Naming and Addressing
An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking
Outline
■ Names and addresses
■ Hierarchical naming
■ Addressing
■ Addressing in the telephone network
■ Addressing in the Internet
■ ATM addresses
■ Name resolution
■ Finding datalink layer addresses
Names and addresses
■ Names and addresses both uniquely identify a host (or an
interface on the host)
■ %nslookup
◆ Default Server: [Link]
◆ Address: [Link]
◆ > [Link]
◆ Name: [Link]
◆ Address: [Link]
■ Resolution: the process of determining an address from a name
Why do we need both?
■ Names are long and human understandable
◆ wastes space to carry them in packet headers
◆ hard to parse
■ Addresses are shorter and machine understandable
◆ if fixed size, easy to carry in headers and parse
■ Indirection
◆ multiple names may point to same address
◆ can move a machine and just update the resolution table
Hierarchical naming
■ Goal: give a globally unique name to each host
■ Naïve approach: ask other naming authorities before choosing a
name
◆ doesn’t scale (why?)
◆ not robust to network partitions
■ Instead carve up name space (the set of all possible names)
into mutually exclusive portions => hierarchy
Hierarchy
■ A wonderful thing!
◆ scales arbitrarily
◆ guarantees uniqueness
◆ easy to understand
■ Example: Internet names
◆ use Domain name system (DNS)
◆ global authority (Network Solutions Inc.) assigns top level
domains to naming authorities (e.g. .edu, .net, .cz etc.)
◆ naming authorities further carve up their space
◆ all names in the same domain share a unique suffix
Addressing
■ Addresses need to be globally unique, so they are also
hierarchical
■ Another reason for hierarchy: aggregation
◆ reduces size of routing tables
◆ at the expense of longer routes
Addressing in the telephone network
■ Telephone network has only addresses and no names (why?)
■ E.164 specifications
■ ITU assigns each country a unique country code
■ Naming authority in each country chooses unique area or city
prefixes
■ Telephone numbers are variable length
◆ this is OK since they are only used in call establishment
■ Optimization to help dialing:
◆ reserve part of the lower level name space to address top
level domains
◆ e.g. in US, no area code starts with 011, so 011 =>
international call => all other calls need fewer digits dialed
Addressing in the Internet
■ Every host interface has its own IP address
■ Routers have multiple interfaces, each with its own IP address
■ Current version of IP is version 4, addresses are IPv4
addresses
■ 4 bytes long, two part hierarchy
◆ network number and host number
◆ boundary identified with a subnet mask
◆ can aggregate addresses within subnets
Address classes
■ First cut
◆ fixed network-host partition, with 8 bits of network number
◆ too few networks!
■ Generalization
◆ Class A addresses have 8 bits of network number
◆ Class B addresses have 16 bits of network number
◆ Class C addresses have 24 bits of network number
■ Distinguished by leading bits of address
◆ leading 0 => class A (first byte < 128)
◆ leading 10 => class B (first byte in the range 128-191)
◆ leading 110 => class C (first byte in the range 192-223)
Address evolution
■ This scheme was too inflexible
■ Three extensions
◆ subnetting
◆ CIDR
◆ dynamic host configuration
Subnetting
■ Allows administrator to cluster IP addresses within its network
CIDR
■ Scheme forced medium sized nets to choose class B
addresses, which wasted space
■ Address space exhaustion
■ Solution
◆ allow ways to represent a set of class C addresses as a
block, so that class C space can be used
◆ use a CIDR mask
◆ idea is very similar to subnet masks, except that all routers
must agree to use it
✦ subnet masks are not visible outside the network (why?)
CIDR (contd.)
Dynamic host configuration
■ Allows a set of hosts to share a pool of IP addresses
■ Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
■ Newly booted computer broadcasts discover to subnet
■ DHCP servers reply with offers of IP addresses
■ Host picks one and broadcasts a request to a particular server
■ All other servers withdraw offers, and selected server sends an
ack
■ When done, host sends a release
■ IP address has a lease which limits time it is valid
■ Server reuses IP addresses if their lease is over
■ Similar technique used in Point-to-point protocol (PPP)
IPv6
■ 32-bit address space is likely to eventually run out
■ IPv6 extends size to 128 bits
■ Main features
◆ classless addresses
◆ multiple levels of aggregation are possible
✦ registry
✦ provider
✦ subscriber
✦ subnet
◆ several flavors of multicast
◆ anycast
◆ interoperability with IPv4
ATM network addressing
■ Uses Network Service Access Point (NSAP) addresses
■ Variable length (7-20 bytes)
■ Several levels of hierarchy
◆ national or international naming authority
◆ addressing domain
◆ subnet
Name resolution
■ Done by name servers
◆ essentially look up a name and return an address
■ Centralized design
◆ consistent
◆ single point of failure
◆ concentrates load
DNS
■ Distributed name server
■ A name server is responsible (an authoritative server) for a set
of domains
■ May delegate responsibility for part of a domain to a child
■ Root servers are replicated
■ If local server cannot answer a query, it asks root, which
delegates reply
■ Reply is cached and timed out
Finding datalink layer addresses
■ Datalink layer address: most common format is IEEE 802
■ Need to know datalink layer address typically for the last hop
ARP
■ To get datalink layer address of a machine on the local subnet
■ Broadcast a query with IP address onto local LAN
■ Host that owns that address (or proxy) replies with address
■ All hosts are required to listen for ARP requests and reply
◆ including laser printers!
■ Reply stored in an ARP cache and timed out
■ In point-to-point LANs, need an ARP server
◆ register translation with server
◆ ask ARP server instead of broadcasting
