MODULE 10 - NETWORK LAYERS PROTOCOLS

ARP, IPv4, ICMP, IPv6, and ICMPv6

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In the TCP/IP suite, there are five network layer protocols: ARP ,RARP, IP, ICMP, and
IGMP. The main protocol in this layer is I, which is responsible for host-to-host delivery of
datagrams from a source to a destination. However, IP needs the services of other protocols.

✓ IP needs a protocol called ARP to find the MAC (physical)address of the next ho. This
address must be passed to the data link layer, with the IP datagrams, to be inserted into the
encapsulating frame.
✓ During datagram delivery, IP needs the services of ICMP to handle unusual situations such
as the occurrence of an error.
✓ IP is designed for unicast delivery, one source to one destination. Multimedia and other new
applications in the Internet needs multicasting delivery, one source to many destinations.
For multicasting, IP uses the services of another protocol called IGMP.
✓ RARP is now becoming obsolete.
✓ The current version of IP is called IPv4. The new version is IPv6.
ADDRESS RESOLUTION PROTOCOL (ARP)
✓ The Internet is made of a combination of physical networks connected by devices such as
routers. A packet starting from a source hast may pass through several different physical
networks before finally reaching the destination host.
✓ The hosts and routers are recognized at the network level by their IP addresses. An IP address
is an internetwork address. Its jurisdiction is universal. An IP address is universally unique.
Every protocol that deals with interconnecting networks requires IP addresses.
✓ At the physical network, the host and routers are recognized by their MAC address. A MAC
address is a local address. Its jurisdiction is the local network. It should be unique locally,
but not necessarily universally.
✓ The MAC address and the IP address are two different identifiers. We need both of them
because a physical network, such as Ethernet, can have two different protocols at the
network layer at the same time. Likewise, a packet at a network layer such as IP may pass
through different physical networks, such as Ethernet and Token Ring.
✓ This means that delivery of a packet to a host or a router requires two levels of addressing:
IP and MAC.

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 MODULE 10 - NETWORK LAYERS PROTOCOLS

INTERNET PROTOCOL (IP)

✓ The IP is the host-to-host network layer delivery protocols for the Internet. IP is unreliable
and connectionless datagram protocol – a best-effort delivery service.
✓ The term best-effort means that IP provide no error-reporting or error-correcting mechanism
and lack of assistance mechanism for host and management queries. IP uses only an error
detection mechanism and discards the packet if it is corrupted. IP does its best to deliver a
packet to its destination, but with no guarantee.
✓ If reliability is important, IP must be paired with a reliable protocol such as TCP (at the
transport layer).
INTERNET CONTROL MESSAGE PROTOCOL (ICMP)
✓ The ICMP has been designed to compensate for the deficiencies of IP. It is aa companion to
the IP.
ICMP itself is a network layer protocol. However, its messages are not passed directly to the
data link layer as would be expected. instead, the messages are first encapsulated inside the
IP datagrams before going to the lower layer.
IPv6
✓ The network later protocol on the Internet is current the IPv4. IPv4 provides the host-to-host
communication between systems in the Internet
✓ Although IPv4 is wee-designed, data communication has evolved since the inception of IPv4
in the 1970’s. IPv4 has deficiencies that make it unsuitable for the fast-growing Internet,
including the following:

• IPv4 has two-level address structure (netid and hosted) categorized into five classes
(A, B, C, D, and E). The use of address space is inefficient.
• The Internet must accommodate real-time audio and video transmission. This type
of transmission requires minimum delay strategies and reservation of resources not
provided in the IPv4 design.
• The Internet must accommodate encryption and authentication of data for some
applications. Originally, no security mechanism was provided by IPv4.

✓ To overcome these deficiencies, the IPv6, also known as the Internet working Protocol, next
generation (IPng), was proposed and is now a standard. In IPv6, the Internet protocol was
extensively modified to accommodate the unforeseen growth of the Internet. The format and
the length of the IP addresses were changed along with the packet format.
✓ IPv6, has some advantages over IPv4 that can be summarized as follows:

• Larger address space. An IPv6 address is 128 bits long. Compared with the 32-bit
address of IPv4, this is huge (296) increase in the address space.
• Better header format. IPv6 uses new header format in which options are separated
from their base header and inserted, when needed, between the base header and the
upper-layered data. This simplifies and speed up the routing process because most
of the options do not need to be checked by routers.
• New options. IPv6 has new options to allow for additional functionalities.

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• Allowance for extension. IPv6 is designed to allow the extension of the protocol if
required by new technologies or applications.
• Support for resource allocation. In IPv6, thee type-of-service field has been
removed., but a mechanism called flow label has been added to enable the source to
request special handling of the packet. This mechanism can be used to support traffic
such as real-time audio and video.
• Support for more security. The encryption and authentication options in IPv6 provide
confidentiality and integrity of the packet.
IPv6 Address
✓ The IPv6 address consists of 16 bytes (octets); it is 128 bits long.

✓ Although the IP address, even in hexadecimal format, is very long, many of the digits are
zeroes. In this case, we can abbreviate the address. The leading zeroes of a section can be
omitted. Only the leading zeros can be dropped, not the trailing zeros.

ICMPv6
✓ Another protocol that has been modified in version 6 of the Internet is ICMPv6. This new
version follows the same strategy and purposes as version 4. ICMPv4has been modified to
make it more suitable for IPv6.
✓ In addition, some protocols that were independent in version n5 are now part of ICMPv6

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Transition from IPv4 to IPv6

✓ Because of the huge number of systems on the Internet, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6
cannot happen suddenly. It takes a considerable amount of time before every system in the
Internet can move from IPv4 to IPv6. The transition should be smooth to prevent any
problem between IPv4 to IPv6. Systems.

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