Windows Backup's Setup up backup wizard.

Windows Backup helps you manually create a backup of your important data files.

In the first step of the wizard, you must choose a location to store the backup. You can save a
backup to an internal or external hard disk or other storage device, a recordable optical disk
(typically a writeable CD or DVD), or a network share. (Network backup is not available in
Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, or Home Premium, however.) The amount of space you
need, of course, depends on the amount of data you are backing up. The wizard auto selects
the local storage offering the most free space, but you can change this selection, of course.

Tip: Microsoft does not allow you to back up to the disk or partition you are backing up.
That is, if you are backing up data from the C: drive, you cannot save the backup to the C:
drive.

In the second step, you have two choices: Let Windows choose (recommended) and Let me
choose. If you choose the former, Windows Backup will automatically backup data files
saved in libraries, on the desktop, and in any folders founder in your user folder. (Windows
Backup will also create a system image if you choose this option, and then automatically
make periodic backups on a schedule going forward.)

Here, it really is best to let Windows choose.

If you choose Let me choose, Windows Backup will present an expandable view of your file
system. From this interface, you can pick and choose exactly what to backup. You can also
optionally cause a system image to be made with this type of backup.

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Tip: You can create multiple automatic data backup schedules if you want. For example, you
may want to back up different drives or data file types at different times or with different
regularity.

Managing Data Backups

Once you have created your first data backup, a few things change. First, Backup and
Restore indicates that you’ve configured a backup location and notes when the last and next
backups occur. You can also change the automatic backup settings and restore all of the files
for the current user.

Backup and Restore reflects the recent backup.

You can also manage the disk space used on your backup device. When you click the
Manage space link in Backup and Restore, the Manage Windows Backup disk space window
will occur, displaying information about the currently selected backup device. As you can
see in the figure below, you can browse the file system of the backup location, view backups
stored on that device, and change settings associated with system image backups.

From this simple interface, you can manage details associated with your backup device and the
backups stored on it.

If you do click View backups, you can't actually navigate around inside of the backups you
have made so far.

Tip: Want to see what's in a backup? You can do it, but not from this interface. Instead, go
back to the previous window and click Browse. This will open Windows Explorer, pointing
at the location of your backup. At this location, you will see a special folder with a Windows
Backup icon and the name of your PC. If you try to double-click this folder, a Windows
Backup window will appear. Instead, right-click the folder and choose Open. Then, click
Continue in the permission folder that appears.

Restoring Files

Backup and Restore can also be used to restore files you have previously backed up. There
are three general file restore methods.

Restore my files. Restore your own files and folders.

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Restore all users' files. Restore your own files and folders as well as those of other users.

Select another backup to restore files from. Perform more advanced restoration tasks, such
as restoring files from a different PC.

These all work similarly. You can follow these steps to trigger a restore of your own data:

1. Open Backup and Restore and click the Restore my files button.

2. The Restore Files window appears.

Restore Files lets you find the files you'd like to restore.

From here, you have three options:

Search. If you know exactly what you're looking for, and only need one or a handful of files,
you can use the Search button to Search your existing backup sets.

Browse for files. If you'd like to manually browse around the backup set to find a file or any
number of individual files, click Browse for files. You'll be presented with a modified File
Open dialog, from which you can browse the various backups you've created, diving into the
full backup or just the files in your user account.

With either Browse for files or Browser for folders, you can dig in and route around inside the
backup set.

Browse for folders. To recover entire folders full of files (and other folders).

Whichever method you choose, you can mark files and folder for restoration as you go and
then continue looking for more.

3. When you're ready to go, click the Next button in the Restore Files window. Windows
Backup will prompt you to decide where you want to restore the files to; either to their
original locations or to a different location.

While you will often want to simply restore to the original location, sometimes it's a good idea to see
what's in the backup before overwriting your files.

Choose one and then click Restore. Windows Backup will begin restoring your files. If there
any of the backup files will overwrite an existing file, you'll see the normal File Copy
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window shown below, which offers you a chance to overwrite, copy but keep both files, or
don't copy.

Make sure you don't wipe out anything important while restoring files.

When the restore is complete, Windows Backup will let you know that the files have been
restored and give you an opportunity to view a list of restored files.

Backing Up the Entire PC: System Image

Backing up and restoring data files is important and should occur on a regular basis; but over
the past few years, a new type of backup utility that backs up entire PC systems using system
images has become quite popular. These types of backups protect against a hardware
disaster: If your hard drive completely fails, for example, you can purchase a new drive and
use the system image to restore the PC to its previous state.

System imaging utilities aren’t actually all that new; corporations have been using them for
years. But now that consumer-oriented system-imaging utilities have gained in popularity,
Microsoft has created its own version, which it includes with Windows 7.

Secret: The system image utility was called Windows Complete PC Backup in Windows
Vista.

Secret: System imaging utilities typically compress the data on your hard drives so that the
image file takes up a lot less space than the original installation. Various solutions use
different compression schemes, but you may be interested to know that Windows 7 uses the
tried-and-true Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format that Microsoft also uses in Windows Virtual
PC and its server-based Hyper-V virtualization solutions. That means system images created
with Windows 7 will be supported for a long time to come.

Caution: System images contain complete PC environments. You can’t arbitrarily restore
only parts of a system image, as you can with data backups. Instead, when you restore a
system image, it restores the entire PC and overwrites any existing operating system you may
already have on there. That means you should be careful before restoring a system image:
Any data you have on the disk will be overwritten. Of course, you’re using automatic
backups, too, right?

To create a system image, launch Backup and Restore and click the Create a system image
link on the left. This launches the Create a system image wizard, shown below, which walks
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you through the steps needed to completely back up your PC system. You can save system
images to hard disks or optical storage (such as recordable CDs or DVDs), as well as
network locations (Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate only). However,
network-based system images cannot be securely protected, as hard drive- and optical disc-
based backups can.

System image is one of the best features in Windows 7.

Secret: You can only write a system image to a hard disk that is formatted with the NTFS
file system. That?s because system images often exceed the 4GB file size limit imposed by
the older and less reliable FAT32 file system.

Click Next. The wizard will give you a chance to confirm the backup settings and remind
you which partitions are being imaged. It will also provide an estimate of the amount of
space needed to create a system image. The required storage space varies according to the
size and usage of the hard disk on your PC.

System image is ready to go.

Click Start backup to begin the system image process.

Secret: Two file system locations must be included in the system image?what Microsoft
refers to as the boot partition and the system partition. The boot partition is always C:\,
whereas the system partition is the drive with the Windows 7 Windows directory. This is
typically C:, but if you installed Windows 7 in a dual-boot setup with a previous Windows
version, the system partition might be in a different location. If you have other drives or
partitions, you can optionally choose to include them in the system image as well.

As the image is created, Windows Backup will provide an ongoing progress indicator.

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Though complete PC backups are huge, they are compressed and therefore much smaller than the
actual disk to which you are backing.

This process could take some time, especially on a heavily used PC. When it's done,
Windows Backup will prompt you to create a system repair disc. You should do so: While
Windows 7 does install recovery files directly into the boot partition, in some cases, these
files will not boot the PC. If that happens, you can use the system repair disc to boot your
PC, a requirement for restoring the entire PC with the system image (as we'll see in the next
section).

If you don't have one already, be sure to create a system repair disc.

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Secret: You can use any writeable CD or DVD for a system repair disc.

Secret: If you have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 on different PCs, you
cannot use the same system repair disc for each. Instead, you must create separate system
repair discs for 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

Restoring the Entire PC

If a catastrophic hardware or software failure has rendered your computer untenable, and you
simply want to return to a known-good system backup, you can use one of the system images
you've previously created to do so. Note, however, that you will typically need to boot your
PC into the Windows Recovery Environment to make this happen, either using the boot files
on your PC or the system repair disc that you previously created. Note, too, that restoring
your PC in this fashion will wipe out all of the data and settings changes you've made since
the last system image. So this should not be undertaken lightly.

Follow these steps to restore your entire PC using a system image:

1. Reboot the computer.

2. If you are using a system repair disc, boot the PC with that. Otherwise, after your PC has
finished its BIOS sequence, hold down the F8 key. Choose Repair Your Computer from the.

3. After the loading files screen, choose the correct language and keyboard input method and
then click Next.

4. If you booted from the hard drive, you will need to choose System Image Recovery from
the System Recovery Options window that appears. Otherwise, System Recovery will
examine the hard drives attached to your PC and look for Windows installs. When it's done,
it will list the install(s) it found and give you the opportunity to use Windows 7's built-in
recovery tools to fix problems with Windows (which we cover in Chapter 24) or you can
restore your PC to an earlier time using a system image. Choose that latter option and click
Next.

5. The Re-image your computer wizard begins. In the first phase of this wizard, you choose
the latest image available (the default) or you can select a different system image. When
you've chosen, click Next.

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This wizard will step you through the process of restoring your PC with a system image.

6. In the next step, you can choose to format the PC's hard drive and repartition disks (as
Windows 7 Setup would do) to match the layout of the system image. Generally speaking,
you should enable this option. Click Next to continue.

7. In the final phase of the wizard, you can verify what you're doing and click Finish to
continue. Note that restoring an entire PC from a system image can be a time consuming
process.

How to Fix Three of the Most Common System Problems Without

Restoring a Backup
Corrupt system files, account lockouts, and accidentally deleted data are three
scary computerproblems that often send people running for their backup drives. While restoring
a backup may technically fix things, a full system backup is usually a very time-consuming
overkill in these cases, and nobody likes the time-warp effect of restoring one (e.g., if your last
full backup ran a week ago). When these problems occur, fixing them can be far simpler than
you might think.

Problem 1: Corrupted System Files - Unable to Load the Operating System

A sudden power outage or system crash can corrupt files that are part of your operating system's
essential guts. When these things happen, people who have backups tend to just jump straight to
them, but then we're at the time warp problem—if you've already done a week's worth of work
since the last backup, that data is lost. Instead, you should first attempt to repair or
restore just the system files.

Windows: Corrupt system files happen a bitmore frequently in Windows, but it's not difficult to
fix most of the time. You should make use of Windows' built-in System Restore, which basically
makes daily, miniature backups of your system. It doesn't touch your data—it just backs up
system files, so it's absolutely perfect for these sorts of problems. If you're able to boot your PC
into Safe Mode (pressing F8 while booting up should do the trick), you can find System Restore
in the System Properties settings. If your PC won't boot all the way into Safe Mode, then you'll
need your Windows install disc. Booting into that disc will give you the option to use System
Restore right on the spot. Since it runs on a daily basis, you can even choose how recent of a
snapshot you want (just in case you think the problem started a couple of days before everything
stopped working).

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Problem 2: You Can't Log In - Either You Forgot Your Password, or it Got Changed on You

If it's just an issue of a forgotten password that's left you unable to log in (or an unfunny prank
by someone who knows what it is), you can reset it pretty easily (and get back to work without
hassling with restoring a backup):

Solution:

Windows: For Windows users, you need to take action prior to losing access to the account
(which means you should do it right now). Go to your Control Panel and select "User Accounts
and Family Safety," then click on User Accounts. There you'll find the option to create a
Password Reset Disk—just follow the instructions and keep it somewhere safe. If you lose
access to your account, you can use this to get back in with a brand new password.

Problem 3: Lost Data - Or when You Accidentally Delete Your Life's Work

If you accidentally delete a large chunk of your data—but not anything that affects the OS itself
—then a full system restore is definitely an option, but it should be the last one you turn to.

Solution:

Partial Restore From Backup: If you've taken the time to ensure that your backups
areaccessible, specifically for instances like this, you can simply grab the now lost data from the
most recent backup you made. If your backups are compressed into enormous archives, then
they're not exactly quick or easy to work with in a case like this. Making full backups that are
basically mirrored copies of your hard drive is far more useful, since you can use them for any
amount of restoring that may be needed.

Use a Rescue CD: A rescue CD, like Disk Drill for Mac or previously mentioned Recuva for
Windows, can scan your drive for deleted files and restore them if possible. It's usually not a
problem if it hasn't been very long since they were deleted.

Save Redundantly: Using a rescue CD has a decent chance of working, but it's easier to
preemptively cover the possibly of accidental deletions by saving important files to two different
locations (preferably on two different hard drives), or by keeping a daily backup of your most
important data. It's not practical in any way to back up your entire system every day, but it's not
too much of a hassle to back up a few critical files—like your My Documents folder. If your
daily work is seriously important, it'd be best to practice both methods, and INVEST in a small
external hard drive since it can hold both your small daily backups, and also serve as the space to
use for double-saving important files.

Cloud Storage: This is when it's also a good idea to have a backup plan for your backup plan.
Use cloud storage services like the beloved Dropbox for important files, use a service like Flickr
or Picasa Web Albums for your photos (or even store them as regular files in a service
like SugarSync). Amazon Cloud Drive even allows you to store 5GB worth of music files

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without buying anything. You don't have to pay a thing if you use multiple free plans and spread
your data across them.

Keep in mind, of course, that backing up your data is still important. For a little help getting
started down that road, take a look at our guide to automated, bulletproof backups—both locally
and offsite—with CrashPlan.

TCP/IP Basics
Network administration and system administration are two different jobs. System administration tasks
such as adding users and doing backups are isolated to one independent computer system. Not so with
network administration. Once you place your computer on a network, it interacts with many other
systems. The way you do network administration tasks has effects, good and bad, not only on your system
but on other systems on the network. A sound understanding of basic network administration benefits
everyone.

Networking your computers dramatically enhances their ability to communicate— and most computers
are used more for communication than computation. Many mainframes and supercomputers are busy
crunching the numbers for business and science, but the number of these systems in use pales in
comparison to the millions of systems busy moving mail to a remote colleague or retrieving information
from a remote repository. Further, when you think of the hundreds of millions of desktop systems that are
used primarily for preparing documents to communicate ideas from one person to another, it is easy to see
why most computers can be viewed as communications devices.

The positive impact of computer communications increases with the number and type of computers that
participate in the network. One of the great benefits of TCP/IP is that it provides interoperable
communications between all types of hardware and all kinds of operating systems. The name “TCP/IP”
refers to an entire suite of data communications protocols. The suite gets its name from two of the
protocols that belong to it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP).
TCP/IP is the traditional name for this protocol suite and it is the name used in this book. The TCP/IP
protocol suite is also called the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS). Both names are acceptable.

TCP/IP Features
The popularity of the TCP/IP protocols did not grow rapidly just because the protocols were there, or
because connecting to the Internet mandated their use. They met an important need (worldwide data
communication) at the right time, and they had several important features that allowed them to meet this
need. These features are:

 Open protocol standards, freely available and developed independently from any specific
computer hardware or operating system. Because it is so widely supported, TCP/IP is ideal for
uniting different hardware and software components, even if you don’t communicate over the
Internet.

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  Independence from specific physical network hardware. This allows TCP/IP to integrate many
different kinds of networks. TCP/IP can be run over an Ethernet, a DSL connection, a dial-up
line, an optical network, and virtually any other kind of physical transmission medium.
 A common addressing scheme that allows any TCP/IP device to uniquely address any other
device in the entire network, even if the network is as large as the worldwide Internet.
 Standardized high-level protocols for consistent, widely available user services.

Protocol Standards
Protocols are formal rules of behavior. In international relations, protocols minimize the problems caused
by cultural differences when various nations work together. By agreeing to a common set of rules that are
widely known and independent of any nation’s customs, diplomatic protocols minimize
misunderstandings; everyone knows how to act and how to interpret the actions of others. Similarly, when
computers communicate, it is necessary to define a set of rules to govern their communications.

In data communications, these sets of rules are also called protocols. In homogeneous networks, a single
computer vendor specifies a set of communications rules designed to use the strengths of the vendor’s
operating system and hardware architecture. But homogeneous networks are like the culture of a single
country—only the natives are truly at home in it. TCP/IP creates a heterogeneous network with open
protocols that are independent of operating system and architectural differences.

TCP/IP protocols are available to everyone and are developed and changed by consensus, not by the fiat
of one manufacturer. Everyone is free to develop products to meet these open protocol specifications.

A Data Communications Model

To discuss computer networking, it is necessary to use terms that have special meaning. Even other
computer professionals may not be familiar with all the terms in the networking alphabet soup. As is
always the case, English and computer-speak are not equivalent (or even necessarily compatible)
languages. Although descriptions and examples should make the meaning of the networking jargon more
apparent, sometimes terms are ambiguous. A common frame of reference is necessary for understanding
data communications terminology. An architectural model developed by the International Standards
Organization (ISO)is frequently used to describe the structure and function of data communications
protocols. This architectural model, which is called the Open Systems Interconnect

(OSI) Reference Model, provides a common reference for discussing communications. The terms defined
by this model are well understood and widely used in the data communications community—so widely
used, in fact, that it is difficult to discuss data communications without using OSI’s terminology.

The OSI Reference Model contains seven layers that define the functions of data communications
protocols. Each layer of the OSI model represents a function performed when data is transferred between
cooperating applications across an intervening network. Figure 1-1 identifies each layer by name and
provides a short functional description for it. Looking at this figure, the protocols are like a pile of

15
building blocks stacked one upon another. Because of this appearance, the structure is often called a stack
or protocol stack.

Application Layer consists of application programs that use the network.

Presentation Layer standardizes data presentation to the applications

Session Layer manages sessions between applications

Transport Layer provides end-to-end error detection and correction

Network Layer Manages connections across the network for the upper layers.

Data Link Layer Provides reliable data delivery across the physical link.

Physical Layer defines the physical characteristics of the network media

Although the OSI model is useful, the TCP/IP protocols don’t match its structure exactly. Therefore, in
our discussions of TCP/IP, we use the layers of the OSI model in the following way:

Application Layer

The Application Layer is the level of the protocol hierarchy where user-accessed network processes
reside. In this text, a TCP/IP application is any network process that occurs above the Transport Layer.
This includes all of the processes that users directly interact with as well as other processes at this level
that users are not necessarily aware of.

Presentation Layer

For cooperating applications to exchange data, they must agree about how data is represented. In OSI, the
Presentation Layer provides standard data presentation routines. This function is frequently handled
within the applications in TCP/IP, though TCP/IP protocols such as XDR and MIME also perform this
function.

Session Layer
As with the Presentation Layer, the Session Layer is not identifiable as a separate layer in the TCP/IP
protocol hierarchy. The OSI Session Layer manages the sessions (connections) between cooperating
applications. In TCP/IP, this function largely occurs in the Transport Layer, and the term “session” is not
used; instead, the terms “socket” and “port” are used to describe the path over which cooperating
applications communicate.

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Transport Layer

Much of our discussion of TCP/IP is directed to the protocols that occur in the Transport Layer. The
Transport Layer in the OSI reference model guarantees that the receiver gets the data exactly as it was
sent. In TCP/IP, this function is performed by the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). However,
TCP/IP offers a second Transport Layer service, User Datagram Protocol(UDP), that does not perform
the end-to-end reliability checks.

Network Layer

The Network Layer manages connections across the network and isolates the upper layer protocols from
the details of the underlying network. The Internet Protocol (IP), which isolates the upper layers from the
underlying network and handles the addressing and delivery of data, is usually described as TCP/IP’s
Network Layer.

Data Link Layer

The reliable delivery of data across the underlying physical network is handled by the Data Link Layer.
TCP/IP rarely creates protocols in the Data Link Layer. Most RFCs that relate to the Data Link Layer
discuss how IP can make use of existing data link protocols.

Physical Layer

The Physical Layer defines the characteristics of the hardware needed to carry the data transmission
signal. Features such as voltage levels and the number and location of interface pins are defined in this
layer. Examples of standards at the Physical Layer are interface connectors such as RS232C and V.35,
and standards for local area network wiring such as IEEE 802.3. TCP/IP does not define physical
standards—it makes use of existing standards.

The terminology of the OSI reference model helps us describe TCP/IP, but to fully understand it, we must
use an architectural model that more closely matches the structure of TCP/IP.

TCP/IP Protocol Architecture

While there is no universal agreement about how to describe TCP/IP with a layered model, TCP/IP is
generally viewed as being composed of fewer layers than the seven used in the OSI model. Most
descriptions of TCP/IP define three to five functional levels in the protocol architecture.

Overview of TCP/IP

As in the OSI model, data is passed down the stack when it is being sent to the network, and up the stack
when it is being received from the network. The four-layered structure of TCP/IP is seen in the way data
is handled as it passes down the protocol stack from the Application Layer to the underlying physical
network. Each layer in the stack adds control information to ensure proper delivery. This control
information is called a header because it is placed in front of the data to be transmitted. Each layer treats
all the information it receives from the layer above as data, and places its own header in front of that

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information. The addition of delivery information at every layer is called encapsulation. When data is
received, the opposite happens. Each layer strips off its header before passing the data on to the layer
above. As information flows back up the stack, information received from a lower layer is interpreted as
both a header and data.

Each layer has its own independent data structures. Conceptually, a layer is unaware of the data structures
used by the layers above and below it. In reality, the data structures of a layer are designed to be
compatible with the structures used by the surrounding layers for the sake of more efficient data
transmission. Still, each layer has its own data structure and its own terminology to describe that
structure.

Applications using TCP refer to data as a stream, while applications using UDP refer to data as a
message. TCP calls data a segment, and UDP calls its data a packet. The Internet layer views all data as
blocks called datagrams. TCP/IP uses many different types of underlying networks, each of which may
have a different terminology for the data it transmits. Most networks refer to transmitted data as packets
or frames.

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