Chapter 20
Network Layer:
Internet Protocol
20.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Figure 20.2 Network layer in an internetwork
20.2
Figure 20.3 Network layer at the source, router, and destination
20.3
Figure 20.3 Network layer at the source, router, and destination (continued)
20.4
20-2 IPv4
The Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the delivery
mechanism used by the TCP/IP protocols.
Topics discussed in this section:
Datagram
Fragmentation
Checksum
Options
20.5
Figure 20.4 Position of IPv4 in TCP/IP protocol suite
20.6
Figure 20.5 IPv4 datagram format
20.7
Note
The precedence subfield was part of
version 4, but never used.
20.8
Table 20.1 Types of service
20.9
Table 20.2 Default types of service
20.10
Note
The total length field defines the total
length of the datagram including the
header.
20.11
Figure 20.8 Protocol field and encapsulated data
20.12
Table 20.4 Protocol values
20.13
Example 20.10
Figure 20.13 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. The result is
inserted in the checksum field.
20.14
Figure 20.13 Example of checksum calculation in IPv4
20.15
Example 20.1
An IPv4 packet has arrived with the first 8 bits as shown:
01000010
The receiver discards the packet. Why?
Solution
There is an error in this packet. The 4 leftmost bits (0100)
show the version, which is correct. The next 4 bits (0010)
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.
20.16
Example 20.2
In an IPv4 packet, the value of HLEN is 1000 in binary.
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.
20.17
Example 20.3
In an IPv4 packet, the value of HLEN is 5, and the value
of the total length field is 0x0028. 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 40 bytes, which means the packet is
carrying 20 bytes of data (40 − 20).
20.18
Example 20.4
An IPv4 packet has arrived with the first few hexadecimal
digits as shown.
0x45000028000100000102 . . .
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. The time-to-
live field is the ninth byte, which is 01. This means the
packet can travel only one hop. The protocol field is the
next byte (02), which means that the upper-layer protocol
is IGMP.
20.19
Figure 20.9 Maximum transfer unit (MTU)
20.20
Table 20.5 MTUs for some networks
20.21
Figure 20.5 IPv4 datagram format
20.22
Figure 20.10 Flags used in fragmentation
20.23
Figure 20.11 Fragmentation example
20.24
Figure 20.12 Detailed fragmentation example
20.25
Example 20.5
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.
20.26
Example 20.6
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).
20.27
Example 20.7
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.
20.28
Example 20.8
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.
20.29
Example 20.9
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.
20.30
Figure 20.14 Taxonomy of options in IPv4
20.31
Task of the Day!
Capture traffic using wireshark. Take any packet of your
choice. Write the values for various fields present in the
IP Frame format. Post your result along with screenshot
in discussion at Canvas
20.32