Notes On Chapter Twenty-Two -- Datagram Forwarding

• 22.0 Study Guide
  
  
  • Know that the IP packet is called a datagram.
  • Know the basics of the structure of an IP datagram (both IPv4 and IPv6).
  • Know the basics of the structure of IP datagram header(s) (both IPv4 and IPv6).
  • Understand the basics of the method used by IP routers to forward IP datagrams - how destination addresses are matched to entries in forwarding tables, using destination network addresses and masks.
  • Understand that IP routers do not change the destination addresses in IP datagrams.
  • Understand the limitations of the best-effort delivery service furnished by the IP protocol.
  • Understand how IP datagrams are encapsulated in physical network frames for transmission across physical networks, and how things work when IP datagrams are forwarded through a series of physical networks connected by IP routers.
  • Understand what fragmentation is and why it may be necessary.
  • Understand what a network MTU is, and what a path MTU is.
  • Know, under IPv4, whose responsibility it is to fragment datagrams, and whose responsibility it is to reassemble fragments.
  • Know, under IPv6, whose responsibility it is to fragment datagrams, and whose responsibility it is to reassemble fragments.
  
  
• 22.1 Introduction
  
  
  • Internet communication service
  • Packet format
  • Encapsulation
  • Forwarding
  • Fragmentation and Reassembly
  
  
• 22.2 Connectionless Service
  
  
  • Fundamentally Internet service is connectionless and packet-based.
  • However, the Internet supports reliable connection-based service, which is implemented using underlying connectionless service.
  
  
• 22.3 Virtual Packets
  
  
  • Because of incompatibilities among network hardware features and addressing modes, implementation of the Internet requires a hardware-independent address format and packet format.
  • Consequently, the Internet address and packet formats are hardware-independent.
  
  
• 22.4 The IP Datagram
  
  
  • Formally, an IP packet is called an IP datagram.
  • An IP datagram consists of a header followed by a data area.
  • The data area is often referred to as the payload.
  • The payload can be as small as one octet (an octet is 8 bits).
  • In IPv4, the combined size of the header and payload is allowed to be as large as 64K octets (but no larger).
  • In IPv6, the payload itself is allowed to be up to 64K octets.
  
  
  
  
• 22.5 The IPv4 Datagram Header Format
  
  
  • There is a variable-sized header containing:
    • Source IP address
    • Destination IP address
    • Other stuff
    
    
  • There is a variable sized data area too -- important flexibility for the wide range of uses of IP.
  • Although the IPv4 header can vary in size, each individual field within the header is fixed in size.
  
  
  
  
• 22.6 The IPv6 Datagram Header Format
  
  
  • An IPv6 header consists of:
    • a base header, followed by
    • one or more extension headers, followed by
    • a payload.
  
  
  
  
• 22.7 IPv6 Base Header Format
  
  
  • Most of the content consists of the source and destination addresses, both of which are 128-bit.
  • Other fields are as shown in figure 22.4
  • Notably there is a Next Header field to indicate the type of information that comes next - an extension header or the payload.
  • Some extension headers are variable in length, and they have a length field.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 22.8 Forwarding an IP Datagram
  
  
  • If an IP datagram is not addressed to a local destination, it is forwarded from router to router until it reaches a router connected to the destination network. That router forwards the packet to its final destination.
  • The Internet uses next-hop forwarding.
  • Routers decide on the next hop based on the network prefix of the destination address.
  • Check your understanding by examining the figure, in which the forwarding table for router R₂ is depicted.
  
  
  
  
• 22.9 Network Prefix Extraction and Datagram Forwarding
  
  
  • Conceptually, each entry in a forwarding table contains three fields:
    • a Destination IP network address,
    • a Mask that encodes the prefix/suffix boundary of the Destination network address, and
    • the IP address of a next hop to send packets addressed to that Destination network.
  • To forward a packet with destination address D, the router examines table entries until finding one such that:

    Mask[i] & D == Destination[i]

    When such match is found the router decides to forward the packet to NextHop[i].
  • As an exercise work out the forwarding of a packet with destination address 192.4.10.3 arriving at center router, R₂, in figure 22.6 above.
    • In binary, D=192.4.10.3 is 11000000.00000100.00001010.00000011.
    • The first mask, Mask[0] is, 255.0.0.0, which in binary is 11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000.
    • So Mask[0] & D is
      11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000 &
      11000000.00000100.00001010.00000011, which equals
      11000000.00000000.00000000.00000000
    • The first network address in the table, Destination[0] is 30.0.0.0, which is
      00011110.00000000.00000000.00000000 in binary. That does not match Mask[0] & D.
    • The second network address in the table, Destination[1] is 40.0.0.0, and Mask[1] is the same as Mask[0]. 40.0.0.0 is
      00101000.00000000.00000000.00000000 in binary. That does not match Mask[1] & D.
    • Looking at Mask[2], that's 11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000 in binary, and so Mask[2] & D is
      11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000 &
      11000000.00000100.00001010.00000011, which equals
      11000000.00000100.00000000.00000000. Destination[2] is 128.1.0.0, which is
      10000000.00000001.00000000.00000000 in binary. Destination[2] does not match Mask[2] & D.
    • Finally, Mask[3] is 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000 in binary, and so Mask[3] & D is
      11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000 &
      11000000.00000100.00001010.00000011, which equals
      11000000.00000100.00001010.00000000. Destination[3] is 192.4.10.0, which is
      11000000.00000100.00001010.00000000 in binary. Destination[3] DOES match Mask[3] & D. Therefore we should route the datagram with destination address D to the next hop address in row #3, which is 128.1.0.9.
  
  
• 22.10 Longest Prefix Match
  
  
  • Because of certain special cases, it's possible for a destination address to match more than one entry in a router's forwarding table.
  • Internet routing algorithms provide support for default routes and host-specific routes.
  • The matching method favors longer matching prefixes. The result is that destinations are matched to the most specific (most local) entry in the forwarding table.
  • Longest Prefix Matching makes host-specific routing work.
  
  
• 22.11 Destination Address and Next-Hop Address
  
  
  • The destination address in the IP datagram is always the IP address of the final destination
  • In particular, the IP addresses of intermediate routers are NOT entered into the IP datagram header (or payload).
  
  
• 22.12 Best-Effort Delivery
  
  
  • IP standards (including both IPv4 and IPv6) specify that IP makes a "best-effort" to deliver each datagram.
  • However it does not guarantee that it will handle all problems.
  • The standard acknowledges the possibility of:
    • Datagram duplication
    • Delayed or out-of-order delivery
    • Corruption of data
    • Datagram loss
  
  
• 22.13 IP Encapsulation
  
  
  • When it's time to forward an IP datagram across a physical network, the datagram is placed inside one of the frames used on the physical network.
  • In other words, an IP datagram travels INSIDE a physical frame (as the payload of the physical frame) when it is in transit.
  • The header of a physical frame typically has a type field. The sender uses that type field to indicate that the payload of the physical frame is an IP datagram. This helps the receiver know to which protocol software the payload of the physical frame should be forwarded.
  • The MAC destination address of the physical frame is the MAC address of the next hop. For example, when one router sends an IP datagram to a next-hop router, it puts the MAC address of the next-hop router into the physical frame that encapsulates the IP datagram.
  • The last router in the chain needs to put the MAC address of the destination host in the physical frame.
  
  
  
  
• 22.14 Transmission Across an Internet
  
  
  • Each time that a datagram is sent across a physical network, the receiver on the other side, removes the datagram from the encapsulating frame and discards the frame.
  • If the IP datagram is forwarded along further, the router places (only) the IP datagram into a new frame suitable to the next network it must cross.
  • "Frame headers do not accumulate."
  
  
  
  
• 22.15 MTU and Datagram Fragmentation
  
  
  • Each physical network technology has a Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU).
  • A frame can't be larger than the MTU, so some IP datagrams might be too big to travel as the payload inside one frame.
  • Under IPv4, If a router needs to forward a datagram over a network but it is too large for the network MTU, then the router can fragment the datagram -- break it up into a series of smaller datagrams that are each transmitted in a separate frame.
  • Under IPv6, the sending host is responsible for fragmentation.
  • Under IPv4, each fragment is a smaller IP datagram that contains a contiguous section of the payload of the original datagram.
  • Under IPv4, the router encapsulates and transmits each fragment separately.
  • Under IPv4, the headers of the fragments are almost the same as the header of the original datagram. However a bit is set to indicate the datagram is a fragment, and there is a FRAGMENT OFFSET field to specify where the fragment fits into the whole.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 22.16 Fragmentation of An IPv6 Datagram
  
  
  • IPv6 puts fragment information in an extension header.
  • Some IPv6 headers must be used by intermediate routers. They appear in every fragment.
  • Other headers are fragmentable.
  • Under IPv6 the sending host is required to do path MTU discovery and to perform fragmentation, when necessary, that makes fragments small enough for every network on the path from the source to the destination.
  • The sending host uses ICMP error messages to detect when it has sent datagrams that are too large to reach the destination.
  
  
  
  
• 22.17 Reassembly Of An IP Datagram From Fragments
  
  
  • IPv4 fragments are identifiable by a FLAGs setting. IPv6 fragments are identified by the fact that there is a (fragment) extension header.
  • The final fragment has a bit set in its header that helps the computer that reassembles a datagram know when it has all the fragments.
  • The final destination host is responsible for reassembly.
  • One advantage of that is that it allows busy routers to simplify their work. They don't have to be aware of which datagrams are fragments, and they don't have to do the reassembly work.
  • Another advantage is that if routes change and not all fragments are forwarded to the same next-hop, it doesn't cause a problem with reassembly.
  
  
  
  
• 22.18 Collecting the Fragments of a Datagram
  
  
  • The computer that reassembles a datagram that has been fragmented has to determine:
    1. Which fragments belong to which original IP datagrams?
    2. Once we have all the fragments belonging to one particular datagram, how do we figure out in what order they go back together?
  • The computer figures out the answer to the first question by looking at the combination of source IP address and unique datagram identification number.
  • The answer to the second question is settled by examining the FRAGMENT OFFSET fields in the fragments.
  
  
• 22.19 The Consequence of Fragment Loss
  
  
  • So as to avoid exhaustion of memory, a receiver sets a timer when it first gets one of the fragments of an IP datagram. If it does not receive all the fragments before the timer expires, it discards all the fragments of that datagram.
  • There is no mechanism for the receiver to request that a fragment be resent. Such a mechanism wouldn't make sense. Reassembly is 'all-or-none'.
  
  
• 22.20 Fragmenting a Fragment
  
  
  • The way that IPv6 fragmentation works, the fragments are sized so they can be transmitted over the entire path between the source and the destination.
  • The way IPv4 fragmentation works, fragments may arrive at a router where they need to be further fragmented.
  • Fragments of fragments are just ordinary fragments.
  • It's simpler that way -- when reassembling, it's not necessary to worry about first rebuilding fragments from sub-fragments before rebuilding a datagram from its fragments.