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Chapter 07

Network Layer: Data

Transfer
Data Communications and
Networking, With TCP/IP
protocol suite
Sixth Edition
Behrouz A. Forouzan

© 2022 McGraw Hill, LLC. All rights reserved. Authorized only for instructor use in the classroom.
No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill, LLC.
 Chapter 7: Outline

7.1 Services

7.2 Packet Switching

7.3 Performance

7.4 Internet Protocol V4

7.5 Internet Protocol V6

7.6 Transition from V4 To V6

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 Figure 7.1 Communication at the network layer

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 7-1 SERVICES

We briefly discuss the services provided at the

network layer.

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 7.1.1 Packetizing

The first duty of the network layer is definitely packetizing:

encapsulating the payload in a network-layer packet at the source
and decapsulating the payload from the network-layer packet at the
destination. In other words, one duty of the network layer is to
carry a payload from the source to the destination without
changing it or using it. The network layer is doing the service of a
carrier such as the postal office, which is responsible for delivery
of packages from a sender to a receiver without changing or using
the contents.

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 7.1.2 Routing

Other duties of the network layer, which are as important as the

first, are routing and forwarding, which are directly related to each
other.

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 7.1.3 Error Control

Although error control can be implemented in the network layer,

the designers of the network layer in the Internet ignored this issue
for the data being carried by the network layer. One reason for this
decision is the fact that the packet in the network layer may be
fragmented at each router, which makes error checking at this
layer inefficient.

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 7.1.4 Flow Control

Flow control regulates the amount of data a source can send

without overwhelming the receiver. If the upper layer at the source
computer produces data faster than the upper layer at the
destination computer can consume it, the receiver will be
overwhelmed with data. To control the flow of data, the receiver
needs to send some feedback to the sender to inform the latter that
it is overwhelmed with data.

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 7.1.5 Congestion Control

Another issue in a network-layer protocol is congestion control.

Congestion in the network layer is a situation in which too many
datagrams are present in an area of the Internet. Congestion may
occur if the number of datagrams sent by source computers is
beyond the capacity of the network or routers.

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 7.1.6 Quality of Service

As the Internet has allowed new applications such as multimedia

communication (in particular real-time communication of audio
and video), the quality of service (QoS) of the communication has
become more and more important. The Internet has thrived by
providing better quality of service to support these applications.
However, to keep the network layer untouched, these provisions are
mostly implemented in the upper layer.

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 7.1.7 Security

Another issue related to communication at the network layer is

security. Security was not a concern when the Internet was
originally designed because it was used by a small number of users
at universities for research activities; other people had no access to
the Internet. The network layer was designed with no security
provision. Today, however, security is a big concern. To provide
security for a connectionless network layer, we need to have
another virtual level that changes the connectionless service to a
connection-oriented service.

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 7-2 PACKET SWITCHING

From the discussion of routing and forwarding in the

previous section, we infer that a kind of switching
occurs at the network layer. A router, in fact, is a
switch that creates a connection between an input
port and an output port (or a set of output ports), just
as an electrical switch connects the input to the
output to let electricity flow.

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 7.2.1 Datagram Approach

When the Internet started, to make it simple, the network layer was
designed to provide a connectionless service in which the network-
layer protocol treats each packet independently, with each packet
having no relationship to any other packet. The idea was that the
network layer is only responsible for delivery of packets from the
source to the destination. In this approach, the packets in a
message may or may not travel the same path to their destination.

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 7.2.2 Virtual-Circuit Approach

In a connection-oriented service (also called virtual-circuit

approach), there is a relationship between all packets belonging to
a message. Before all datagrams in a message can be sent, a
virtual connection should be set up to define the path for the
datagrams. After connection setup, the datagrams can all follow
the same path. In this type of service, not only must the packet
contain the source and destination addresses, it must also contain a
flow label, a virtual circuit identifier that defines the virtual path
the packet should follow.

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 7-3 PERFORMANCE

The upper-layer protocols that use the service of the

network layer expect to receive an ideal service, but
the network layer is not perfect. The performance of
a network can be measured in terms of delay,
throughput, and packet loss. Congestion control is an
issue that can improve the performance.

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 7.3.1 Delay

All of us expect instantaneous response from a network, but a

packet, from its source to its destination, encounters delays. The
delays in a network can be divided into four types: transmission
delay, propagation delay, processing delay, and queuing delay. Let
us first discuss each of these delay types and then show how to
calculate a packet delay from the source to the destination.

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 Transmission Delay 1

A source host or a router cannot send a packet instantaneously. A

sender needs to put the bits in a packet on the line one by one. If
the first bit of the packet is put on the line at time t1 and the last bit
is put on the line at time t2, transmission delay of the packet is (t2 -
t1). Definitely, the transmission delay is longer for a longer
packet and shorter if the sender can transmit faster. In other words,
the transmission delay is .

Delay tr Packet length  Transmission rate 

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 Propagation Delay

Propagation delay is the time it takes for a bit to travel from point
A to point B in the transmission media. The propagation delay for a
packet-switched network depends on the propagation delay of each
network (LAN or WAN). The propagation delay depends on the
propagation speed of the media, which is 3 ´ 108 meters/second in
a vacuum and normally much less in a wired medium; it also
depends on the distance of the link. In other words, propagation
delay is .

Delay pg Distance  Propagation speed 

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 Processing Delay

The processing delay is the time required for a router or a

destination host to receive a packet from its input port, remove the
header, perform an error detection procedure, and deliver the
packet to the output port (in the case of a router) or deliver the
packet to the upper-layer protocol (in the case of the destination
host). The processing delay may be different for each packet, but
normally is calculated as an average.

Delay pr Time required to process a packet

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 Total Delay

Assuming equal delays for the sender, routers, and receiver, the
total delay (source-to-destination delay) a packet encounters can
be calculated if we know the number of routers, n, in the whole
path.

Delay qu The time a packet waits in queues

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 Transmission Delay 2

A source host or a router cannot send a packet instantaneously. A

sender needs to put the bits in a packet on the line one by one. If
the first bit of the packet is put on the line at time t1 and the last bit
is put on the line at time t2, transmission delay of the packet is (t2 -
t1). Definitely, the transmission delay is longer for a longer
packet and shorter if the sender can transmit faster. In other words,
the transmission delay is:

Delay tr Packet length  Transmission rate 

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 7.3.2 Throughput

Throughput at any point in a network is defined as the number of

bits passing through the point in a second, which is actually the
transmission rate of data at that point. In a path from source to
destination, a packet may pass through several links (networks),
each with a different transmission rate. How, then, can we
determine the throughput of the whole path? To see the situation,
assume that we have three links, each with a different transmission
rate, as shown in Figure 7.2.

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 Figure 7.2 Throughput in a path with three links in a series

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 Figure 7.3 A path through the Internet backbone

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 7.3.3 Packet Loss

Another issue that severely affects the performance of

communication is the number of packets lost during transmission.
When a router receives a packet while processing another packet,
the received packet needs to be stored in the input buffer waiting
for its turn. A router, however, has an input buffer with a limited
size. A time may come when the buffer is full and the next packet
needs to be dropped. The effect of packet loss on the Internet
network layer is that the packet needs to be resent, which in turn
may create overflow and cause more packet loss.

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 7.3.4 Congestion Control

Congestion control is a mechanism for improving performance.

Although congestion at the network layer is not explicitly
addressed in the Internet model, the study of congestion at this
layer may help us to better understand the cause of congestion at
the transport layer and find possible remedies to be used at the
network layer. Congestion at the network layer is related to two
issues, throughput and delay, which we discussed in the previous
section.

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 7-4 INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 4

The network layer in the Internet has gone through

several versions, but only two versions have
survived: IP Version 4 (IPv4) and IP Version 6 (IPv6).
Although IPv4 is almost depleted, we discuss it
because there are still some areas that use this
version and also because it is the foundation for IPv6.

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 7.4.1 IPv4 Addressing

The identifier used in the IP layer of the TCP/IP protocol suite to

identify the connection of each device to the Internet is called the
Internet address or IP address. An IPv4 address is a 32-bit address
that uniquely and universally defines the connection of a host or a
router to the Internet. The IP address is the address of the
connection, not the host or the router, because if the device is
moved to another network, the IP address may be changed.

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 Address Space 1

A protocol like IPv4 that defines addresses has an address space.

An address space is the total number of addresses used by the
protocol. If a protocol uses b bits to define an address, the address
space is 2b because each bit can have two different values (0 or 1).
IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses, which means that the address space is
232 or 4,294,967,296 (more than four billion). If there were no
restrictions, more than 4 billion devices could be connected to the
Internet.

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 Notation

There are three common notations to show an IPv4 address: binary

notation (base 2), dotted-decimal notation (base 256), and
hexadecimal notation (base 16).

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 Figure 7.4 Three different notations in IPv4 addressing

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 Hierarchy in Addressing

In any communication network that involves delivery, such as a

telephone network or a postal network, the addressing system is
hierarchical. A 32-bit IPv4 address is also hierarchical but divided
only into two parts. The first part of the address, called the prefix,
defines the network; the second part of the address, called the
suffix, defines the node.

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 Figure 7.5 Hierarchy in addressing

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 Classful Addressing

When the Internet started, an IPv4 address was designed with a

fixed-length prefix, but to accommodate both small and large
networks, three fixed-length prefixes were designed instead of one
(n = 8, n = 16, and n = 24). The whole address space was divided
into five classes (class A, B, C, D, and E), as shown in Figure 7.6.
This scheme is referred to as classful addressing. Although classful
addressing belongs to the past, it helps us to understand classless
addressing, discussed later.

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 Figure 7.6 Occupation of the address space in classful addressing

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 Classless Addressing

With the growth of the Internet, it was clear that a larger address
space was needed as a long-term solution. The larger address
space, however, requires that the length of IP addresses also be
increased, which means the format of the IP packets needs to be
changed. Although the long-range solution has already been
devised and is called IPv6, a short-term solution was also devised
to use the same address space but to change the distribution of
addresses to provide a fair share to each organization. The short-
term solution still uses IPv4 addresses, but it is called classless
addressing.

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 Figure 7.7 Variable-length blocks in classless addressing

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 Figure 7.8 Slash notation (CIDR)

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 Example 7.1

A classless address is given as 167.199.170.82/27. We can find the

above three pieces of information as follows. The number of
addresses in the network is 232 n 25 32 addresses. The first
address can be found by keeping the first 27 bits and changing the
rest of the bits to 0s.
Address: 167.199.170.82/27 10100111 11000111 10101010 01010010
First address: 167.199.170.64/27 10100111 11000111 10101010 01000000

The last address can be found by keeping the first 27 bits and
changing the rest of the bits to 1s.
Address: 167.199.170.82/27 10100111 11000111 10101010 01011111
Last address: 167.199.170.95/27 10100111 11000111 10101010 01011111

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 Example 7.2

We repeat Example 7.1 using the mask. The mask in dotted-

decimal notation is 256.256.256.224 The AND, OR, and NOT
operations can be applied to individual bytes using calculators and
applets at the book website.

Number of addresses in the block: N = NOT (mask) + 1 = 0.0.0.31 + 1 = 32 addresses

First address: First = (address) AND (mask) = 167.199.170. 82
Last address: Last = (address) OR (NOT mask) = 167.199.170. 255

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 Example 7.3

In classless addressing, an address cannot per se define the block

the address belongs to. For example, the address 230.8.24.56 can
belong to many blocks. Some of them are shown below with the
value of the prefix associated with that block.

Prefix length:16 → Block: 230.8.0.0 to 230.8.255.255

Prefix length:20 → Block: 230.8.16.0 to 230.8.31.255
Prefix length:26 → Block: 230.8.24.0 to 230.8.24.63
Prefix length:27 → Block: 230.8.24.32 to 230.8.24.63
Prefix length:29 → Block: 230.8.24.56 to 230.8.24.63
Prefix length:31 → Block: 230.8.24.56 to 230.8.24.57

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 Figure 7.9 Network address

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 Example 7.4

An ISP has requested a block of 1000 addresses. Since 1000 is not

a power of 2, 1024 addresses are granted. The prefix length is
calculated as n 32  log 2 1024 22. An available block,
18.14.12.0/22, is granted to the ISP. It can be seen that the first
address in decimal is 302,910,464, which is divisible by 1024.

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 Example 7.5 (1)

An organization is granted a block of addresses with the beginning

address 14.24.74.0/24. The organization needs to have 3 subblocks
of addresses to use in its three subnets: one subblock of 10
addresses, one subblock of 60 addresses, and one subblock of 120
addresses. Design the subblocks.

Solution
There are 232–24 256 addresses in this block. The first address is
14.24.74.0/24; the last address is 14.24.74.255/24. To satisfy the
third requirement, we assign addresses to subblocks, starting with
the largest and ending with the smallest one.

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 Example 7.5 (2)

a. The number of addresses in the largest subblock, which

requires 120 addresses, is not a power of 2. We allocate 128
addresses. The subnet mask for this subnet can be found as
n1 32  log 2 128 25. The first address in this block is
14.24.74.0/25; the last address is 14.24.74.127/25.

b. The number of addresses in the second largest subblock,

which requires 60 addresses, is not a power of 2 either. We
allocate 64 addresses. The subnet mask for this subnet can be
found as n2 32  log 2 64 26. The first address in this
block is 14.24.74.128/26; the last address is 14.24.74.191/26.

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 Example 7.5 (3)

c. The number of addresses in the largest subblock, which

requires 120 addresses, is not a power of 2. We allocate 128
addresses. The subnet mask for this subnet can be found as
n1 32  log 2 128 25. The first address in this block is
14.24.74.0/25; the last address is 14.24.74.127/25.

If we add all addresses in the previous subblocks, the result is

208 addresses, which means 48 addresses are left in reserve. The
first address in this range is 14.24.74.208. The last address is
14.24.74.255. We don’t know about the prefix length yet. Figure
4.36 shows the configuration of blocks. We have shown the first
address in each block.

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 Figure 7.10 Solution to Example 4.5

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 Example 7.6

Figure 7.11 shows how four small blocks of addresses are assigned
to four organizations by an ISP. The ISP combines these four
blocks into one single block and advertises the larger block to the
rest of the world. Any packet destined for this larger block should
be sent to this ISP. It is the responsibility of the ISP to forward the
packet to the appropriate organization. This is similar to routing we
can find in a postal network. All packages coming from outside a
country are sent first to the capital and then distributed to the
corresponding destination.

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 Figure 7.11 Example of address aggregation

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 7.4.2 Four Related Protocols

The network layer in version 4 can be thought of as

one main protocol and three auxiliary ones. The main
protocol, IPv4, is responsible for packetizing,
forwarding, and delivery of a packet. The ICMPv4
helps IPv4 to handle some errors that may occur in
delivery. The IGMP is used to help IPv4 in
multicasting. ARP is used in address mapping.

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 Figure 7.12 Position of IP and other network-layer protocols in
TCP/IP protocol suite

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 Datagram Format

Packets used by the IP are called datagrams. Figure 7.13 shows

the IPv4 datagram format. A datagram is a variable-length packet
consisting of two parts: header and payload (data). The header is
20 to 60 bytes in length and contains information essential to
routing and delivery. It is customary in TCP/IP to show the header
in 4-byte sections.

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 Figure 7.13 IP datagram

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 Figure 7.14 Multiplexing and demultiplexing using the value of
the protocol field

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 Example 7.7

An IPv4
The receiver
packet
discards
has arrived
the packet.
with the first 8 bits as 01000010 2 .
Why?

Solution
There is an error in this packet. The 4 leftmost bits (0100)2 show
the version, which is correct. The next 4 bits (0010)2 show an
invalid header length (2 * 4 = 8). The minimum number of bytes in
the header must be 20. The packet has been corrupted in
transmission.

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 Example 7.8

In an IPv4 packet, the value of HLEN is 1000 2 . How many bytes

of options are being carried by this packet?

Solution
The HLEN value is 8, which means the total number of bytes in the
header is 8 * 4, or 32 bytes. The first 20 bytes are the base header,
the next 12 bytes are the options.

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 Example 7.9

In an IPv4 packet, the value of HLEN is 5, and the value of the

total length field is 0028 16 . How many bytes of data are being
carried by this packet?

Solution
The HLEN value is 5, which means the total number of bytes in the
header is 5 * 4, or 20 bytes (no options). The total length is 0028 16
or 40 bytes, which means the packet is carrying 20 bytes of data
(40 - 20).

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 Example 7.10

An IPv4 packet has arrived with the first few hexadecimal digits as
shown
45000028000100000102 16
How many hops can this packet travel before being dropped? The
data belong to what upper-layer protocol?

Solution
To find the time-to-live field, we skip 8 bytes (16 hexadecimal
digits). The time-to-live field is the ninth byte, which is 0116 . This
means the packet can travel only one hop. The protocol field is the
next byte 02 16 , which means that the upper-layer protocol is
IGMP.

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 Example 7.11

Figure 7.15 shows an example of a checksum calculation for an

IPv4 header without options. The header is divided into 16-bit
sections. All the sections are added and the sum is complemented
after wrapping the leftmost digit. The result is inserted in the
checksum field.

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 Figure 7.15 Example of checksum calculation

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 Fragmentation

A datagram can travel through different networks. Each router

decapsulates the IP datagram from the frame it receives, processes
it, and then encapsulates it in another frame. The format and size
of the received frame depend on the protocol used by the physical
network through which the frame has just traveled. The format and
size of the sent frame depend on the protocol used by the physical
network through which the frame is going to travel. For example, if
a router connects a LAN to a WAN, it receives a frame in the LAN
format and sends a frame in the WAN format.

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 Maximum Transfer Unit

Each link-layer protocol has its own frame format. One of the
features of each format is the maximum size of the payload that can
be encapsulated in a frame, total size of the datagram must be less
than the maximum size (see Figure 7.16).

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 Figure 7.16 Maximum transfer unit (MTU)

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 Fields Related to Fragmentation

We mentioned before that three fields in an IP datagram are related

to fragmentation: identification, flags, and fragmentation offset.

The 16-bit identification field identifies a datagram originating

from the source host.

The 3-bit flags field defines three flags.

The 13-bit fragmentation offset field shows the relative position of

this fragment with respect to the whole datagram.

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 Figure 7.17 Fragmentation example

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 Figure 7.18 Detailed fragmentation example

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 Example 7.12

A packet has arrived with an M bit value of 0. Is this the first

fragment, the last fragment, or a middle fragment? Do we know if
the packet was fragmented?

Solution
If the M bit is 0, it means that there are no more fragments; the
fragment is the last one. However, we cannot say if the original
packet was fragmented or not. A non-fragmented packet is
considered the last fragment.

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 Example 7.13

A packet has arrived with an M bit value of 1. Is this the first

fragment, the last fragment, or a middle fragment? Do we know if
the packet was fragmented?

Solution
If the M bit is 1, it means that there is at least one more fragment.
This fragment can be the first one or a middle one, but not the last
one. We don’t know if it is the first one or a middle one; we need
more information (the value of the fragmentation offset).

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 Example 7.14

A packet has arrived with an M bit value of 1 and a fragmentation

offset value of 0. Is this the first fragment, the last fragment, or a
middle fragment?

Solution
Because the M bit is 1, it is either the first fragment or a middle
one. Because the offset value is 0, it is the first fragment.

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 Example 7.15

A packet has arrived in which the offset value is 100. What is the
number of the first byte? Do we know the number of the last byte?

Solution
To find the number of the first byte, we multiply the offset value by
8. This means that the first byte number is 800. We cannot
determine the number of the last byte unless we know the length of
the data.

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 Example 7.16

A packet has arrived in which the offset value is 100, the value of
HLEN is 5, and the value of the total length field is 100. What are
the numbers of the first byte and the last byte?

Solution
The first byte number is 100 * 8 = 800. The total length is 100
bytes, and the header length is 20 bytes (5 * 4), which means that
there are 80 bytes in this datagram. If the first byte number is 800,
the last byte number must be 879.

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 7.4.3 Options

The header of the IPv4 datagram is made of two parts: a fixed part
and a variable part. The fixed part is 20 bytes long and was
discussed in the previous section. The variable part comprises the
options that can be a maximum of 40 bytes (in multiples of 4 bytes)
to preserve the boundary of the header.

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 Single-Byte Options

There are two single-byte options.

No Operation
A no-operation option is a 1-byte option used as a filler between
options.

End of Option
An end-of-option option is a 1-byte option used for padding at the
end of the option field. It, however, can only be used as the last
option.

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 Security of IPv4 Datagrams

We give a brief idea about the security issues in IP protocol.

Packet Sniffing
An intruder may intercept an IP packet and make a copy of it.
Packet Modification
The attacker intercepts the packet, changes its contents, and sends
the new packet to the receiver..
IP Spoofing
An attacker can masquerade as somebody else and create an IP
packet that carries the source address of another computer.

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 IPSec

The IP packets today can be protected from the previously

mentioned attacks using a protocol called IPSec (IP Security). This
protocol, which is used in conjunction with the IP protocol, creates
a connection-oriented service between two entities in which they
can exchange IP packets without worrying about the three attacks
discussed above. We will discuss IPSec in detail in Chapter 13.

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 7.4.4 ICMPv4

The IPv4 has no error-reporting or error-correcting

mechanism. The IP protocol also lacks a mechanism
for host and management queries. The Internet
Control Message Protocol version 4 (ICMPv4) has
been designed to compensate for the above two
deficiencies.

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 Messages

ICMP messages are divided into two broad categories: error-

reporting messages and query messages. The error-reporting
messages report problems that a router or a host (destination) may
encounter when it processes an IP packet. The query messages,
which occur in pairs, help a host or a network manager get specific
information from a router or another host. For example, nodes can
discover their neighbors. Also, hosts can discover and learn about
routers on their network and routers can help a node redirect its
messages.

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 Figure 7.19 General format of ICMP messages

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 Figure 7.20 Contents of data field for error messages

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 Deprecated Messages

Three pairs of messages are declared obsolete by IETF:

1. Information request and replay messages

2. Address mask request and reply messages

3. Router solicitation and advertisement messages

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 Debugging Tools

There are several tools that can be used in the Internet for
debugging. We can determine the viability of a host or router. We
can trace the route of a packet. We introduce two tools that use
ICMP for debugging: ping and traceroute.

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 Ping

We can use the ping program to find if a host is alive and is

responding.

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 Example 7.17

The following shows how we send a ping message to the

auniversity.edu site.
$ ping auniversity.edu
PING auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3) 56 (84) bytes of data. ttl=62 time=1.91 ms
64 bytes from auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3): icmp_seq=0 ttl=62 time=2.04 ms
64 bytes from auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3): icmp_seq=1 ttl=62 time=1.90 ms
64 bytes from auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3): icmp_seq=2 ttl=62 time=1.90 ms
64 bytes from auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3): icmp_seq=3 ttl=62 time=1.97 ms
64 bytes from auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3): icmp_seq=4 ttl=62 time=1.93 ms
64 bytes from auniversity.edu (152.181.8.3): icmp_seq=5 ttl=62 time=2.00 ms
--- auniversity.edu statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss
rtt min/avg/max = 1.90/1.95/2.04 ms

© McGraw Hill, LLC 83

 Traceroute or Tracert

The traceroute program in UNIX or tracert in Windows can be

used to trace the path of a packet from a source to the destination.
It can find the IP addresses of all the routers that are visited along
the path. The program is usually set to check for the maximum of
30 hops (routers) to be visited. The number of hops in the Internet
is normally less than this. Since these two programs behave
different in Unix and Windows, we explain them separately.

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 Figure 7.21 Example of traceroute program

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 ICMP Checksum

In ICMP, the checksum is calculated over the entire message

(header and data).

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 Example 7.18

Figure 7.22 shows an example of checksum calculation for a

simple echo-request message. We randomly chose the identifier to
be 1 and the sequence number to be 9. The message is divided into
16-bit (2-byte) words. The words are added and the sum is
complemented. Now the sender can put this value in the checksum
field.

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 Figure 7.22 Example of checksum calculation

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 7.4.5 Mobile IP

In the last section of this chapter, we discuss mobile IP. As mobile

and personal computers such as notebooks become increasingly
popular, we need to think about mobile IP, the extension of IP
protocol that allows mobile computers to be connected to the
Internet at any location where the connection is possible. In this
section, we discuss this issue.

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 Addressing

The main problem that must be solved in providing mobile

communication using the IP protocol is addressing.

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 Figure 7.23 Home address and care-of address

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 Agents

To make the change of address transparent to the rest of the

Internet requires a home agent and a foreign agent. Figure 7.24
shows the position of a home agent relative to the home network
and a foreign agent relative to the foreign network.

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 Figure 7.24 Home agent and foreign agent

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 Three Phases

To communicate with a remote host, a mobile host goes through

three phases: agent discovery, registration, and data transfer, as
shown in Figure 7.25.

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 Figure 7.25 Remote host and mobile host communication

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 Figure 7.26 Agent advertisement

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 Table 7.1 Code Bits

Bit Meaning
0 Registration required. No collocated care-of address.
1 Agent is busy and does not accept registration at this moment.
2 Agent acts as a home agent.
3 Agent acts as a foreign agent.
4 Agent uses minimal encapsulation.
5 Agent uses generic routing encapsulation (GRE).
6 Agent uses generic routing encapsulation (GRE).
7 Unused (0).

© McGraw Hill, LLC 97

 Registration

The second phase in mobile communication is registration. After a

mobile host has moved to a foreign network and discovered the
foreign agent, it must register. There are four aspects of
registration:

1. The mobile host must register itself with the foreign agent.
2. The mobile host must register itself with its home agent.
3. The mobile host must renew registration if it has expired.
4. The mobile host must cancel its registration when it returns.

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 Figure 7.27 Registration request format

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 Table 7.2 Registration request flag field bits

Bit Meaning
0 Mobile host requests that home agent retain its prior care-of address.
1 Mobile host requests that home agent tunnel any broadcast message.
2 Mobile host is using collocated care-of address.
3 Mobile host requests that home agent use minimal encapsulation.
4 Mobile host requests generic routing encapsulation (GRE).
5 Mobile host requests header compression.
6 –7 Reserved bits.

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 Figure 7.28 Registration reply format

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 Data Transfer

After agent discovery and registration, a mobile host can

communicate with a remote host. Figure 7.29 shows the idea.

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 Figure 7.29 Data transfer

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 Figure 7.30 Double crossing

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 Figure 7.31 Triangle routing

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 7.4.6 Forwarding of IP Packets

We discussed the concept of forwarding at the network layer earlier

in this chapter. In this section, we extend the concept to include the
role of IP addresses in forwarding. As we discussed before,
forwarding means to place the packet in its route to its destination.
Since the Internet today is made of a combination of links
(networks), forwarding means to deliver the packet to the next hop
(which can be the final destination or the intermediate connecting
device). Although the IP protocol was originally designed as a
connectionless protocol, today the tendency is to change it to
connection-oriented protocol. We discuss both cases.

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 Forwarding Based on Destination Address

We first discuss forwarding based on the destination address. This

is a traditional approach, which is prevalent today. In this case,
forwarding requires a host or a router to have a forwarding table.
When a host has a packet to send or when a router has received a
packet to be forwarded, it looks at this table to find the next hop to
deliver the packet to.

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 Figure 7.32 Simplified forwarding module in classless address

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 Example 7.19

Make a forwarding table for router R1 using the configuration in

Figure 7.33.

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 Figure 7.33 Configuration for Example 7.19

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 Table 7.3 Forwarding table for router R1

Network address/mask Next hop Interface

180.70.65.192/26 — m2
180.70.65.128/25 — m0
201.4.22.0/24 — m3
201.4.16.0/22 — m1
Default 180.70.65.200 m2

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 Example 7.20

Instead of Table 7.3, we can use Table 7.4, in which the network
address/mask is given in bits.

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 Table 7.4 Forwarding table for router R1 using prefix bit

Leftmost bits in the destination address Next hop Interface

10110100 01000110 01000001 11 — m2
10110100 01000110 01000001 1 — m0
11001001 00000100 00011100 — m3
11001001 00000100 000100 — m1
Default 180.70.65.200 m2

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 Example 7.21

The router performs the following steps

1. The first mask (/26) is applied to the destination address. The

result is 180.70.65.128, which does not match the
corresponding network address.

2. The second mask (/25) is applied to the destination address.

The result is 180.70.65.128, which matches the corresponding
network address. The next-hop address and the interface
number m0 are extracted for forwarding the packet.

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 Address Aggregation

When we use classful addressing, there is only one entry in the

forwarding table for each site outside the organization. The entry
defines the site even if that site is subnetted. When a packet arrives
at the router, the router checks the corresponding entry and
forwards the packet accordingly. When we use classless
addressing, it is likely that the number of forwarding table entries
will increase. To alleviate the problem, the idea of address
aggregation was designed. In Figure 7.34 we have two routers.

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 Figure 7.34 Address aggregation

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 Figure 7.35 Longest mask addressing

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 Example 7.22

As an example of hierarchical routing, let us consider . A regional

ISP is granted 16,384 addresses starting from 120.14.64.0. The
regional ISP has decided to divide this block into 4 subblocks, each
with 4096 addresses. Three of these subblocks are assigned to three
local ISPs, the second subblock is reserved for future use. Note that
the mask for each block is /20 because the original block with
mask /18 is divided into 4 blocks.

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 Figure 7.36 Hierarchical routing with ISPs

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 Forwarding Table Search Algorithm

In classless addressing, there is no network information in the

destination address. The simplest, but not the most efficient, search
method is called the longest prefix match (as we discussed before).
The forwarding table can be divided into buckets, one for each
prefix. The router first tries the longest prefix. If the destination
address is found in this bucket, the search is complete. If the
address is not found, the next prefix is searched, and so on. It is
obvious that this type of search takes a long time.

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 Forwarding Based on Label

In the 1980s, an effort started to somehow change IP to behave like

a connection-oriented protocol in which the routing is replaced by
switching. As we discussed earlier in the chapter, in a
connectionless network (datagram approach), a router forwards a
packet based on the destination address in the header of the packet.
On the other hand, in a connection-oriented network (virtual-
circuit approach), a switch forwards a packet based on the label
attached to the packet. Routing is normally based on searching the
contents of a table; switching can be done by accessing a table
using an index. In other words, routing involves searching;
switching involves accessing.

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 Example 7.23

Figure 7.37 shows a simple example of searching in a forwarding

table using the longest mask algorithm. Although there are some
more efficient algorithms today, the principle is the same.

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 Figure 7.37 Example 7.23

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 Example 7.24

Figure 7.38 shows a simple example of using a label to access a

switching table. Since the labels are used as the index to the table,
finding the information in the table is immediate.

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 Figure 7.38 Example 7.24

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 A New Header

• To simulate connection-oriented switching using a protocol like

IP, the first thing that is needed is to add a field to the packet
that carries the label discussed later. The IPv4 packet format
does not allow this extension The solution is to encapsulate the
IPv4 packet in an MPLS packet. Figure 7.39 shows the
encapsulation.
• The MPLS header is actually a stack of subheaders that is used
for multilevel hierarchical switching as we will discuss shortly.
Figure 7.40 shows the format of an MPLS header in which each
subheader is 32 bits (4 bytes) long.

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 Figure 7.39 MPLS header added to an IP packet

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 Figure 7.40 MPLS header made of a stack of labels

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 Hierarchical Switching

A stack of labels in MPLS allows hierarchical switching. This is

similar to conventional hierarchical routing. For example, a packet
with two labels can use the top label to forward the packet through
switches outside an organization; the bottom label can be used to
route the packet inside the organization to reach the destination
subnet.

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 7.4.7 Routers as Packet Switches

A stack of labels in MPLS allows hierarchical switching. This is

similar to conventional hierarchical routing. For example, a packet
with two labels can use the top label to forward the packet through
switches outside an organization; the bottom label can be used to
route the packet inside the organization to reach the destination
subnet.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 130

 7.5 NEXT GENERATION IP (IPv6)

The address depletion of IPv4 and other shortcoming

of this protocol prompted a new version of IP protocol
in the early 1990s, which is called Internet Protocol
version 6 (IPv6) or
IP new generation (Ipng).

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 7.5.1 IPv6 Addressing

The main reason for migration from IPv4 to IPv6 was the small
size of the address space of IPv4. An IPv6 address is 128 bytes or
16 bytes, four times the address length in IPv4.

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 Representation

An IPv6 address is 128 bits or 16 bytes long; four times the address
length of IPv4.

Binary (128 bits) 11111110111101101011 …

1111111100000000
Colon hexadecimal FEF6:BA98:7654:3210:ADEF:BBFF:2922:FF00

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 Address Space 2

The address space of IPv6 contains 2128 addresses. This address

space is 296 times the IPv4 address—definitely no address depletion
—as shown, the size of the space is

340, 282, 366, 920, 938, 463, 374, 607, 431, 768, 211, 456

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 Address Space Allocation

Like the address space of IPv4, the address space of IPv6 is divided
into several blocks of varying size and each block is allocated for a
special purpose. Most of the blocks are still unassigned and have
been set aside for future use. Table 7.5 shows only the assigned
blocks. In this table, the last column shows the fraction each block
occupies in the whole address space.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 135

 Table 7.5 Prefixes for assigned IPv6 addresses

Block prefix CIDR Block assignment Fraction

0000 0000 0000::/8 Special addresses 1/256
001 2000::/3 Global unicast 1/8
1111 110 FC00::/7 Unique local unicast 1/128
1111 1110 10 FE80::/10 Link local addresses 1/1024
1111 1111 FF00::/8 Multicast addresses 1/256

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 Figure 7.41 Global unicast address

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 Figure 7.42 Mapping EUI-64

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 Figure 7.43 Mapping for Ethernet MAC

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 Example 7.25

An organization is assigned the block 2000:1456:2474/48. What is

the CIDR notation for the blocks in the first and second subnets in
this organization.

Solution
Theoretically, the first and second subnets should use the block
with subnet identifier 000116 and 000216. This means that the
blocks are
2000:1456:2474:0000/64
and
2000:1456:2474:0001/64.

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 Example 7.26

Find the interface identifier if the physical address in the EUI is

(F5-A9-23-EF-07-14-7A-D2)16 using the format we defined for
Ethernet addresses.

Solution
We only need to change the seventh bit of the first octet from 0 to 1
and change the format to colon hex notation. The result is
F7A9:23EF:0714:7AD2.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 141

 Example 7.27

Find the interface identifier if the Ethernet physical address is

(F5-A9-23-14-7A-D2)16 using the format we defined for Ethernet
addresses.

Solution
We only need to change the seventh bit of the first octet from 0 to
1, insert two octet FFFE16 and change the format to colon hex
notation. The result is F7A9:23FF:FE14:7AD2 in colon hex.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 142

 Example 7.28

An organization is assigned the block 2000:1456:2474/48. What is

the IPv6 address of an interface in the third subnet if the IEEE
physical address of the computer is
(F5-A9-23-14-7A-D2)16 .

Solution

The interface identifier for this interface is

F7A9:23FF:FE14:7AD2.

If we assign this identifier to the global prefix and the subnet

identifier, we get
2000:1456:2474:0003:F7A9:23FF:FE14:7AD2/128

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 Special Addresses

After discussing the global unicast block, let us discuss the

characteristics and purposes of assigned and reserved blocks in the
first row of Table 7.5. Addresses that use the prefix (0000::/8) are
reserved, but part of this block is used to define some special
addresses. Figure 7.44 shows the assigned addresses in this block.

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 Figure 7.44 Special addresses

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 Other Assigned Blocks

IPv6 uses two large blocks for private addressing and one large
block for multicasting, as shown in Figure 7.45.

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 Figure 7.45 Unique local unicast block

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 Autoconfiguration

One of the interesting features of IPv6 addressing is the auto-

configuration of hosts. As we discussed in IPv4, the host and
routers are originally configured manually by the network
manager. However, the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol,
DHCP, can be used to allocate an IPv4 address to a host that joins
the network. In IPv6, DHCP protocol can still be used to allocate
an IPv6 address to a host, but a host can also configure itself.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 148

 Example 7.29 (1)

Assume a host with Ethernet address (F5-A9-23-11-9B-E2)16 has

joined the network. What would be its global unicast address if the
global unicast prefix of the organization is 3A21:1216:2165 and
the subnet identifier is A245:1232.

Solution
The host first creates its interface identifier as
F7A9:23FF:FE11:9BE2 using the Ethernet address read from its
card. The host then creates its link-local address as
FE80::F7A9:23FF:FE11:9BE2

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 Example 7.29 (2)

Assuming that this address is unique, the host sends a router

solicitation message and receives the router advertisement message
that announces the combination of global unicast prefix and the
subnet identifier as
3A21:1216:2165:A245:1232.
The host then appends its interface identifier to this prefix to find
and store its global unicast address as:

3A21:1216:2165:A245:1232:F7A9:23FF:FE11:9BE2

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 Renumbering

To allow sites to change the service provider, renumbering of the

address prefix (n) was built into IPv6 addressing. As we discussed
before, each site is given a prefix by the service provider to which it
is connected. If the site changes the provider, the address prefix
needs to be changed. A router to which the site is connected can
advertise a new prefix and let the site use the old prefix for a short
time before disabling it. In other words, during the transition
period, a site has two prefixes.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 151

 7.5.2 The IPv6 Protocol

The change of the IPv6 address size requires the change in the IPv4
packet format. The designer of IPv6 decided to implement remedies
for other shortcomings now that a change is inevitable. The
following shows other changes implemented in the protocol in
addition to changing address size and format.

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 Packet Format

The IPv6 packet is shown in Figure 7.46. Each packet is composed

of a base header followed by the payload. The base header
occupies 40 bytes, whereas payload can be up to 65,535 bytes of
information. The description of fields follows.

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 Figure 7.46 IPv6 datagram

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 Figure 7.47 Payload in an IPv6 datagram

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 Concept of Flow and Priority in IPv6

The IP protocol was originally designed as a connectionless

protocol. However, the tendency is to use the IP protocol as a
connection-oriented protocol. The MPLS technology described
earlier allows us to encapsulate an IPv4 packet in an MPLS header
using a label field. In version 6, the flow label has been directly
added to the format of the IPv6 datagram to allow us to use IPv6
as a connection-oriented protocol.

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 Fragmentation and Reassembly

There is still fragmentation and reassembly of datagrams in the

IPv6 protocol, but there is a major difference in this respect. IPv6
datagrams can be fragmented only by the source, not by the
routers; the reassembly takes place at the destination.

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 Extension Header

An IPv6 packet is made of a base header and some extension

headers. The length of the base header is fixed at 40 bytes.
However, to give more functionality to the IP datagram, the base
header can be followed by up to six extension headers. Many of
these headers are options in IPv4. Six types of extension headers
have been defined. These are hop-by-hop option, source routing,
fragmentation, authentication, encrypted security payload, and
destination option (see Figure 7.48).

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 Figure 7.48 Extension headers

© McGraw Hill, LLC 159

 Comparison of Options (IPv4 and IPv6) 1

The following shows a quick comparison between the options used

in IPv4 and the options used in IPv6.

• The no-operation and end-of-option options are replaced by Pad1 and

PadN.

• The record route option is not implemented in IPv6 because it was not used.

• The timestamp option is not implemented because it was not used.

• The source route option is called the source route extension header in IPv6.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 160

 Comparison of Options (IPv4 and IPv6) 2

The following shows a quick comparison between the options used

in IPv4 and the options used in IPv6.

• The fragmentation fields in the base header section of IPv4 have moved to
the fragmentation extension header in IPv6.

• The authentication extension header is new in IPv6.

• The encrypted security payload extension header is new in IPv6.

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 7.5.3 The ICMPv6 Protocol

Another protocol that has been modified in version 6 of the TCP/IP

protocol suite is ICMP. This new version, ICMPv6, follows the
same strategy and purposes of version 4. ICMPv6, however, is
more complicated than ICMPv4: some protocols that were
independent in version 4 are now part of ICMPv6 and some new
messages have been added to make it more useful.

© McGraw Hill, LLC 162

 Figure 7.49 Comparison of network layer in version 4 and
version 6

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 Figure 7.50 Categories of ICMPv6 messages

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 Error-Reporting Messages

As we saw in our discussion of version 4, one of the main

responsibilities of ICMPv6 is to report errors. Four types of errors
are handled: destination unreachable, packet too big, time
exceeded, and parameter problems. Note that the source-quenched
message, which is used to control congestion in version 4, is
eliminated in this version because the priority and flow label fields
in IPv6 are supposed to take care of congestion.

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 Neighbor-Discovery Messages

Several messages in ICMPv4 have been redefined in ICMPv6 to

handle the issue of neighbor discovery. Some new messages have
also been added to provide extension. The most important issue is
the definition of two new protocols that clearly define the
functionality of these group messages: the Neighbor-Discovery
(ND) protocol and the Inverse-Neighbor-Discovery (IND) protocol.

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 Group Membership Messages

The management of multicast delivery handling in IPv4 is given to

the IGMPv3 protocol. In IPv6, this responsibility is given to the
Multicast Listener Delivery protocol. MLDv1 is the counterpart to
IGMPv2; MLDv2 is the counterpart to IGMPv3. The
material discussed in this section is taken from RFC 3810. The idea
is the same as we discussed in IGMPv3, but the sizes and formats
of the messages have been changed to fit the larger multicast
address size in IPv6. Like IGMPv3, MLDv2 has two types of
messages: membership-query message and membership-report
message.

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 7-6 TRANSITION FROM IPv4 TO IPv6

Although we have a new version of the IP protocol, how can we

make the transition to stop using IPv4 and start using IPv6? in the
Internet can move The transition must be smooth to prevent any
problems between IPv4 and IPv6 systems.

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 7.6.1 Strategies

Three strategies have been devised for transition: dual stack,

tunneling, and header translation. One or all of these three
strategies can be implemented during the transition period.

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 Dual Stack

It is recommended that all hosts, before migrating completely to

version 6, have a dual stack of protocols during the transition. In
other words, a station must run IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously until
all the Internet uses IPv6. See Figure 7.51 for the layout of a dual-
stack configuration

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 Figure 7.51 Dual stack

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 Tunneling

Tunneling is a strategy used when two computers using IPv6 want

to communicate with each other and the packet must pass through
a region that uses IPv4. To pass through this region, the packet
must have an IPv4 address. So the IPv6 packet is encapsulated in
an IPv4 packet when it enters the region, and it leaves its capsule
when it exits the region. It seems as if the IPv6 packet goes through
a tunnel at one end and emerges at the other end. To make it clear
that the IPv4 packet is carrying an IPv6 packet as data, the
protocol value is set to 41. Tunneling is shown in Figure 7.52.

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 Figure 7.52 Tunneling strategy

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 Header Translation

Header translation is necessary when the majority of the Internet

has moved to IPv6 but some systems still use IPv4. The sender
wants to use IPv6, but the receiver does not understand IPv6.
Tunneling does not work in this situation because the packet must
be in the IPv4 format to be understood by the receiver. In this case,
the header format must be totally changed through header
translation. The header of the IPv6 packet is converted to an IPv4
header (see Figure 7.53).

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 Figure 7.53 Header translation strategy

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 End of Main Content

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