UNIT-IV

NETWORK LAYER
Network Layer Design Issues
Store‐and‐Forward Packet Switching
Services Provided to the Transport Layer
Implementation of Connectionless Service
Implementation of Connection‐Oriented Service
Comparison of Virtual‐Circuit and Datagram Subnets
Store and Forward Packet Switching

Packet Switching
Data is divided into small parts (packets)
Packets are transmitted from node to node ,processed and forwarded
Also known as store‐and‐forward switching
Two connection types
Connectionless: datagram
Connection‐oriented: virtual circuit
Services Provided to Transport Layer
1. The services should be independent of the router technology
2. The transport layer should be shielded from the number, type and topology of the routers present
3. The network addresses made available to the transport layer should use a uniform numbering plan, even
across LANs and WANs

Implementation of Connectionless Service

 No connection setup
 Message is broken into packets
 Called datagram (in analogy with telegram)
 Each packet is individually routed
 Routers decides line based on routing table
  Packets may follow different paths
 Not guaranteed to arrive in order
Implementation of Connection-Oriented Service

 Path from source to destination must be established before any data can be sent
 Connection is called a VC (virtual circuit)
 analogy with physical circuit in phone system
 why virtual?
 Avoid choosing new route for each packet
 Same route used for all packets in connection
 Each packet has ID for which VC it belongs to
Comparison of Virtual‐Circuit and Datagram Subnets

Routing
Unicast routing
Most of the traffic on the internet and intranets known as unicast data or unicast traffic is sent with specified
destination. Routing unicast data over the internet is called unicast routing. It is the simplest form of routing
because the destination is already known.

Broadcast routing
By default, the broadcast packets are not routed and forwarded by the routers on any network. Routers create
broadcast domains. But it can be configured to forward broadcasts in some special cases. A broadcast message is
destined to all network devices.
Multicast Routing
Multicast routing is special case of broadcast routing with significance difference and challenges. In broadcast
routing, packets are sent to all nodes even if they do not want it. But in Multicast routing, the data is sent to only
nodes which wants to receive the packets.
Anycast Routing
Anycast packet forwarding is a mechanism where multiple hosts can have same logical address. When a packet
destined to this logical address is received, it is sent to the host which is nearest in routing topology. Anycast
routing is done with help of DNS server. Whenever an Anycast packet is received it is enquired with DNS to where
to send it. DNS provides the IP address which is the nearest IP configured on it.

Routing algorithms can be divided into two groups:

i. Nonadaptive algorithms:

 For this type of algorithms, the routing decision is not based on the measurement or estimations of current
traffic and topology.
 However the choice of the route is done in advance, and known as static routing.
ii. Adaptive algorithms:

 For these algorithms the routing decision can be changed if there are any changes in topology or traffic etc.
 This is called as dynamic routing.

The examples of static algorithms are:

i. Shortest path routing:

 Given a network topology and a set of weights describing the cost to send data across each link in the
network
 Find the shortest path from a specified source to all other destinations in the network.

The arrows indicate the working node

  Shortest path algorithm first developed by E. W. Dijkstra
a. Mark the source node as permanent.
b. Designate the source node as the working node.
c. Set the tentative distance to all other nodes to infinity.
d. While some nodes are not marked permanent
Compute the tentative distance from the source to all nodes adjacent to the working node. If this is shorter
than the current tentative distance replace the tentative distance of the destination and record the label of
the working node there. Examine ALL tentatively labelled nodes in the graph. Select the node with the
smallest value and make it the new working node. Designate the node permanent.
ii. Flooding:

 In this algorithm every incoming packet is sent out on every outgoing line except the line on which it has
arrived.
 One disadvantage of flooding is that it generate a large number of duplicate packets. In fact it produces
infinite number of duplicate packets unless we some how dump the process. Therefore, we use selective
flooding.
 In this algorithm every incoming packet is not sent out on every output line.
 Instead packet is sent only on those lines which are approximately going in the right direction.
iii. Flow Based Routing

 Flow-based routing uses network topology, traffic matrices, and capacity matrices to determine static
routes.
 For example in figure below,there is always a huge traffic from A to B and/or B to D.

 Then the traffic from A to D should not be routed through B.

 Instead route it through ACFED even though it is a longer path than ABD. This is called flow based
routing.
The example of Dynamic Routing Algorithms are:
i. Distance vector Routing Algorithm
A distance vector routing algorithm operates by having each router maintain a table (i.e., a vector) giving the best
known distance to each destination and which link to use to get there. These tables are updated by exchanging
information with the neighbors. Eventually, every router knows the best link to reach each destination. The distance
vector routing algorithm is sometimes called by other names, most commonly the distributed Bellman-Ford routing
algorithm.

This updating process is illustrated in Fig. Part (a) shows a network. The first four columns of part (b) show the
delay vectors received from the neighbors of router J. A claims to have a
12-msec delay to B, a 25-msec delay to C, a 40- msec delay to D, etc. Suppose that J has measured or estimated its
delay to its neighbors, A, I, H, and K, as 8, 10, 12, and 6 msec, respectively.
Consider how J computes its new route to router G. It knows that it can get to A in 8 msec, and furthermore A
claims to be able to get to G in 18 msec, so J knows it can count on a delay of 26 msec to G if it forwards packets
bound for G to A. Similarly, it computes the delay to G via I, H, and K as 41 (31 + 10), 18 (6 + 12), and 37 (31 + 6)
msec, respectively. The best of these values is 18, so it makes an entry in its routing table that the delay to G is 18
msec and that the route to use is via H. The same calculation is performed for all the other destinations, with the new
routing table shown in the last column of the figure.
Count to Infinity problem:
The main issue with Distance Vector Routing (DVR) protocols is Routing Loops, since Bellman-Ford Algorithm
cannot prevent loops. This routing loop in DVR network causes Count to Infinity Problem. Routing loops usually
occur when any interface goes down or two-routers send updates at the same time.
Now let us consider the situation of Fig. , in which all the links and routers are initially up. Routers B, C, D, and E
have distances to A of 1, 2, 3, and 4 hops, respectively. Suddenly, either A goes down or the link between A and B
is
Cut.In this situation count to infinity problem occurs.

ii. Link State Routing

The link state routing is simple and each router has to perform the following operations

 Each router should discover its neighbors and obtain their network addresses.
 Then it should measure the delay or cost to each of these neighbors.
 It should construct a packet containing the network addresses and the delays of all the neighbors .
 Send this packet to all other routers
 Compute the shortest path to every other router.
Sometimes the network becomes so large that the size of the router table becomes excessively large and practically
it becomes impossible for every router to have an entry for every other router. Then the hierarchical routing such as
the one used in telephone networks should be adopted.
Hierarchical Routing
 When the network size grows, the number of routers in the network increases. Consequently, the size of
routing tables increases, as well, and routers can't handle network traffic as efficiently. We use hierarchical
routing to overcome this problem. In hierarchical routing, routers are classified in groups known as regions. Each
router has only the information about the routers in its own region and has no information about routers in other
regions. So routers just save one record in their table for every other region. In this example, we have classified our
network into five regions
If 1A wants to send packets to any router in region 2 (A, B, C or D), it sends them to 1B, and so on. As you can see,
in this type of routing, the tables can be summarized, so network efficiency improves.

Congestion Control Techniques

Congestion control refers to the mechanisms and techniques used to control congestion and keep the traffic below
the capacity of the network. As shown in Fig. , the congestion control techniques can be broadly classified two
broad categories:
• Open loop: Protocols to prevent or avoid congestion, ensuring that the system (or network under consideration)
never enters a Congested State.
• Close loop: Protocols that allow system to enter congested state, detect it, and remove it.
Factors that Cause Congestion
a) Packet arrival rate exceeds the outgoing link capacity.
b) Insufficient memory to store arriving packets
c) Bursty traffic
d) Slow processor
• The various methods used for open loop congestion control are:

Retransmission Policy
• The sender retransmits a packet, if it feels that the packet it has sent is lost or corrupted..
The retransmission policy and the retransmission timers need to be designed to optimize efficiency and at the same
time prevent the congestion

Window Policy
• To implement window policy, selective reject window method is used for congestion control.
• Selective Reject method is preferred because it sends only the specific lost or damaged packets.

Acknowledgement Policy
• The acknowledgement policy imposed by the receiver may also affect congestion.
• If the receiver does not acknowledge every packet it receives, it may slow down the sender and help prevent
congestion.

Discarding Policy
• A router may discard less sensitive packets when congestion is likely to happen.
• Such a discarding policy may prevent congestion and at the same time may not harm the integrity of the
transmission.

Admission Policy
• An admission policy, which is a quality-of-service mechanism, can also prevent congestion in virtual circuit
networks.
• Switches in a flow should first check the resource requirement of a network flow before admitting it to the
network.
• A router can deny establishing a virtual circuit connection if there is congestion in the network or if there is a
possibility of future congestion.

Closed Loop Congestion Control

• Closed loop congestion control mechanisms try to remove the congestion after it happens.
• The various methods used for closed loop congestion control are:

Backpressure
• Backpressure is a node-to-node congestion control that starts with a node and propagates, in the opposite direction
of data flow.
• In this method of congestion control, the congested node stops receiving data from the immediate upstream node
or nodes.
This may cause the upstream node on nodes to become congested, and they, in turn, reject data from their upstream
node or nodes.
• As shown in fig node 3 is congested and it stops receiving packets and informs its upstream node 2 to slow down.
Node 2 in turns may be congested and informs node 1 to slow down. Now node 1 may create congestion and
informs the source node to slow down. In this way the congestion is alleviated. Thus, the pressure on node 3 is
moved backward to the source to remove the congestion.

Choke Packet
• In this method of congestion control, congested router or node sends a special type of packet called choke packet
to the source to inform it about the congestion.
• Here, congested node does not inform its upstream node about the congestion as in backpressure method.
• In choke packet method, congested node sends a warning directly to the source station

Implicit Signaling
• In implicit signaling, there is no communication between the congested node or nodes and the source.
• The source guesses that there is congestion somewhere in the network when it does not receive any
acknowledgment. Therefore the delay in receiving an acknowledgment is interpreted as congestion in the network.
• On sensing this congestion, the source slows down.
• This type of congestion control policy is used by TCP.

Explicit Signaling
• In this method, the congested nodes explicitly send a signal to the source or destination to inform about the
congestion.
• Explicit signaling is different from the choke packet method. In choke packed method, a separate packet is used for
this purpose whereas in explicit signaling method, the signal is included in the packets that carry data .
• Explicit signaling can occur in either the forward direction or the backward direction .
• In backward signaling, a bit is set in a packet moving in the direction opposite to the congestion. This bit warns the
source about the congestion and informs the source to slow down.
• In forward signaling, a bit is set in a packet moving in the direction of congestion. This bit warns the destination
about the congestion.
Congestion Control Algorithms:
Leaky Bucket Algorithm

Consider a Bucket with a small hole at the bottom, whatever may be the rate of water pouring into the bucket,
the rate at which water comes out from that small hole is constant. This scenario is depicted in figure Once the
bucket is full, any additional water entering it spills over the sides and is lost The same idea of leaky bucket can
be applied to packets, as shown in Fig Conceptually each network interface contains a leaky bucket. And the
following steps are performed:

 When the host has to send a packet, the packet is thrown into the bucket.
 The bucket leaks at a constant rate, meaning the network interface transmits packets at a
constant rate.
 Bursty traffic is converted to a uniform traffic by the leaky bucket.
 In practice the bucket is a finite queue that outputs at a finite rate.

Whenever a packet arrives, if there is room in the queue it is queued up and if there is no room then the packet is
discarded.

Token Bucket Algorithm

The leaky bucket algorithm described above, enforces a rigid pattern at the output stream, irrespective of the
pattern of the input. For many applications it is better to allow the output to speed up somewhat when a larger
burst arrives than to loose the data. Token Bucket algorithm provides such a solution. In this algorithm leaky
bucket holds token, generated at regular intervals. Main steps of this algorithm can be described as follows:
 In regular intervals tokens are thrown into the bucket.
 The bucket has a maximum capacity.
 If there is a ready packet, a token is removed from the bucket, and the packet is send.
 If there is no token in the bucket, the packet cannot be send.
Figure shows the two scenarios before and after the tokens present in the bucket have been consumed. In Fig.
(a) the bucket holds two tokens, and three packets are waiting to be sent out of the interface, in Fig.(b) two
packets have been sent out by consuming two tokens, and 1 packet is still left.

The implementation of basic token bucket algorithm is simple; a variable is used just to count the tokens. This
counter is incremented every t seconds and is decremented whenever a packet is sent. Whenever this counter
reaches zero, no further packet is sent out.
Figure 7.5.4(a) Token bucket holding two tokens, before packets are send out, (b) Token bucket after two
packets are send, one packet still remains as no token is left.

IPV4 Addresses
An IPv4 address is a 32-bit address that uniquely and universally defines the connection of a device. IPv4 addresses
are unique.
Address Space
 An IPv4 address is 32 bits long.
– The address space of IPv4 is 232 (4,294,967,296)
Notations
There are two prevalent notations to show an IPv4 address: binary notation and dotted decimal notation.

Types of Addressings:
 Classful Addressing
 Classless Addressing
Classful Addressing
In classful addressing, the address space is divided into five classes: A, B, C, D, and E. Each class occupies some
part of the address space.
We can find the class of an address when given the address in binary notation or dotted-decimal notation. If the
address is given in binary notation, the first few bits can immediately tell us the class of the address. If the address is
given in decimal-dotted notation, the first byte defines the class.
Classes and Blocks
One problem with classful addressing is that each class is divided into a fixed number of blocks with each block
having a fixed size as shown in Table

1) In Classful addressing it divides IP address into network ID and host ID

for example Class A :- has first octet as network ID and last three octet as Host ID
Class B :- has first two as network ID and last three two as Host ID
Class C :- has first three as network ID and last octet as Host ID
2) Here class A,B and C are used unicast where as class D is used for multicasting and class E for research
3) Disadvantage is that it limit the number of network that can be provided to the network
4) Example RIP(Routing Information Protocol) protocol uses classful addressing
5) Same Subnet mask is used in complete network

Net ID and Host ID

Classless Addressing
In this scheme, there are no classes, but the addresses are still granted in blocks.
Address Blocks
In classless addressing, when an entity, small or large, needs to be connected to the Internet, it is granted a block
(range) of addresses. The size of the block (the number of addresses) varies based on the nature and size of the
entity. The Internet authorities impose three restrictions on classless address blocks:

1. The addresses in a block must be contiguous, one after another.

2. The number of addresses in a block must be a power of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8, ... ).
3. The first address must be evenly divisible by the number of addresses.

1) It allows us to use variable length subnet mask so also known as VLSM (Variable Length Subnet Mask)
2) Different subnet mask used in same network.
3) In this there is no boundary on host id and network id
4) Classless Addressing also known as CIDR(classless interdomain routing)
5) There is no default subnet mask in classless routing.
6) Example: BGP(Border Gateway Protocol),RIPv2

IPV4 HEADER
  Version − Version no. of Internet Protocol used (e.g. IPv4).
 IHL − Internet Header Length; Length of entire IP header.
 DSCP − Differentiated Services Code Point; this is Type of Service .It define the level of service a packet
receives in the network.
 ECN − Explicit Congestion Notification; It carries information about the congestion seen in the route.
 Total Length − Length of entire IP Packet (including IP header and IP Payload).
 Identification − If IP packet is fragmented during the transmission, all the fragments contain same
identification number. to identify original IP packet they belong to.
 Flags − As required by the network resources, if IP Packet is too large to handle, these ‘flags’ tells if they
can be fragmented or not. In this 3-bit flag, the MSB is always set to ‘0’.
 Fragment Offset − This offset tells the exact position of the fragment in the original IP Packet.
 Time to Live − To avoid looping in the network, every packet is sent with some TTL value set, which tells
the network how many routers (hops) this packet can cross. At each hop, its value is decremented by one
and when the value reaches zero, the packet is discarded.
 Protocol − Tells the Network layer at the destination host, to which Protocol this packet belongs to, i.e. the
next level Protocol. For example protocol number of ICMP is 1, TCP is 6 and UDP is 17.
 Header Checksum − This field is used to keep checksum value of entire header which is then used to
check if the packet is received error-free.
 Source Address − 32-bit address of the Sender (or source) of the packet.
 Destination Address − 32-bit address of the Receiver (or destination) of the packet.
 Options − This is optional field, which is used if the value of IHL is greater than 5. These options may
contain values for options such as Security, Record Route, Time Stamp, etc.
IPv6 Addresses
IPv6 addresses consist of 128 bits, instead of 32 bits, and include a scope field that identifies the type of application
suitable for the address. IPv6 does not support broadcast addresses, but instead uses multicast addresses for
broadcast. In addition, IPv6 defines a new type of address called anycast

Structure
An IPv6 address consists of 16 bytes (octets); it is 128 bits long.

Hexadecimal Colon Notation

IPv6 specifies hexadecimal colon notation. In this notation,128 bits is divided into eight sections, each 2 bytes in
length. Two bytes in hexadecimal notation requires four hexadecimal digits. Therefore, the address consists of 32
hexadecimal digits, with every four digits separated by a colon.
Address Space
IPv6 has a much larger address space; 2128 addresses are available. The designers of IPv6 divided the address into
several categories. A few leftmost bits, called the type prefix, in each address define its category.
unicast address
A unicast address defines a single computer. The packet sent to a unicast address must be delivered to that specific
computer. IPv6 defines two types of unicast addresses:geographically based and provider-based.

Multicast Addresses
Multicast addresses are used to define a group of hosts instead of just one. A packet sent to a multicast address must
be delivered to each member of the group.
Anycast Addresses
IPv6 also defines anycast addresses. An anycast address, like a multicast address, also defines a group of nodes.
However, a packet destined for an anycast address is delivered to only one of the members of the anycast group, the
nearest one (the one with the shortest route).
Reserved Addresses
Another category in the address space is the reserved address. These addresses start with eight 0s (type prefix is
00000000).
Local AddressesThese addresses are used when an organization wants to use IPv6 protocol without being
connected to the global Internet. In other words, they provide addressing for private networks.

IPv6 header:

 Version – 4-bit version number of Internet Protocol = 6.

 Traffic class – 8-bit traffic class field. It helps routers to handle the traffic based on priority of the packet. If
congestion occurs on router then packets with least priority will be discarded.
 Flow label – 20-bit field. Flow Label field is used by source to label the packets belonging to the same flow in
order to request special handling by intermediate IPv6 routers
 Payload length – It is a 16-bit (unsigned integer) field, indicates total size of the payload which tells routers
about amount of information a particular packet contains in its payload.
 Next header – Next Header indicates type of extension header(if present) immediately following the IPv6
header.
 Hop limit – Hop Limit field is same as TTL in IPv4 packets. It indicates the maximum number of intermediate
nodes IPv6 packet is allowed to travel. Its value gets decremented by one, by each node that forwards the packet
and packet is discarded if value decrements to 0..
 Source address – 128 bits. The address of the initial sender of the packet.
 Destination address – 128 bits. The address of the intended recipient of the packet.

IPv6 introduces the concept of (optional) extension headers. These headers can be supplied to provide extra
information, but encoded in an efficient way. Six kinds of extension headers are defined at present, as listed in Fig

Advantages of IPv6 over IPv4

a) Larger address space
b) Better header format
c) New options
d) Allowance for extension
e) Support for resource allocation
f) Support for more security
g) Support for mobility

Connecting Devices

we have looked at a variety of ways to get frames and packets from one computer to another. We have mentioned
repeaters, hubs,bridges, switches, routers, and gateways.

1. Repeater – A repeater operates at the physical layer. Its job is to regenerate the signal over the same network
before the signal becomes too weak or corrupted so as to extend the length to which the signal can be transmitted
over the same network

2. Hub – A hub is basically a multi port repeater. A hub connects multiple wires coming from different branches,
for example, the connector in star topology which connects different stations. Hubs cannot filter data,so data packets
are sent to all connected devices.

Types of Hub
 Active Hub :- These are the hubs which have their own power supply and can clean , boost and relay the signal
along the network. It serves both as a repeater as well as wiring center.
 Passive Hub :- These are the hubs which collect wiring from nodes and power supply from active hub. These
hubs relay signals onto the network without cleaning and boosting them
3. Bridge – A bridge operates at data link layer. A bridge is a repeater, with add on functionality of filtering content
by reading the MAC addresses of source and destination. It is also used for interconnecting two LANs working on
the same protocol.
Types of Bridges
 Transparent Bridges :- These are the bridge in which the stations are completely unaware of the bridge’s
existence.
 Source Routing Bridges :- In these bridges, routing operation is performed by source station and the frame
specifies which route to follow. The hot can discover frame by sending a specical frame called discovery
frame, which spreads through the entire network using all possible paths to destination.

4. Switch – A switch is a multi port bridge with a buffer and a design that can boost its efficiency and performance.
Switch is data link layer device. Switch can perform error checking before forwarding data

5. Routers – A router is a device like a switch that routes data packets based on their IP addresses. Router is mainly
a Network Layer device. Routers normally connect LANs and WANs together and have a dynamically updating
routing table based on which they make decisions on routing the data packets.

6. Gateway – A gateway, as the name suggests, is a passage to connect two networks together that may work upon
different networking models. Gateways are also called protocol converters and can operate at any network layer.
Gateways are generally more complex than switch or router.

7. Brouter – It is also known as bridging router is a device which combines features of both bridge and router. It can
work either at data link layer or at network layer. Working as router, it is capable of routing packets across networks
and working as bridge, it is capable of filtering local area network traffic.

VIRTUAL LANs
A We can roughly define a virtual local area network (VLAN) as a local area network configured by software,
not by physical wiring.
Figure shows a switched LAN in an engineering firm in which 9 stations are grouped into three LANs that are
connected by a switch. The first 3 engineers work together as the first group, the next 2 engineers work together
as the second group, and the last 4 engineers work together as the third group. The LAN is configured to allow
this arrangement .
what would happen if the administrators needed to move engineers from their group.
 The LAN configuration would need to be changed.
 The network technician must rewire.
 So…In a switched LAN, changes in the work group mean physical changes in the network
configuration.
A switch connecting three LANs

Figure shows the same switched LAN divided into VLANs.

 The whole idea of VLAN technology is to divide a LAN into logical, instead of physical, segments.
A LAN can be divided into several logical LANs called VLANs. Each VLAN is a work group in the
organization.
 If a person moves from one group to another, there is no need to change the physical configuration.
The group membership in VLANs is defined by software, not hardware.
 Any station can be logically moved to another VLAN. All members belonging to a VLAN can
receive broadcast messages sent to that particular VLAN.
.VLAN technology even allows the grouping of stations connected to different switches in a VLAN.
Figure shows a backbone local area network with two switches and three VLANs. Stations from
switches A and B belong to each VLAN.

Two switches in a backbone using VLAN software

Membership:
Vendors use different characteristics such as port numbers, MAC addresses, IP addresses, IP multicast
addresses, or a combination of two or more of these.
Port Numbers
Some VLAN vendors use switch port numbers as a membership characteristic.
MAC Addresses
Some VLAN vendors use the 48-bit MAC address as a membership characteristic.
IP Addresses
Some VLAN vendors use the 32-bit IP address) as a membership characteristic.
Multicast IP Addresses
Some VLAN vendors use the multicast IP address as a membership characteristic.
Combination
Recently, the software available from some vendors allows all these characteristics to be combined. The
administrator can choose one or more characteristics when installing the software.
Configuration:
Stations are configured in one of three ways: manual, semiautomatic, and automatic.
Manual Configuration
In a manual configuration, the network administrator uses the VLAN software to manually assign the
stations into different VLANs at setup. The term manually here means that the administrator types the
port numbers, the IP addresses, or other characteristics, using the VLAN software.
Automatic Configuration
In an automatic configuration, the stations are automatically connected or disconnected from a VLAN using
criteria defined by the administrator.
Semiautomatic Configuration
A semiautomatic configuration is somewhere between a manual configuration and an automatic
 configuration. Usually, the initializing is done manually, with migrations done automatically.

Communication Between Switches:

In a multi switched backbone, each switch must know not only which station belongs to which VLAN, but
also the membership of stations connected to other switches. Three methods have been devised for this
purpose: table maintenance, frame tagging, and time-division multiplexing.
Table Maintenance
In this method, when a station sends a broadcast frame to its group members, the switch creates an entry in
a table and records station membership. The switches send their tables to one another periodically for
updating.
Frame Tagging
In this method, when a frame is traveling between switches, an extra header is added to the MAC frame to
define the destination VLAN..
Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)
In this method, the connection (trunk) between switches is divided into timeshared channels .
802.1 Q has opened the way for further standardization in other issues related to VLANs. Most vendors have
already accepted the standard.
Advantages
 There are several advantages to using VLANs.
 Cost and Time Reduction
 Creating Virtual Work Groups
 Security
.

Hardware Addressing versus IP Addressing

MAC Address Known as the Media Access Control Address, it is a unique identifier that is assigned to your
network interfaces enabling communications through a physical network segment. This simply means that it’s an
identifier for your hardware, in which case it can be referred to as your physical address or hardware address. It is
absolutely unique and it will be assigned by the manufacturers of a said device. It simply is a label for your device,
wherein it can be easily identified by your local area network or any network that may use your device’s address.
Mac Addresses follow rules in which they are formed, with three numbering name spaces such as MAC 48,
EUI-48, and EUI-64.
 MAC-48: Format form is in six groups, and each group consists of two hexadecimal digits and is separated by
hyphens. (01-02-03-04-ab-a1)
 EUI-48: Format form is in six groups, and each group consists of two hexadecimal digits but is separated by colons.
(01:02:03:04:ab:a1)
 EUI-64: Format form is in three groups, and each group consists of four hexadecimal digits and is separated by dots.
(0102.0304.aba1)
IP Address
IP Address Known as the Internet Protocol address, it is an identifier that’s labeled numerically for your computer
network. It has two principal functions and those are your network interface identification and location addressing.
So basically, it functions as your system’s label through network, and will be responsible for connecting you with
your private or public network through network interface.
Two types of address assignment
 Static IP address – it is an IP address manually assigned to a computer by an administrator/ISP (Internet service
provider). IP address does not change.
 Dynamic IP address – it is an IP address usually assigned dynamically on LANs and broadband networks by
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). IP address changes constantly.
IP Addresses are usually displayed in notations such as (IPv4) 172.16.254.2 and (IPv6) 2001:ab5:0:1234:0:567:8:9.
The difference is due to an IPv4 consisting of 32 bits which limits the address space, and IPv6 consisting of 128 bits.

MAC address IP address

Numeric representation of a device that uses Ethernet Numeric representation of a device that uses TCP/IP
(physical connection between devices and routers) (logical connection between your devices and the internet)

Assigned by the device’s manufacturers Assigned by User/administrator, DHCP, or ISP

Unchangeable (Static IP address) and Changeable

Changeable
(Dynamic IP Address)

Unique (unless changed by the user to mirror another Unique (misconfiguration can sometimes lead to duplicate
device’s MAC address) IP addresses)