TCP/IP Protocol Suite

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

TCP/IP Protocol Suite
• It is a protocol suite - a set of protocols organized in different layers
• Used in Internet today.
• Five-layer model.
• It is a hierarchical protocol made up of interactive modules.
• Each module provides a specific functionality.
• Hierarchical means - each upper level protocol is supported by the services
provided by one or more lower level protocols.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Layers in the TCP/IP protocol suite
• Original TCP/IP protocol suite was defined as four software layers built upon the
hardware.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Communication through an internet
• Small internet made up of three LANs (links), each with a link-layer switch.
• Links are connected by one router.
• Five communicating devices in this communication:
1. Source host (computer A)
2. Link-layer switch in link 1
3. Router
4. Link-layer switch in link 2
5. Destination host (computer B).

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Logical connections between layers
• Each device is involved with a set of layers depending on the role of the device in
the internet.
• Two hosts are involved in all five layers.
• Router is involved in only three layers.
• A link-layer switch is involved only in two layers, data-link and physical.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Logical connections between layers cont..
• Top three layers - application, transport, and network
• Duty is end-to-end.
• Domain of duty is the internet.
• Data unit (packets) should not be changed by any router or link-layer switch.
• Bottom two layers - data-link and physical
• Duty is hop-to-hop, in which a hop is a host or router.
• Domain of duty is the link.
• Packet created by the host is changed only by routers, not by link-layer
switches.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Identical objects in the TCP/IP protocol suite

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Physical Layer
• Responsible for carrying individual bits in a frame across the link.
• Two devices are connected by a transmission medium (cable or air).
• Medium does not carry bits.
• Medium carries electrical or optical signals.
• Bits received in a frame from DLL are transformed and sent through transmission
media.
• Several protocols that transform a bit to a signal.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Data-link Layer
• It takes a datagram and encapsulates it in a packet called a frame.
• When next link to travel is determined by router, DLL is responsible for taking
datagram and moving it across link.
• Link can be a
• Wired LAN with a link-layer switch
• Wireless LAN
• Wired WAN
• Wireless WAN
• We can also have different protocols used with any link type.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Data-link Layer cont..
• TCP/IP does not define any specific protocol for DLL.
• It supports all standard and proprietary protocols.
• Any protocol that can take the datagram and carry it through the link.
• Each link-layer protocol may provide a different service.
• Some link-layer protocols provide complete error detection and correction.
• Some protocols provide only error correction.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Network Layer
• Responsible for creating a connection between source and destination.
• Responsible for host-to-host communication.
• Routers are responsible for choosing best route for each packet.
• Why we need network layer?
1. Separation of different tasks between different layers.
2. Routers do not need application and transport layers.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Network Layer: Internet Protocol (IP)
• In the Internet, network layer includes the main protocol, IP.
• Defines - format of the packet, called a datagram.
• Defines - format and structure of addresses used in this layer.
• Responsible for routing a packet from source to destination.
• Each router forwarding the datagram to next router in its path.
• Connectionless protocol.
• No flow control, no error control, and no congestion control services.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Network Layer: Routing protocol
• Layer includes
• Unicast (one-to-one) routing protocol
• Multicast (one-to-many) routing protocol
• It does not take part in routing (it is the responsibility of IP).
• It creates forwarding tables for routers to help them in the routing process.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Network Layer: Some auxiliary protocols
• Help IP in its delivery and routing tasks.
1. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
• Report some problems when routing a packet.
2. Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
• Multitasking.
3. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
• Get network-layer address for a host.
4. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
• Find link-layer address of a host or a router when its network-layer address is
given.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Transport Layer
• Logical connection is end-to-end.
• At source, it gets message from application layer, encapsulates it in a transport
layer packet (called a segment or a user datagram in different protocols) and sends
it, through logical (imaginary) connection, to transport layer at destination.
• It is responsible for giving services to application layer
• Get a message from an application program running on source and deliver it to
corresponding application program on destination.
• It should be independent of application layer.
• There are a few transport-layer protocols in the Internet.
• Each designed for some specific task.
Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.
Transport Layer: Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP)
• Connection-oriented protocol.
• It first establishes a logical connection between transport layers at two hosts before
transferring data.
• It creates a logical pipe between two TCPs for transferring a stream of bytes.
• Flow control
• Match sending data rate of source with receiving data rate of destination to prevent
overwhelming the destination.
• Error control
• Guarantee that segments arrive at destination without error and resending corrupted
ones.
• Congestion control
• Reduce loss of segments due to congestion in network.
Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.
Transport Layer: User Datagram Protocol
(UDP)
• Connectionless protocol.
• It transmits user datagrams without first creating a logical connection.
• Each user datagram is an independent entity.
• Simple protocol that does not provide flow, error, or congestion control.
• It is attractive to an application program that needs to send short messages and
cannot afford retransmission.
• Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)
• A new protocol.
• It is designed to respond to new applications that are emerging in multimedia.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Application Layer
• Logical connection between two application layers is end-to-end.
• Duty - Process-to-process communication.
• Communication is between two processes (two programs running at this
layer).
• In Internet it includes many predefined protocols.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Application Layer
1. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• Vehicle for access World Wide Web (WWW).
2. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
• Main protocol used in electronic mail (e-mail) service.
3. File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• Used for transferring files from one host to another.
4. Terminal Network (TELNET) and Secure Shell (SSH)
• Used for accessing a site remotely.
5. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
• Used by an administrator to manage Internet at global and local levels.
6. Domain Name System (DNS)
• Used by other protocols to find the network-layer address of a computer.
7. Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
• Used to collect membership in a group.
Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.
Encapsulation and Decapsulation
• Encapsulation in source, decapsulation in destination, and encapsulation and
decapsulation in router.
• No encapsulation/ decapsulation occurs link-layer switches.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Encapsulation at the Source Host
1. Application layer
• Data to be exchanged is referred to as a message.
• Message does not contain any header or trailer.
• Message is passed to transport layer.
2. Transport layer
• Takes the message as payload.
• It adds header to payload, which contains identifiers of source and destination
application programs.
• It adds some more information that is needed for end-to-end delivery of message, such
as information needed for flow, error control, or congestion control.
• Resulting transport-layer packet, which is called segment (in TCP) and user datagram
(in UDP).
• It passes packet to network layer.
Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.
Encapsulation at the Source Host
3. Network layer
• Takes transport-layer packet as data or payload.
• Adds its own header to the payload.
• Header contains addresses of source and destination hosts and some more information
used for error checking of the header, fragmentation information, and so on.
• Resulting network-layer packet, called a datagram.
• It then passes packet to data-link layer.
4. Data-link layer
• Takes network-layer packet as data or payload.
• Adds its own header, which contains link-layer addresses of host or next hop (router).
• Resulting link-layer packet, which is called a frame.
• Frame is passed to physical layer.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Decapsulation and Encapsulation at the Router
• Both decapsulation and encapsulation is performed at router because it is connected to
two or more links.
1. Set of bits are delivered to DLL. DLL decapsulates datagram from frame and passes it
to network layer.
2. Network layer only inspects source and destination addresses in datagram header and
consults its forwarding table to find the next hop.
• Contents of datagram should not be changed by network layer in the router unless
there is a need to fragment the datagram if it is too big to be passed through the next
link.
• Datagram is then passed to DLL of next link.
3. DLL of next link encapsulates the datagram in a frame and passes it to physical layer
for transmission.
Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.
Decapsulation at the Destination Host
• At the destination host, each layer
• Only decapsulates the packet received
• Removes the payload
• Delivers the payload to the next-higher layer protocol until the message
reaches the application layer.
• Decapsulation involves error checking.

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

OSI vs TCP/IP
OSI TCP/IP
Application

User space
Presentation Application

Software
Session
Transport Transport

Operating System
Firmware
Network Network

Hardware
Data Link Data Link
Physical Physical
Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.
TCP/IP and OSI model

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Protocol Stacks

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.

Summary of duties

Dr. S.Meenatchi, Associate Professor, SITE, VIT.