Internet Protocol

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This article is about a specific protocol technology. For the entire set of Internet related protocols, see Internet Protocol Suite.

Internet Protocol Suite

Application Layer

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The Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol used for communicating data across a packetswitched internetworkusing the Internet Protocol Suite, also referred to as TCP/IP. IP is the primary protocol in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite and has the task of delivering distinguished protocol datagrams (packets) from the source host to the destination host solely based on their addresses. For this purpose the Internet Protocol defines addressing methods and structures for datagram encapsulation. The first major version of addressing structure, now referred to as Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) is still the dominant protocol of the Internet, although the successor, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is being deployed actively worldwide.
Contents
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1 Services provided by IP 2 Reliability 3 IP addressing and routing 4 Version history 5 Reference diagrams 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit]Services

provided by IP

The Internet Protocol is responsible for addressing hosts and routing datagrams (packets) from a source host to the destination host across one or more IP networks. For this purpose the Internet Protocol defines an addressing system that has two functions. Addresses identify hosts and provide a logical location service. Each packet is tagged with a header that contains the meta-data for the purpose of delivery. This process of tagging is also called encapsulation. IP is a connectionless protocol and does not need circuit setup prior to transmission.

[edit]Reliability
The design principles of the Internet protocols assume that the network infrastructure is inherently unreliable at any single network element or transmission medium and that it is dynamic in terms of availability of links and nodes. No central monitoring or performance measurement facility exists that tracks or maintains the state of the network. For the benefit of reducing network complexity, the intelligence in the network is purposely mostly located in the end nodes of each data transmission, cf.end-to-end principle. Routers in the transmission path simply forward packets to the next known local gateway matching the routing prefix for the destination address. As a consequence of this design, the Internet Protocol only provides best effort delivery and its service can also be characterized as unreliable. In network architectural language it is a connectionlessprotocol, in contrast to so-called connection-oriented modes of transmission. The lack of reliability allows any of the following fault events to occur:

data corruption lost data packets duplicate arrival

out-of-order packet delivery; meaning, if packet 'A' is sent before packet 'B', packet 'B' may

arrive before packet 'A'. Since routing is dynamic and there is no memory in the network about the path of prior packets, it is possible that the first packet sent takes a longer path to its destination. The only assistance that the Internet Protocol provides in Version 4 (IPv4) is to ensure that the IP packet header is error-free through computation of a checksum at the routing nodes. This has the sideeffect of discarding packets with bad headers on the spot. In this case no notification is required to be sent to either end node, although a facility exists in the Internet Control Message Protocol(ICMP) to do so. IPv6, on the other hand, has abandoned the use of IP header checksums for the benefit of rapid forwarding through routing elements in the network. The resolution or correction of any of these reliability issues is the responsibility of an upper layer protocol. For example, to ensure in-order delivery the upper layer may have to cache data until it can be passed to the application. In addition to issues of reliability, this dynamic nature and the diversity of the Internet and its components provide no guarantee that any particular path is actually capable of, or suitable for performing the data transmission requested, even if the path is available and reliable. One of the technical constraints is the size of data packets allowed on a given link. An application must assure that it uses proper transmission characteristics. Some of this responsibility lies also in the upper layer protocols between application and IP. Facilities exist to examine the maximum transmission unit(MTU) size of the local link, as well as for the entire projected path to the destination when using IPv6. The IPv4 internetworking layer has the capability to automatically fragment the original datagram into smaller units for transmission. In this case, IP does provide re-ordering of fragments delivered out-oforder.[1] Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is an example of a protocol that will adjust its segment size to be smaller than the MTU. User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) disregard MTU size thereby forcing IP to fragment oversized datagrams. [2]

[edit]IP

addressing and routing

Perhaps the most complex aspects of IP are IP addressing and routing. Addressing refers to how end hosts become assigned IP addresses and how subnetworks of IP host addresses are divided and grouped together. IP routing is performed by all hosts, but most importantly by internetwork routers, which typically use either interior gateway protocols (IGPs) or external gateway protocols (EGPs) to help make IP datagram forwarding decisions across IP connected networks.

[edit]Version

history

In May 1974, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) published a paper entitled "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection."[3] The paper's authors, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, described an internetworking protocol for sharing resources using packet-switching among the nodes. A central control component of this model was the "Transmission Control Program" (TCP) that incorporated both connection-oriented links and datagram services between hosts. The monolithic Transmission Control Program was later divided into a modular architecture consisting of theTransmission Control Protocol at the connection-oriented layer and the Internet Protocol at the internetworking (datagram) layer. The model became known informally as TCP/IP, although formally it was henceforth referenced as the Internet Protocol Suite. The Internet Protocol is one of the determining elements that define the Internet. The dominant internetworking protocol in the Internet Layer in use today is IPv4; with number 4 assigned as the formal protocol version number carried in every IP datagram. IPv4 is described in RFC 791 (1981). The successor to IPv4 is IPv6. Its most prominent modification from Version 4 is the addressing system. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses (c. 4 billion, or 4.3109, addresses) while IPv6 uses 128bitaddresses (c. 340 undecillion, or 3.41038 addresses). Although adoption of IPv6 has been slow, as of June 2008, all United States government systems have demonstrated basic infrastructure support for IPv6 (if only at the backbone level).[4] Version numbers 0 through 3 were development versions of IPv4 used between 1977 and1979.[citation
needed]

Version number 5 was used by the Internet Stream Protocol (IST), an experimental stream

protocol. Version numbers 6 through 9 were proposed for various protocol models designed to replace IPv4: SIPP (Simple Internet Protocol Plus, known now as IPv6), TP/IX (RFC 1475), PIP (RFC 1621) and TUBA (TCP and UDP with Bigger Addresses, RFC 1347). Version number 6 was eventually chosen as the official assignment for the successor Internet protocol, subsequently standardized as IPv6. A humorous Request for Comments that made an IPv9 protocol center of its storyline was published on April 1, 1994 by the IETF.[5] It was intended as an April Fool's Day joke. Other protocol proposals named "IPv9" and "IPv8" have also briefly surfaced, though these came with little or no support from the wider industry and academia.[6]

[edit]Reference

diagrams

Sample encapsulation of application data from UDP to a Link protocol frame Internet Protocol Suite in operation between two hosts connected via two routers and the corresponding layers used at each hop

[edit]See

also

Outline of the Internet List of Internet topics All IP ATM Connectionless protocol Flat IP Geolocation software IANA Internet Internet Protocol Suite Internet Stream Protocol ip - the ip structure for the C programming language IP address IP fragmentation IP packet IPv4

IPv6 TCP and UDP port numbers TDM Transmission Control Protocol

[edit]References

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

^ Siyan, Karanjit. Inside TCP/IP, New Riders Publishing, 1997. ISBN 1-56205-714-6 ^ Basic Journey of a Packet ^ Vinton G. Cerf, Robert E. Kahn, "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication",

IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. 22, No. 5, May 1974 pp. 637-648 ^ CIO council adds to IPv6 transition primer, gcn.com ^ RFC 1606: A Historical Perspective On The Usage Of IP Version 9. April 1, 1994. ^ Theregister.com

[edit]External

links

Look up internet protocol inWiktionary, the free dictionary.

Internet Protocol at the Open Directory Project RFC 791 Data Communication Lectures of Manfred Lindner - Part IP Technology Basics Data Communication Lectures of Manfred Lindner - Part IP Technology Details Data Communication Lectures of Manfred Lindner - Part IPv6 IPv6.com - Knowledge Center for Next Generation Internet IPv6

Internet Protocol

- The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method or protocol by whichdata is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the Internet. When you send or receive data (for example, an e-mail note or a Web page), the message gets divided into little chunks called packets. Each of these packets contains both the sender's Internet address and the receiver's address. Any packet is sent first to a gateway computer that understands a small part of the Internet. The gateway computer reads the destination address and forwards the packet to an adjacent gateway that in turn reads the destination address and so forth across the Internet until one gateway recognizes the packet as belonging to a computer within its immediate neighborhood ordomain. That gateway then forwards the packet directly to the computer whose address is specified. Because a message is divided into a number of packets, each packet can, if necessary, be sent by a different route across the Internet. Packets can arrive in a different order than the order they were sent in. The Internet Protocol just delivers them. It's up to another protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to put them back in the right order. IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is no continuing connection between the end points that are communicating. Each packet that travels through the Internet is treated as an independent unit of data without any relation to any other unit of data. (The reason the packets do get put in the right order is because of TCP, the connection-oriented protocol that keeps track of the packet sequence in a message.) In the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) communication model, IP is in layer 3, the Networking Layer. The most widely used version of IP today is Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). However, IP Version 6 (IPv6) is also beginning to be supported. IPv6 provides for much longer addresses and therefore for the possibility of many more Internet users. IPv6 includes the capabilities of IPv4 and any server that can support IPv6 packets can also support IPv4 packets.
Getting started with Internet Protocol To explore how the Internet Protocol is used in the enterprise, here is an additional resource: Step-by-step guide to IP network design: Learn how to successfully design an IP network. Checking IP configuration to troubleshoot Windows network connectivity Determine network IP configuration for computers running Windows Server 2003 in order to diagnose connectivity problems using these command line ping tests. IP addressing and subnetting fundamentals This IP addressing and subnetting crash course provides an overview of IP addressing-related topics, including IPv4 and IPv6, subnetting, DHCP, and calculating subnet masks.

IP
Short for Internet Protocol, IP is an address of a computer or other network device on a network using IP or TCP/IP. For example, the

number "166.70.10.23" is an example of such an address. These addresses are similar to an addresses used on a house and is what allows data to reach the appropriate destination on a network. There are five classes of available IP ranges: Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E, while only A, B and C are commonly used. Each class allows for a range of valid IP addresses. Below is a listing of these addresses.
Class Address Range Class 1.0.0.1 to A 126.255.255.254 Class 128.1.0.1 to B 191.255.255.254 Class 192.0.1.1 to C 223.255.254.254 Class 224.0.0.0 to D 239.255.255.255 Class 240.0.0.0 to E 254.255.255.254 Supports Supports 16 million hosts on each of 127 networks. Supports 65,000 hosts on each of 16,000 networks. Supports 254 hosts on each of 2 million networks. Reserved for multicastgroups. Reserved for future use, or Research and Development Purposes.

Ranges 127.x.x.x are reserved for loopback tests, for example, 127.0.0.1 is the common loopback address. Range 255.255.255.255 broadcasts to all hosts on the local network. IP address breakdown Every IP address is broke down into four sets ofoctets that break down into binary to represent the actual IP address. The below chart is an example of the IP 255.255.255.255. If you are new to binary, we highly recommend reading ourbinary and hexadecimal conversions section to get a better understanding of what we're doing in the below charts.
IP: Binary value: Octet value: 255 255 255 255

11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 8 8 8 8

If we were to break down the IP "166.70.10.23", you would get the below value. The below fist row is the IP address, the second row the binary values, and the third row the binary value calculated to equal the total of that section of the IP address.
166 10100110 70 01000110 10 23 16+4+2+1=23

00001010 00010111

128+32+4+2=166 64+4+2=70 8+2=10

Automatically assigned addresses There are several IP addresses that are automatically assigned when you setup a network. These default addresses are what allow your computer and other network devices to communicate and broadcast information over your network.
192.168.1.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.255 0 is the automatically assigned network address. 1 is the commonly used address used as the gateway. 2 is also a commonly used address used for a gateway. 255 is automatically assigned on most networks as the broadcastaddress.

Getting an IP address By default the router you use will assign each of your computers their own IP address, often usingNAT to forward the data coming from those computers to outside networks such as the Internet. If you need to register an IP address that can be seen on the Internet, you must register through InterNIC or use a web host that can assign you addresses. Use our system information tool to see what your IP address and other system settings are. Additional information about network commands used to determine network information can be found on document CH000444. See document CH000483 for information on determining your IP address.

See document CH000962 for additional information about determining another computer or a website IP address. Information about how to find the physical location of an IP address can be found ondocument CH001044. See our network help section for additional help and support with computer networking.