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ICMP & IGMP

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17 views

ICMP & IGMP

Uploaded by

Arixson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ICMP & IGMP

TCP and UDP are the big heavy lifters when it comes to just about all the data we
move on the Internet.

However there are times where I don't really want to send data so much as as one
computer I want to talk to another one just to verify status or something kind of
simplistic like that in these type of situations.

There's two other protocols I want to talk about.

The first one is called ICMP or internet control message protocol ICMP is a
different animal than either TCP or UDP in that number one it doesn't work at the
transport layer of the TCP/IP model.

It works at the IP layer.

The best way to explain this is let's make ourselves a quick ICMP packet.

So as we take a look here first of all to turn this into an ICMP packet I've got to
get rid of stuff.

There are no port numbers with ICMP.

In fact that's the reason most people put ICMP in the IP layer as opposed the
network layer because ICMP has nothing to do with port numbers at all.

And here's the other crazy part you ready.

There really isn't any data.

All you're doing with an ICMP is you're sending some amount of information and this
type daily there's about 40 or 50 different types.

So for example one type would be yes I hear you and then it checks just verifies
that this data is good.

Probably the best example of ICMP is good old ping if you think about what ping
does ping isn't really trying to talk to any particular application on another
computer.

It just has an IP address and at once whoever has that IP address to respond.

So with ICMP we just send off the ping one little message that basically says
hello.

And it's up to the responding device to either say I'm here or I'm not here.

And also keep in mind that ICMP has some complexity that type field has all kinds
of responses like unable to access store no route to host found and all kinds of
stuff.

So that ping is worming away through the Internet all kinds of devices can respond
to it.

To help us verify can we ping something or not.

Another great example is good old ARP as we're resolving mac addresses to IP
addresses ARP simply needs to be able to have somebody go Yep here's my MAC address
that's my IP.

And as a result of that there's really nothing to respond in terms of actual data.

It just has handled within the type field.

Now that's ICMP.

But to understand the other guy I GMP we need to break this down a little bit.

IGMP stands for Internet group management protocol and the best place to start is
let's make ourselves a packet now.

This is an IGMP packet.

Now if you take a look at this it's there's a type A checksum and a group address
and a source address.

Let me explain what's going on here I've got my little network here and we're
really excited because a nerdy group is about to do a video and we all want to
watch this online real time video.

So what three of us are going to do is we're going to install some video client
watchin software so that we can watch this video.

Now you would think that everybody would have to make their own little connection
to the video server to watch it.

Well there's a whole other world called multicast where we don't have to do that in
a multicast world.

You have a whole set of IP addresses and the reserve just for this.

They're distinct in that they always start with 224.

So any time you see an IP address that's two to four dot anything that's going to
be a multicast address.

So here's what happens here Eddie.

So we're going to install some special video watching software on three of these
computers.

This guy over here he doesn't like this stuff so he's not even loading the
software.

But these three machines are going to connect to the video server and what the
video server is going to do instead of having to send individual video streams to
the 75000 people who are watching this video.

What he'll do instead is a sign a multicast address.

So what will take place is a multicast address will come from the video server.

And by the way every router between us and that video server is watching and it's
because these clients are sending it out as it comes back.

These guys all know that 224.148.8.33 or whatever it is for this one video show is
going to be
for that video and the routers will pass it at least as long as the video runs.

So what will take place is one video stream is passed out through the Internet
splits up as it needs to to get to it.

But it for example is it gets to this network in only one video stream comes into
it and it's addressed to whatever that multicast address is.

And only the machines that are running the client software that are actually
listening on that multicast address will receive and watch the video.

That's kind of cool because in essence what you're doing with multicast is that
you're giving your computer a second IP address.

Sure it's still got its whatever IP address it has signed it.

But as long as this video runs it gets a 224 address and it listens on that and has
that video stream comes in he'll start picking it up and playing it on the player.

So multicast is kind of unique and that's what IGMP does.

Those two areas that you saw within the packet the group address and the source
address the group addresses Here's the multicast address we're all going to be
using so loaded up and then the source address is simply the IP address of the
video server.

So everybody knows where it came from.

So ICMP and IGMP they're not really on the transport layer but they are kind of in
my opinion because they're inside that just because they don't have port numbers.

To me they're they're still inside of the IP packet itself.

However for the network Plus remember IGMP and ICMP on the Internet layer of the
TCP/IP model.

ICMP works at the Internet (2) layer in the TCP/IP Model and the Network (3) layer
in the OSI model

IGMP provides multicasting support

Multicast addresses always start with 224 in the IP address

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