COMPUTER NETWORKS

1. Introduction to Computer Networks:

→Introduction
A computer network is a group of devices connected with each other through a transmission
medium such as wires, cables etc. These devices can be computers, printers, scanners, Fax
machines etc.

The purpose of having computer network is to send and receive data stored in other devices over the
network. These devices are often referred as nodes.

There are five basic components of a computer network

Message: It is the data or information which needs to be transferred from one device to another
device over a computer network.

Sender: Sender is the device that has the data and needs to send the data to other device connected
to the network.

Receiver: A receiver is the device which is expecting the data from other device on the network.

Transmission media: In order to transfer data from one device to another device we need a
transmission media such as wires, cables, radio waves etc.

Protocol: A protocol is a set of rules that are agreed by both sender and receiver, without a protocol
two devices can be connected to each other but they cannot communicate. In order to establish a
reliable communication or data sharing between two different devices we need set of rules that are
called protocol. For example, http and https are the two protocols used by web browsers to get and
post the data to internet, similarly smtp protocol is used by email services connected to the internet.
->Network Hardware

The basic computer hardware components that are needed to set up a network are as follows −
Network Cables
Network cables are the transmission media to transfer data from one device to another. A commonly used
network cable is category 5 cable with RJ – 45 connector, as shown in the image below:

Routers
A router is a connecting device that transfers data packets between different computer networks. Typically,
they are used to connect a PC or an organization’s LAN to a broadband internet connection. They contain RJ-
45 ports so that computers and other devices can connect with them using network cables.

Repeaters, Hubs, and Switches

Repeaters, hubs and switches connect network devices together so that they can function as a single segment.
A repeater receives a signal and regenerates it before re-transmitting so that it can travel longer distances.
A hub is a multiport repeater having several input/output ports, so that input at any port is available at every
other port.
A switch receives data from a port, uses packet switching to resolve the destination device and then forwards
the data to the particular destination, rather than broadcasting it as a hub.

Bridges
A bridge connects two separate Ethernet network segments. It forwards packets from the source network to
the destined network.

Gateways
A gateway connects entirely different networks that work upon different protocols. It is the entry and the exit
point of a network and controls access to other networks.

Network Interface Cards

NIC is a component of the computer to connect it to a network. Network cards are of two types: Internal
network cards and external network cards.
->Network Software
Network software encompasses a broad range of software used for design, implementation, and
operation and monitoring of computer networks. Traditional networks were hardware based with software
embedded. With the advent of Software – Defined Networking (SDN), software is separated from the hardware
thus making it more adaptable to the ever-changing nature of the computer network.
Functions of Network Software

• Helps to set up and install computer networks

• Enables users to have access to network resources in a seamless manner
• Allows administrations to add or remove users from the network
• Helps to define locations of data storage and allows users to access that data
• Helps administrators and security system to protect the network from data breaches, unauthorized
access and attacks on a network
• Enables network virtualizations
SDN Framework
The Software Defined Networking framework has three layers as depicted in the following diagram −

• APPLICATION LAYER − SDN applications reside in the Application Layer. The applications convey
their needs for resources and services to the control layer through APIs.
 • CONTROL LAYER − The Network Control Software, bundled into the Network Operating System, lies
in this layer. It provides an abstract view of the underlying network infrastructure. It receives the
requirements of the SDN applications and relays them to the network components.
• INFRASTRUCTURE LAYER − Also called the Data Plane Layer, this layer contains the actual network
components. The network devices reside in this layer that shows their network capabilities through the
Control to data-Plane Interface.

->Reference Models
In computer networks, reference models give a conceptual framework that standardizes
communication between heterogeneous networks.
The two popular reference models are −

• OSI Model
• TCP/IP Protocol Suite
OSI Model
OSI or Open System Interconnection model was developed by International Standards Organization
(ISO). It gives a layered networking framework that conceptualizes how communication should be
done between heterogeneous systems. It has seven interconnected layers.
The seven layers of the OSI Model are a physical layer, data link layer, network layer, transport layer,
session layer, presentation layer, and application layer. The hierarchy is depicted in the following
figure −

TCP / IP PROTOCOL SUITE

TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol, while IP stands for Internet Protocol. It is a suite of
protocols for communication structured in four layers. It can be used for communication over the
internet as well as for private networks.
The four layers are application layer, transport layer, internet layer and network access layer, as
depicted in the following diagram −

->Network Examples
Two or more computers connected that allows sharing their data, resources, and application is
called a computer network. The vital computer network is divided into four types based on their size
and functions. They are LAN, MAN, PAN, and WAN. Here LAN stands for Local Area Network, MAN
stands for Metropolitan Area Network, Personal Area Network is abbreviated into PAN whereas WAN
is expanded as Wide Area Network. PAN is further divided into Wired Personal Area Network and
Wireless Personal Area Network. There are many applications based on the computer network and
each of the broadly divided networks has unique features that are to be applied accordingly for
effective purpose.

Types of Computer Network

A computer network can be categorized by their size. A computer network is mainly of four types:
 • LAN(Local Area Network)
• PAN(Personal Area Network)
• MAN(Metropolitan Area Network)
• WAN(Wide Area Network)

These four types are explained below:

1. LAN(Local Area Network)

LAN is expanded as Local Area Network where the pool of computers are linked to each other in
limited ranges like apartment and office premise. This computer network connects the pool of
computers via a communication device like coaxial cable, routers and switches and twisted pairs.

It is available at low cost and built with cheaply available hardware such as ethernet cables, network
adapters, and hubs. Here the transfer rate of data is high with minimal response time. This is a highly
safe network less prone to hacks and data loss.
2. PAN(Personal Area Network)
PAN is expanded as Personal Area Network is configured in a person in range of approximately ten
meters and is mostly employed for connecting internet range for personal usage. It has the coverage
range to thirty meters. Personal equipment includes desktop, laptop, smartphones, game stations,
electronic gadgets, and music players.

There are two types of Personal Area Network:

• Wireless Personal Area Network

• Wired Personal Area Network
 Wireless Personal Area Network: Wireless Personal Area Network is configured is based on
wireless technologies like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which falls over a limited range network.

Wired Personal Area Network: Wired Personal Area Network is deployed by using USB.

Examples Of Personal Area Network

1. Body Area Network: Body Area Network moves along with a person like a smartphone or a watch
that moves with a person. He can also connect with other people to interlink the device for sharing
the data.

2. Offline Network: The offline network can be deployed inside the house which is also called a
home network. It is planned to connect with television, printers which are not accessible to the
internet.

3. Small Home Office: Small Home office is used to link the devices to cyberspace via a VPN that is a
virtual private network.

3. MAN(Metropolitan Area Network)

Metropolitan Area Network is called MAN which covers huge geographical areas by connecting to
various local area networks united to form a large network. The government uses MAN to link private
firms and people via websites or applications. In the Metropolitan Area network, different LANs are
interconnected via telephone communication technology.

Here mostly telephone cables are used to connect LAN to form MAN. The protocols applied widely in
MAN are Frame Relay, ISDN, ATM, ADSL, and RS-232. MAN is deployed mostly in Airline reservation
and establish communication between banking sectors in a city. It is also deployed in the Military
range for effective communications. It can also be deployed inside the collages within that town.
4. WAN(Wide Area Network)
Wireless Area Network provides services for the user to connect to wireless using remote or public or
private access. The connection is established in a huge geographic range like a complete city that uses
the current network structure of mobile operators. The WAN started with a standard of 802.20 and is
the goal is to achieve optimization of Mobile Broadband Wireless Access which is called MBWA. This
802.20 standard stands as a tough competitor for classical models of 2.5 and 3G.

The WWAN successfully made the possibility of superficial voice transfer. It is also measured in GPS is
Global positioning system, General Packet Radio Service is called as GPRS is, EDGE is abbreviated from
Enhanced Data rates for global evolution, Universal mobile telecommunication system is known as
UMTS, HSUPA is a high-speed uplink packet and HSPDA is a high-speed downlink packet access.

Example of Computer Network

• Different wireless networks offer an internet connection. If the user is within the range, the
internet connection to the network is very fast and gives quick access to a mailbox, file
downloads, storage, loading of websites and so on. The typical difference to be stressed is
coverage whereas one is set up in the home and other is established over a town. Because of
this major difference, Wireless Wide Area Network cannot operate on the same technology as
Wireless Local Area Network does.
• LAN such as Wi-Fi has limited ranges and requires many nodes to cover a wide area. WAN
adopts telecommunication which is adaptable for wider coverage. Since WAN covers a wider
range simultaneously it implements security protocols also. The security protocols employed
are WPA and WEP. Even though it’s advanced it is not a guaranteed option. But still few people
use it as unsecured networks as they are prone to vulnerable encryption. But they can receive
signals even though they use unsecured networks
• In simple, WAN and MAN use telecom while LAN and PAN don’t use it for its operation. LAN
and PAN are worked in a secure condition where WAN is not that secure. PAN and LAN are
 faster than because of its coverage. LAN has DLNA for its effective usage. If the user wants to
set up an internet connection in his home he can prefer PAN or LAN and if he wants to be the
businessman for internet service provider then he must choose WAN. Each has its unique
feature and adaptable according to its requirements
• The Effective performance of PAN or LAN has an import over WAN. Because of the limited
range, it covers a few people and focuses on operating speed with high performance. But it is
not related to network connection which has limited than LAN or WAN speeds. PAN or LAN is
adaptable for moving and hosting files from one device or system to another and related
applications.

->Internet Based Applications

A network is a collection or set of computing devices connected to one another to establish
communication and also share available resources. A network will comprise software and hardware
devices. You can have a network even if you are not connected to the internet. Computer networks
make it possible for people to transfer files from one place to another and to communicate taking the
shortest time possible.

Computer network applications are network software applications that utilize the Internet or other
network hardware infrastructure to perform useful functions for example file transfers within a
network. They help us to transfer data from one point to another within the network.

There are 2 types of network applications:-

1. Pure network applications

2. Standalone network application
(A) Pure Network Applications

These are applications created to be used in networks; using pure network applications on a single
computer doesn't make sense. They help us to transfer data and communicate within a network.
Such applications have a separate and distinct user interface that users must learn for instance:-

Outlook Express
 Outlook Express, an email program
Wikimedia Commons
1. Email Programs

They allow users to type messages at their local nodes and then send to someone on the network. It
is a fast and easy way of transferring mail from one computer to another. Examples of electronic mail
programs (Clients) are:-

• Pegasus Mail
• Outlook express
• Eudora Windows mail
• Fox mail
• Opera
• Poco mail
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Windows mail
2. File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

This application facilities transfer of files from one computer to another e.g. from a client to a server.
There are 2 common processes involved in FTP

Downloading: - This is the process of obtaining files from a server to a workstation or a client (for
example when you download programs and music from a server).

Uploading:- This is obtaining of files from a workstation to a server (for instance when you attach
documents and upload them to a server, a good example being when you upload photos to
Facebook).

Examples of FTP programs are:-

• FTP in Unix
• FTP in Linux or
• FTP in Windows
File Transfer Protocol Process
File transfer protocol process
3. Terminal Emulation (TELNET)

It allows a workstation to access the server for an application program. This enables you to control
the server and communicate with other servers on the network. The workstation appears as a down
terminal that is directly attached to the server. The user feels like he/she is using the server
directly. TELNET enables PCs and workstations to function as dumb terminals in sessions with hosts
on inter-networks.

4. Groupware

These applications are used to automate the administrative functions of a modern office for
instance video conferencing and chatting. They facilitate the work of groups and improve on their
productivity; they can be used to communicate, co-operate, coordinate, solve problems, compete,
negotiate among others.

(i) Video Conferencing

This is the process of conducting a conference between two or more participants at different sites by
using computer networks to transmit audio and video data. For example, a point-to-point (two-person)
video conferencing system works much like a video telephone.

Each participant has a video camera, microphone, and speakers mounted on his or her computer. As
the two participants speak to one another, their voices are carried over the network and delivered to
the others speakers, and whatever images appear in front of the video camera appear in a window on
the other participant’s monitor.

(ii) Chatting

It is real-time communication between two users via computer. Once a chat has been initiated, either
user can enter text by typing on the keyboard and the entered text will appear on the other user’s
monitor. The two must be online for a chat to be initiated. Most networks, cybers and online services
offer a chat feature which enables computer users to chat as they go on with their work.

(B) Stand Alone Applications

These are applications that run on stand-alone computers (computers not connected to any other).
In order to extend their activity, they are rebuilt to run on network environments e.g. word processors,
spreadsheets, database management systems, presentations graphics, project management etc.
They function even when the computer is offline.

2.The Medium Access Control

->The Channel Allocation Problem
Channel allocation is a process in which a single channel is divided and allotted to multiple users in order
to carry user specific tasks. There are user’s quantity may vary every time the process takes place. If there are N
number of users and channel is divided into N equal-sized sub channels, Each user is assigned one portion. If the
number of users are small and don’t vary at times, than Frequency Division Multiplexing can be used as it is a
simple and efficient channel bandwidth allocating technique.
Channel allocation problem can be solved by two schemes: Static Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs, and
Dynamic Channel Allocation.

These are explained as following below.

1. Static Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs:
It is the classical or traditional approach of allocating a single channel among multiple competing users Frequency
Division Multiplexing (FDM). if there are N users, the bandwidth is divided into N equal sized portions each user
being assigned one portion. since each user has a private frequency band, there is no interface between users.

It is not efficient to divide into fixed number of chunks.

T = 1/(U*C-L)

T(FDM) = N*T(1/U(C/N)-L/N)
Where,
T = mean time delay,
C = capacity of channel,
L = arrival rate of frames,
1/U = bits/frame,
N = number of sub channels,
T(FDM) = Frequency Division Multiplexing Time
2. Dynamic Channel Allocation:
Possible assumptions include:
 1. Station Model:
Assumes that each of N stations independently produce frames. The probability of producing a packet in
the interval IDt where I is the constant arrival rate of new frames.
2. Single Channel Assumption:
In this allocation all stations are equivalent and can send and receive on that channel.
3. Collision Assumption:
If two frames overlap in time-wise, then that’s collision. Any collision is an error, and both frames must
re transmitted. Collisions are only possible error.
4. Time can be divided into Slotted or Continuous.
5. Stations can sense a channel is busy before they try it.
Protocol Assumption:
• N independent stations.
• A station is blocked untill its generated frame is transmitted.
• probability of a frame being generated in a period of length Dt is IDt where I is the arrival rate of frames.
• Only a single Channel available.
• Time can be either: Continuous or slotted.
• Carrier Sense: A station can sense if a channel is already busy before transmission.
• No Carrier Sense: Time out used to sense loss data.

->MAC PROTOCOLS

Multiple Access Protocols in Computer Network

The Data Link Layer is responsible for transmission of data between two nodes. Its main functions are-
• Data Link Control
• Multiple Access Control

Data Link control –

The data link control is responsible for reliable transmission of message over transmission channel by using
techniques like framing, error control and flow control. For Data link control refer to – Stop and Wait ARQ
Multiple Access Control –
If there is a dedicated link between the sender and the receiver then data link control layer is sufficient, however if
there is no dedicated link present then multiple stations can access the channel simultaneously. Hence multiple
access protocols are required to decrease collision and avoid crosstalk. For example, in a classroom full of
students, when a teacher asks a question and all the students (or stations) start answering simultaneously (send
data at same time) then a lot of chaos is created( data overlap or data lost) then it is the job of the teacher (multiple
access protocols) to manage the students and make them answer one at a time.
Thus, protocols are required for sharing data on non dedicated channels. Multiple access protocols can be
subdivided further as –
1. Random Access Protocol: In this, all stations have same superiority that is no station has more priority than
another station. Any station can send data depending on medium’s state( idle or busy). It has two features:
1. There is no fixed time for sending data
2. There is no fixed sequence of stations sending data
The Random access protocols are further subdivided as:
(a) ALOHA – It was designed for wireless LAN but is also applicable for shared medium. In this, multiple
stations can transmit data at the same time and can hence lead to collision and data being garbled.
• Pure Aloha:
When a station sends data it waits for an acknowledgement. If the acknowledgement doesn’t come within
the allotted time then the station waits for a random amount of time called back-off time (Tb) and re-
sends the data. Since different stations wait for different amount of time, the probability of further
collision decreases.
• Vulnerable Time = 2* Frame transmission time
• Throughput = G exp{-2*G}
Maximum throughput = 0.184 for G=0.5
• Slotted Aloha:
It is similar to pure aloha, except that we divide time into slots and sending of data is allowed only at the
beginning of these slots. If a station misses out the allowed time, it must wait for the next slot. This
reduces the probability of collision.
• Vulnerable Time = Frame transmission time
• Throughput = G exp{-*G}
Maximum throughput = 0.368 for G=1
For more information on ALOHA refer – LAN Technologies
(b) CSMA – Carrier Sense Multiple Access ensures fewer collisions as the station is required to first sense the
medium (for idle or busy) before transmitting data. If it is idle then it sends data, otherwise it waits till the channel
becomes idle. However there is still chance of collision in CSMA due to propagation delay. For example, if station
A wants to send data, it will first sense the medium.If it finds the channel idle, it will start sending data. However,
by the time the first bit of data is transmitted (delayed due to propagation delay) from station A, if station B
requests to send data and senses the medium it will also find it idle and will also send data. This will result in
collision of data from station A and B.

CSMA access modes-

• 1-persistent: The node senses the channel, if idle it sends the data, otherwise it continuously keeps on
checking the medium for being idle and transmits unconditionally(with 1 probability) as soon as the
channel gets idle.
• Non-Persistent: The node senses the channel, if idle it sends the data, otherwise it checks the medium
after a random amount of time (not continuously) and transmits when found idle.
• P-persistent: The node senses the medium, if idle it sends the data with p probability. If the data is not
transmitted ((1-p) probability) then it waits for some time and checks the medium again, now if it is found
idle then it send with p probability. This repeat continues until the frame is sent. It is used in Wifi and
packet radio systems.
• O-persistent: Superiority of nodes is decided beforehand and transmission occurs in that order. If the
medium is idle, node waits for its time slot to send data.
(c) CSMA/CD – Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection. Stations can terminate transmission of data
if collision is detected. For more details refer – Efficiency of CSMA/CD
(d) CSMA/CA – Carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance. The process of collisions detection
involves sender receiving acknowledgement signals. If there is just one signal(its own) then the data is
successfully sent but if there are two signals(its own and the one with which it has collided) then it means a
collision has occurred. To distinguish between these two cases, collision must have a lot of impact on received
signal. However it is not so in wired networks, so CSMA/CA is used in this case.
CSMA/CA avoids collision by:
1. Interframe space – Station waits for medium to become idle and if found idle it does not immediately
send data (to avoid collision due to propagation delay) rather it waits for a period of time called
Interframe space or IFS. After this time it again checks the medium for being idle. The IFS duration
depends on the priority of station.
2. Contention Window – It is the amount of time divided into slots. If the sender is ready to send data, it
chooses a random number of slots as wait time which doubles every time medium is not found idle. If the
medium is found busy it does not restart the entire process, rather it restarts the timer when the channel is
found idle again.
3. Acknowledgement – The sender re-transmits the data if acknowledgement is not received before time-
out.
2. Controlled Access:
In this, the data is sent by that station which is approved by all other stations. For further details refer – Controlled
Access Protocols
3. Channelization:
In this, the available bandwidth of the link is shared in time, frequency and code to multiple stations to access
channel simultaneously.
• Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) – The available bandwidth is divided into equal bands
so that each station can be allocated its own band. Guard bands are also added so that no to bands overlap
to avoid crosstalk and noise.
• Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) – In this, the bandwidth is shared between multiple stations.
To avoid collision time is divided into slots and stations are allotted these slots to transmit data. However
there is a overhead of synchronization as each station needs to know its time slot. This is resolved by
adding synchronization bits to each slot. Another issue with TDMA is propagation delay which is
resolved by addition of guard bands.
For more details refer – Circuit Switching
• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) – One channel carries all transmissions simultaneously. There
is neither division of bandwidth nor division of time. For example, if there are many people in a room all
speaking at the same time, then also perfect reception of data is possible if only two person speak the
 same language. Similarly data from different stations can be transmitted simultaneously in different code
languages.

->CSMA Protocols
This method was developed to decrease the chances of collisions when two or more stations start sending
their signals over the datalink layer. Carrier Sense multiple access requires that each station first check the state
of the medium before sending.
Vulnerable Time –
Vulnerable time = Propagation time (Tp)

The persistence methods can be applied to help the station take action when the channel is busy/idle.

1. Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) –

In this method, a station monitors the medium after it sends a frame to see if the transmission was successful. If
successful, the station is finished, if not, the frame is sent again.
In the diagram, A starts send the first bit of its frame at t1 and since C sees the channel idle at t2, starts sending its
frame at t2. C detects A’s frame at t3 and aborts transmission. A detects C’s frame at t4 and aborts its
transmission. Transmission time for C’s frame is therefore and for A’s frame is .
So, the frame transmission time (Tfr) should be at least twice the maximum propagation time (Tp). This can
be deduced when the two stations involved in collision are maximum distance apart.
Process –
The entire process of collision detection can be explained as follows:
Throughput and Efficiency – The throughput of CSMA/CD is much greater than pure or slotted ALOHA.
• For 1-persistent method throughput is 50% when G=1.
• For non-persistent method throughput can go upto 90%.

2. Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) –

The basic idea behind CSMA/CA is that the station should be able to receive while transmitting to detect a
collision from different stations. In wired networks, if a collision has occurred then the energy of received signal
almost doubles and the station can sense the possibility of collision. In case of wireless networks, most of the
energy is used for transmission and the energy of received signal increases by only 5-10% if a collision occurs. It
can’t be used by the station to sense collision. Therefore CSMA/CA has been specially designed for wireless
networks.
These are three types of strategies:
1. InterFrame Space (IFS) – When a station finds the channel busy, it waits for a period of time called
IFS time. IFS can also be used to define the priority of a station or a frame. Higher the IFS lower is the
priority.
2. Contention Window – It is the amount of time divided into slots.A station which is ready to send
frames chooses random number of slots as wait time.
3. Acknowledgements – The positive acknowledgements and time-out timer can help guarantee a
successful transmission of the frame.
Process –
The entire process for collision avoidance can be explained as follows:
-> Collision – free Protocols

In computer networks, when more than one station tries to transmit simultaneously via a shared
channel, the transmitted data is garbled. This event is called collision. The Medium Access Control (MAC) layer
of the OSI model is responsible for handling collision of frames. Collision – free protocols are devised so that
collisions do not occur. Protocols like CSMA/CD and CSMA/CA nullifies the possibility of collisions once the
transmission channel is acquired by any station. However, collision can still occur during the contention period
if more than one stations starts to transmit at the same time. Collision – free protocols resolves collision in the
contention period and so the possibilities of collisions are eliminated.
Types of Collision – free Protocols

Bit – map Protocol

In bit map protocol, the contention period is divided into N slots, where N is the total number of stations sharing
the channel. If a station has a frame to send, it sets the corresponding bit in the slot. So, before transmission,
each station knows whether the other stations want to transmit. Collisions are avoided by mutual agreement
among the contending stations on who gets the channel.
Binary Countdown
This protocol overcomes the overhead of 1 bit per station of the bit – map protocol. Here, binary addresses of
equal lengths are assigned to each station. For example, if there are 6 stations, they may be assigned the
binary addresses 001, 010, 011, 100, 101 and 110. All stations wanting to communicate broadcast their
addresses. The station with higher address gets the higher priority for transmitting.
Limited Contention Protocols
These protocols combines the advantages of collision based protocols and collision free protocols. Under light
load, they behave like ALOHA scheme. Under heavy load, they behave like bitmap protocols.
Adaptive Tree Walk Protocol
In adaptive tree walk protocol, the stations or nodes are arranged in the form of a binary tree as follows -
Initially all nodes (A, B ……. G, H) are permitted to compete for the channel. If a node is successful in acquiring
the channel, it transmits its frame. In case of collision, the nodes are divided into two groups (A, B, C, D in one
group and E, F, G, H in another group). Nodes belonging to only one of them is permitted for competing. This
process continues until successful transmission occurs.

-> The Ethernet

Ethernet is the traditional technology for connecting devices in a wired local area network
(LAN) or wide area network (WAN), enabling them to communicate with each other via a protocol -- a
set of rules or common network language. Ethernet describes how network devices can format and
transmit data so other devices on the same local or campus area network segment can recognize,
receive and process the information. An Ethernet cable is the physical, encased wiring over which the
data travels.

Connected devices accessing a geographically localized network with a cable -- that is, with a wired
rather than wireless connection -- likely use Ethernet. From businesses to gamers, diverse end users
depend on the benefits of Ethernet connectivity, which include reliability and security.

Compared to wireless LAN (WLAN) technology, Ethernet is typically less vulnerable to disruptions. It
can also offer a greater degree of network security and control than wireless technology since devices
must connect using physical cabling. This makes it difficult for outsiders to access network data or
hijack bandwidth for unsanctioned devices.

Why is Ethernet used?

Ethernet is used to connect devices in a network and is still a popular form of network connection. For local
networks used by specific organizations -- such as company offices, school campuses and hospitals -- Ethernet
is used for its high speed, security and reliability.
Ethernet initially grew popular due to its inexpensive price tag when compared to the competing technology of
the time, such as IBM's Token Ring. As network technology advanced, Ethernet's ability to evolve and deliver
higher levels of performance, while also maintaining backward compatibility, ensured its sustained popularity.
Ethernet's original 10 megabits per second throughput increased tenfold to 100 Mbps in the mid-1990s, and the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) continues to deliver increased performance with
successive updates. Current versions of Ethernet can support operations up to 400 gigabits per second (Gbps).

Advantages and disadvantages

Ethernet has many benefits for users, which is why it grew so popular. However, there are a few disadvantages
as well.

Advantages

• relatively low cost;

• backward compatibility;

• generally resistant to noise;

• good data transfer quality;

• speed;

• reliability; and

• data security -- common firewalls can be used.

Disadvantages

• It is intended for smaller, shorter distance networks.

• Mobility is limited.

• Use of longer cables can create crosstalk.

• It does not work well with real-time or interactive applications.

• Increased traffic makes the Ethernet speed go down.

• Receivers do not acknowledge the reception of data packets.

• When troubleshooting, it is hard to trace which specific cable or node is causing the issue.
Ethernet vs. Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is the most popular type of network connection. Unlike wired connection types, such as Ethernet, it does
not require a physical cable to be connected; data is transmitted through wireless signals.

Differences between Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections

Ethernet connection

• transmits data over a cable;

• limited mobility -- a physical cable is required;

• more speed, reliability and security than Wi-Fi;

• consistent speed;

• data encryption is not required;

• lower latency; and

• more complex installation process.

Wi-Fi connection

• transmits data through wireless signals rather than over a cable;

• better mobility, as no cables are required;

• not as fast, reliable or secure as Ethernet;

• more convenient -- users can connect to the internet from anywhere;

• inconsistent speed -- Wi-Fi is prone to signal interference;

• requires data encryption;

• higher latency than Ethernet; and

• simpler installation process.

How Ethernet works

IEEE specifies in the family of standards called IEEE 802.3 that the Ethernet protocol touches both Layer 1
(physical layer) and Layer 2 (data link layer) on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network protocol
model.
Ethernet defines two units of transmission: packet and frame. The frame includes not just the payload of data
being transmitted, but also the following:

• the physical media access control (MAC) addresses of both the sender and receiver;

• virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging and quality of service (QoS) information; and

• error correction information to detect transmission problems.

Each frame is wrapped in a packet that contains several bytes of information to establish the connection and
mark where the frame starts.

Engineers at Xerox first developed Ethernet in the 1970s; Ethernet initially ran over coaxial cables. Today, a
typical Ethernet LAN uses special grades of twisted-pair cables or fiber optic cabling. Early Ethernet connected
multiple devices into network segments through hubs -- Layer 1 devices responsible for transporting network
data -- using either a daisy chain or star topology.

However, if two devices that share a hub try to transmit data at the same time, the packets can collide and create
connectivity problems. To alleviate these digital traffic jams, IEEE developed the Carrier Sense Multiple Access
with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol, which enables devices to check whether a given line is in use
before initiating new transmissions.

Later, Ethernet hubs largely gave way to network switches. Because a hub cannot discriminate between points
on a network segment, it can't send data directly from point A to point B. Instead, whenever a network device
sends a transmission via an input port, the hub copies the data and distributes it to all the available output ports.

In contrast, a switch intelligently sends any given port only the traffic intended for its devices rather than copies
of any and all the transmissions on the network segment, thus improving security and efficiency.

Like with other network types, involved computers must include a network interface card (NIC) to connect to
Ethernet.
Types of Ethernet cables

The IEEE 802.3 working group approved the first Ethernet standard in 1983. Since then, the technology has
continued to evolve and embrace new media, higher transmission speeds and changes in frame content: think
the evolve?

• 802.3ac was introduced to accommodate VLAN and priority tagging.

• 802.3af defines Power over Ethernet (PoE), which is crucial to most Wi-Fi and Internet Protocol (IP)
telephony deployments.

• 802.11a, b, g, n, ac and ax define the equivalent of Ethernet for WLANs.

• 802.3u ushered in 100BASE-T -- also known as Fast Ethernet -- with data transmission speeds of up to
100 Mbps. The term BASE-T indicates the use of twisted-pair cabling.

Gigabit Ethernet boasts speeds of 1,000 Mbps -- 1 gigabit or 1 billion bits per second (bps) -- 10 GbE, up to 10
Gbps, and so on. Network engineers use 100BASE-T largely to connect end-user computers, printers and other
devices; to manage servers and storage; and to achieve higher speeds for network backbone segments. Over
time, the typical speed of each connection tends to increase.

Ethernet cables connect network devices to the appropriate routers or modems, with different cables working
with different standards and speeds. For example, the Category 5 (Cat5) cable supports traditional and
100BASE-T Ethernet, the Category 5e (Cat5e) cable can handle GbE and Category 6 (Cat6) works with 10
GbE.

Ethernet crossover cables, which connect two devices of the same type, also exist, enabling two computers to be
connected without a switch or router between them.

-> Wireless LANS

Wireless LANs (WLANs) are wireless computer networks that use high-frequency radio waves instead
of cables for connecting the devices within a limited area forming LAN (Local Area Network). Users connected
by wireless LANs can move around within this limited area such as home, school, campus, office building,
railway platform, etc.
Most WLANs are based upon the standard IEEE 802.11 standard or WiFi.
Components of WLANs
The components of WLAN architecture as laid down in IEEE 802.11 are −
• Stations (STA) − Stations comprises of all devices and equipment that are connected to the wireless
LAN. Each station has a wireless network interface controller. A station can be of two types −
o Wireless Access Point (WAP or AP)
o Client
• Basic Service Set (BSS) − A basic service set is a group of stations communicating at the physical
layer level. BSS can be of two categories −
o Infrastructure BSS
o Independent BSS
• Extended Service Set (ESS) − It is a set of all connected BSS.
• Distribution System (DS) − It connects access points in ESS.
Types of WLANS
WLANs, as standardized by IEEE 802.11, operates in two basic modes, infrastructure, and ad hoc mode.
• Infrastructure Mode − Mobile devices or clients connect to an access point (AP) that in turn connects
via a bridge to the LAN or Internet. The client transmits frames to other clients via the AP.
• Ad Hoc Mode − Clients transmit frames directly to each other in a peer-to-peer fashion.
Advantages of WLANs
• They provide clutter-free homes, offices and other networked places.
• The LANs are scalable in nature, i.e. devices may be added or removed from the network at greater
ease than wired LANs.
• The system is portable within the network coverage. Access to the network is not bounded by the
length of the cables.
• Installation and setup are much easier than wired counterparts.
• The equipment and setup costs are reduced.
Disadvantages of WLANs
• Since radio waves are used for communications, the signals are noisier with more interference from
nearby systems.
• Greater care is needed for encrypting information. Also, they are more prone to errors. So, they require
greater bandwidth than the wired LANs.
• WLANs are slower than wired LANs.

-> Bluetooth
It is a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) technology and is used for exchanging
data over smaller distances. This technology was invented by Ericson in 1994. It operates in the
unlicensed, industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band at 2.4 GHz to 2.485 GHz. Maximum
devices that can be connected at the same time are 7. Bluetooth ranges upto 10 meters. It provides
data rates upto 1 Mbps or 3 Mbps depending upon the version. The spreading technique which it
uses is FHSS (Frequency hopping spread spectrum). A bluetooth network is called piconet and a
collection of interconnected piconets is called scatternet.
Bluetooth Architecture:
The architecture of bluetooth defines two types of networks:
1. Piconet
2. Scatternet

Piconet:

Piconet is a type of bluetooth network that contains one primary node called master node
and seven active secondary nodes called slave nodes. Thus, we can say that there are total of 8
active nodes which are present at a distance of 10 metres. The communication between the
primary and secondary node can be one-to-one or one-to-many. Possible communication is only
between the master and slave; Slave-slave communication is not possible. It also have 255
parked nodes, these are secondary nodes and cannot take participation in communication unless
it get converted to the active state.
Scatternet:
It is formed by using various piconets. A slave that is present in one piconet can be act as master
or we can say primary in other piconet. This kind of node can receive message from master in one
piconet and deliver the message to its slave into the other piconet where it is acting as a slave.
This type of node is refer as bridge node. A station cannot be master in two piconets.
Bluetooth protocol stack:
1. Radio (RF) layer:
It performs modulation/demodulation of the data into RF signals. It defines the physical
characteristics of bluetooth transceiver. It defines two types of physical link: connection-
less and connection-oriented.

2. Baseband Link layer:

It performs the connection establishment within a piconet.

3. Link Manager protocol layer:

It performs the management of the already established links. It also includes authentication
and encryption processes.

4. Logical Link Control and Adaption protocol layer:

It is also known as the heart of the bluetooth protocol stack. It allows the communication
between upper and lower layers of the bluetooth protocol stack. It packages the data
packets received from upper layers into the form expected by lower layers. It also
performs the segmentation and multiplexing.

5. SDP layer:
It is short for Service Discovery Protocol. It allows to discover the services available on
another bluetooth enabled device.

6. RF comm layer:
It is short for Radio Frontend Component. It provides serial interface with WAP and
OBEX.
 7. OBEX:
It is short for Object Exchange. It is a communication protocol to exchange objects
between 2 devices.

8. WAP:
It is short for Wireless Access Protocol. It is used for internet access.

9. TCS:
It is short for Telephony Control Protocol. It provides telephony service.

10. Application layer:

It enables the user to interact with the application.

Advantages:

• Low cost.
• Easy to use.
• It can also penetrate through walls.
• It creates an adhoc connection immediately without any wires.
• It is used for voice and data transfer.
Disadvantages:

• It can be hacked and hence, less secure.

• It has slow data transfer rate: 3 Mbps.
• It has small range: 10 meters.

3. Network Layer
->Network Layer Design Issues
Network layer is majorly focused on getting packets from the source to the destination, routing
error handling and congestion control.
Before learning about design issues in the network layer, let’s learn about it’s various functions.
• Addressing:
Maintains the address at the frame header of both source and destination and performs addressing to detect
various devices in network.
• Packeting:
This is performed by Internet Protocol. The network layer converts the packets from its upper layer.
• Routing:
It is the most important functionality. The network layer chooses the most relevant and best path for the data
transmission from source to destination.
• Inter-networking:
It works to deliver a logical connection across multiple devices.

Network layer design issues:

The network layer comes with some design issues they are described as follows:
1. Store and Forward packet switching:
The host sends the packet to the nearest router. This packet is stored there until it has fully arrived once the
 link is fully processed by verifying the checksum then it is forwarded to the next router till it reaches the
destination. This mechanism is called “Store and Forward packet switching.”
2. Services provided to Transport Layer:
Through the network/transport layer interface, the network layer transfers it’s services to the transport
layer. These services are described below.

But before providing these services to the transfer layer following goals must be kept in mind :-

• Offering services must not depend on router technology.

• The transport layer needs to be protected from the type, number and topology of the available router.
• The network addresses for the transport layer should use uniform numbering pattern also at LAN and WAN
connections.
Based on the connections there are 2 types of services provided :
• Connectionless – The routing and insertion of packets into subnet is done individually. No added setup is
required.
• Connection-Oriented – Subnet must offer reliable service and all the packets must be transmitted over a single
route.

3. Implementation of Connectionless Service:

Packet are termed as “datagrams” and corresponding subnet as “datagram subnets”. When the message size that
has to be transmitted is 4 times the size of the packet, then the network layer divides into 4 packets and transmits
each packet to router via. a few protocol.Each data packet has destination address and is routed independently
irrespective of the packets.

4. Implementation of Connection Oriented service:

To use a connection-oriented service, first we establishes a connection, use it and then release it. In connection-
oriented services, the data packets are delivered to the receiver in the same order in which they have been sent by
the sender.
It can be done in either two ways :
• Circuit Switched Connection – A dedicated physical path or a circuit is established between the communicating
nodes and then data stream is transferred.
• Virtual Circuit Switched Connection – The data stream is transferred over a packet switched network, in such a
way that it seems to the user that there is a dedicated path from the sender to the receiver. A virtual path is
established here. While, other connections may also be using the same path.

->Routing Algorithems
Routing is process of establishing the routes that data packets must follow to reach the destination. In this
process, a routing table table is created which contains information regarding routes which data packets follow.
Various routing algorithm are used for the purpose of deciding which route an incoming data packet needs to be
transmitted on to reach destination efficiently.
Classification of Routing Algorithms: The routing algorithms can be classified as follows:

1. Adaptive Algorithms –
These are the algorithms which change their routing decisions whenever network topology or traffic load changes.
The changes in routing decisions are reflected in the topology as well as traffic of the network. Also known as
dynamic routing, these make use of dynamic information such as current topology, load, delay, etc. to select
routes. Optimization parameters are distance, number of hops and estimated transit time.
Further these are classified as follows:
• (a) Isolated – In this method each, node makes its routing decisions using the information it has without seeking
information from other nodes. The sending nodes doesn’t have information about status of particular link.
 Disadvantage is that packet may be sent through a congested network which may result in delay. Examples: Hot
potato routing, backward learning.

• (b) Centralized – In this method, a centralized node has entire information about the network and makes all the
routing decisions. Advantage of this is only one node is required to keep the information of entire network and
disadvantage is that if central node goes down the entire network is done. Link state algorithm is referred to as a
centralized algorithm since it is aware of the cost of each link in the network.

• (c) Distributed – In this method, the node receives information from its neighbors and then takes the decision
about routing the packets. Disadvantage is that the packet may be delayed if there is change in between interval in
which it receives information and sends packet. It is also known as decentralized algorithm as it computes the least-
cost path between source and destination

2. Non-Adaptive Algorithms –
These are the algorithms which do not change their routing decisions once they have been selected. This is also
known as static routing as route to be taken is computed in advance and downloaded to routers when router is
booted.

Further these are classified as follows:

• (a) Flooding – This adapts the technique in which every incoming packet is sent on every outgoing line except
from which it arrived. One problem with this is that packets may go in loop and as a result of which a node may
receive duplicate packets. These problems can be overcome with the help of sequence numbers, hop count and
spanning tree.

• (b) Random walk – In this method, packets are sent host by host or node by node to one of its neighbors
randomly. This is highly robust method which is usually implemented by sending packets onto the link which is
least queued.

Routing v/s Flooding:

Fixed and Flooding Routing algorithms

In most of the situations, packets require multiple hops to make a journey towards the destination. Routing
is one of the most complex and crucial aspects of packet switched network design.
Desirable Properties of Routing Algorithms:-
• Correctness and Simplicity
• Robustness : Ability of the network to deliver packets via some route even in the face of failures.
• Stability : The algorithm should converge to equilibrium fast in the face of changing conditions in the network.
• Fairness and Optimality
• Efficiency : Minimum overhead.
Design Parameters of Routing Algorithms :
• Performance Criteria : Number of hops, Cost(Send packet with high bandwidth path as cost is less) , Delay(Size
of Queue) , Throughput time(Number of packets delivered/time).
• Decision Time : When to decide to route a packet? Per-Packet(Datagram) or Per-session(Virtual-Circuit).
 • Decision Place : Who will decide about routing? Each Node(distributed), Central Node (centralized),Originated
Node (source) .
• Network Information Source: None , Local, Adjacent node, Nodes along route , All nodes.
• Network Information Update Time : Continuous, Periodic, Major Load Change , Topology Change.
Routing Strategies :
1. Fixed Routing
2. Flooding
3. Dynamic Routing
4. Random Routing
5. Flow-based Routing
Fixed Routing –

• A route is selected for each source and destination pair of node in the network.
• The route is fixed ; changes only if the topology of the network changes.
Fixed Routing : Example (1)

Figure – A simple packet switching network with six nodes (routers)

Figure – Central routing table based on least cost path algorithm

• A Central routing matrix is created based on the least-cost path which is stored in the network control center
• The matrix, shows for each source-destination of the route , the identity of the next node on the route.
• Drawback: If the network control center fails, then everything will collapse. Hence it is not reliable.
Fixed Routing : Example (2)
 ‘
Figure – Routing table stored in different nodes of the network
• Routing Table is created for each node. This is called a distributed routing algorithm
• Routing table can be created using least-min path or min-hop reach method. Two famous path algorithms
1. Dijkstra Algorithm
2. Bellman Ford Algorithm
Advantages –
• Simple
• Works well in reliable network with stable load in reliable network
• Same for virtual circuit and datagram
Disadvantages –
• Lack of flexibility
• Doesn’t react to failure or network congestion

:::Flooding –
• Requires no network information like topology, load condition ,cost of diff. paths
• Every incoming packet to a node is sent out on every outgoing like except the one it arrived on.
• For Example in above figure
• A incoming packet to (1) is sent out to (2),(3)
• from (2) is sent to (6),(4) and from (3) it is sent to (4),(5)
• from (4) it is sent to (6),(5),(3) , from (6) it is sent to (2),(4),(5),from (5) it is sent to (4),(3)
Characteristics –
• All possible routes between Source and Destination is tried. A packet will always get through if path exists
• As all routes are tried, there will be atleast one route which is the shortest
• All nodes directly or indirectly connected are visited
Limitations –
• Flooding generates vast number of duplicate pakects
• Suitable damping mechanism must be used
Hop-Count –
• A hop counter may be contained in the packet header which is decremented at each hop.
with the packet being discarded when the counter becomes zero
• The sender initializes the hop counter. If no estimate is known, it is set to the full diameter of the subnet.
• Keep track of the packets which are responsible for flooding using a sequence number. Avoid sending them out a
second time.
Selective Flooding: Routers do not send every incoming packet out on every line, only on those lines that go in
approximately in the direction of the destination.
Advantages of Flooding :
• Highly Robust, emergency or immediate messages can be sent (eg military applications)
• Set up route in virtual circuit
• Flooding always chooses the shortest path
• Broadcast messages to all the nodes

->Congestion Control Algorithms

What is congestion?
A state occurring in network layer when the message traffic is so heavy that it slows down network
response time.

Effects of Congestion

• As delay increases, performance decreases.

• If delay increases, retransmission occurs, making situation worse.
Congestion control algorithms

• Leaky Bucket Algorithm

Let us consider an example to understand

Imagine a bucket with a small hole in the bottom.No matter at what rate water enters the bucket, the outflow is
at constant rate.When the bucket is full with water additional water entering spills over the sides and is lost.

Similarly, each network interface contains a leaky bucket and the following steps are involved in leaky bucket
algorithm:

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

• Token bucket Algorithm

Need of token bucket Algorithm:-
The leaky bucket algorithm enforces output pattern at the average rate, no matter how bursty the traffic is. So
in order to deal with the bursty traffic we need a flexible algorithm so that the data is not lost. One such
algorithm is token bucket algorithm.

Steps of this algorithm can be described as follows:

1. In regular intervals tokens are thrown into the bucket. ƒ

2. The bucket has a maximum capacity. ƒ
3. If there is a ready packet, a token is removed from the bucket, and the packet is sent.
4. If there is no token in the bucket, the packet cannot be sent.
Let’s understand with an example,

In figure (A) we see a bucket holding three tokens, with five packets waiting to be transmitted. For a packet to
be transmitted, it must capture and destroy one token. In figure (B) We see that three of the five packets have
gotten through, but the other two are stuck waiting for more tokens to be generated.

Ways in which token bucket is superior to leaky bucket:

The leaky bucket algorithm controls the rate at which the packets are introduced in the network, but it is very
conservative in nature. Some flexibility is introduced in the token bucket algorithm. In the token bucket, algorithm
tokens are generated at each tick (up to a certain limit). For an incoming packet to be transmitted, it must capture a
token and the transmission takes place at the same rate. Hence some of the busty packets are transmitted at the
same rate if tokens are available and thus introduces some amount of flexibility in the system.
Formula: M * s = C + ρ * s
where S – is time taken
M – Maximum output rate
ρ – Token arrival rate
C – Capacity of the token bucket in byte
Let’s understand with an example,

Link to question on leaky bucket algorithm: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-networks-set-8/

->Network layer in Internet

o The Network Layer is the third layer of the OSI model.
o It handles the service requests from the transport layer and further forwards the service request to
the data link layer.
o The network layer translates the logical addresses into physical addresses
o It determines the route from the source to the destination and also manages the traffic problems
such as switching, routing and controls the congestion of data packets.
 o The main role of the network layer is to move the packets from sending host to the receiving host.

The main functions performed by the network layer are:

o Routing: When a packet reaches the router's input link, the router will move the packets to the
router's output link. For example, a packet from S1 to R1 must be forwarded to the next router on
the path to S2.
o Logical Addressing: The data link layer implements the physical addressing and network layer
implements the logical addressing. Logical addressing is also used to distinguish between source
and destination system. The network layer adds a header to the packet which includes the logical
addresses of both the sender and the receiver.
o Internetworking: This is the main role of the network layer that it provides the logical connection
between different types of networks.
o Fragmentation: The fragmentation is a process of breaking the packets into the smallest
individual data units that travel through different networks.

Forwarding & Routing

In Network layer, a router is used to forward the packets. Every router has a forwarding table. A router
forwards a packet by examining a packet's header field and then using the header field value to index into
the forwarding table. The value stored in the forwarding table corresponding to the header field value
indicates the router's outgoing interface link to which the packet is to be forwarded.

For example, the router with a header field value of 0111 arrives at a router, and then router indexes this
header value into the forwarding table that determines the output link interface is 2. The router forwards
the packet to the interface 2. The routing algorithm determines the values that are inserted in the
forwarding table. The routing algorithm can be centralized or decentralized.
Services Provided by the Network Layer
o Guaranteed delivery: This layer provides the service which guarantees that the packet will arrive
at its destination.
o Guaranteed delivery with bounded delay: This service guarantees that the packet will be
delivered within a specified host-to-host delay bound.
o In-Order packets: This service ensures that the packet arrives at the destination in the order in
which they are sent.
o Guaranteed max jitter: This service ensures that the amount of time taken between two
successive transmissions at the sender is equal to the time between their receipt at the destination.
o Security services: The network layer provides security by using a session key between the source
and destination host. The network layer in the source host encrypts the payloads of datagrams
being sent to the destination host. The network layer in the destination host would then decrypt the
payload. In such a way, the network layer maintains the data integrity and source authentication
services.

->Internet Protocol

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

TCP is a connection oriented protocol and offers end-to-end packet delivery. It acts as back bone for
connection.It exhibits the following key features:
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) corresponds to the Transport Layer of OSI Model.
• TCP is a reliable and connection oriented protocol.
• TCP offers:
o Stream Data Transfer.
o Reliability.
o Efficient Flow Control
o Full-duplex operation.
o Multiplexing.
• TCP offers connection oriented end-to-end packet delivery.
• TCP ensures reliability by sequencing bytes with a forwarding acknowledgement number that indicates
to the destination the next byte the source expect to receive.
• It retransmits the bytes not acknowledged with in specified time period.

TCP Services
TCP offers following services to the processes at the application layer:
• Stream Delivery Service
• Sending and Receiving Buffers
• Bytes and Segments
• Full Duplex Service
• Connection Oriented Service
• Reliable Service

Stream Deliver Service

TCP protocol is stream oriented because it allows the sending process to send data as stream of bytes and
the receiving process to obtain data as stream of bytes.

Sending and Receiving Buffers

It may not be possible for sending and receiving process to produce and obtain data at same speed,
therefore, TCP needs buffers for storage at sending and receiving ends.

Bytes and Segments

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), at transport layer groups the bytes into a packet. This packet is
called segment. Before transmission of these packets, these segments are encapsulated into an IP datagram.

Full Duplex Service

Transmitting the data in duplex mode means flow of data in both the directions at the same time.

Connection Oriented Service

TCP offers connection oriented service in the following manner:

 1. TCP of process-1 informs TCP of process – 2 and gets its approval.
2. TCP of process – 1 and TCP of process – 2 and exchange data in both the two directions.
3. After completing the data exchange, when buffers on both sides are empty, the two TCP’s destroy their
buffers.

Reliable Service

For sake of reliability, TCP uses acknowledgement mechanism.

Internet Protocol (IP)

Internet Protocol is connectionless and unreliable protocol. It ensures no guarantee of successfully

transmission of data.
In order to make it reliable, it must be paired with reliable protocol such as TCP at the transport layer.
Internet protocol transmits the data in form of a datagram as shown in the following diagram:

Points to remember:
• The length of datagram is variable.
• The Datagram is divided into two parts: header and data.
• The length of header is 20 to 60 bytes.
• The header contains information for routing and delivery of the packet.

User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

Like IP, UDP is connectionless and unreliable protocol. It doesn’t require making a connection with the host to
exchange data. Since UDP is unreliable protocol, there is no mechanism for ensuring that data sent is
received.
UDP transmits the data in form of a datagram. The UDP datagram consists of five parts as shown in the
following diagram:
Points to remember:
• UDP is used by the application that typically transmit small amount of data at one time.
• UDP provides protocol port used i.e. UDP message contains both source and destination port number,
that makes it possible for UDP software at the destination to deliver the message to correct application
program.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

FTP is used to copy files from one host to another. FTP offers the mechanism for the same in following
manner:
• FTP creates two processes such as Control Process and Data Transfer Process at both ends i.e. at
client as well as at server.
• FTP establishes two different connections: one is for data transfer and other is for control information.
• Control connection is made between control processes while Data Connection is made
between<="" b="">
• FTP uses port 21 for the control connection and Port 20 for the data connection.

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)

Trivial File Transfer Protocol is also used to transfer the files but it transfers the files without authentication.
Unlike FTP, TFTP does not separate control and data information. Since there is no authentication exists,
TFTP lacks in security features therefore it is not recommended to use TFTP.
Key points
• TFTP makes use of UDP for data transport. Each TFTP message is carried in separate UDP
datagram.
• The first two bytes of a TFTP message specify the type of message.
 • The TFTP session is initiated when a TFTP client sends a request to upload or download a file.
• The request is sent from an ephemeral UDP port to the UDP port 69 of an TFTP server.

Difference between FTP and TFTP

S.N. Parameter FTP TFTP

1 Operation Transferring Files Transferring Files

2 Authentication Yes No

3 Protocol TCP UDP

4 Ports 21 – Control, 20 – Data Port 3214, 69, 4012

5 Control and Data Separated Separated

6 Data Transfer Reliable Unreliable

Telnet

Telnet is a protocol used to log in to remote computer on the internet. There are a number of Telnet clients
having user friendly user interface. The following diagram shows a person is logged in to computer A, and
from there, he remote logged into computer B.

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

HTTP is a communication protocol. It defines mechanism for communication between browser and the web
server. It is also called request and response protocol because the communication between browser and
server takes place in request and response pairs.

HTTP Request
HTTP request comprises of lines which contains:
• Request line
 • Header Fields
• Message body
Key Points
• The first line i.e. the Request line specifies the request method i.e. Get or Post.
• The second line specifies the header which indicates the domain name of the server from where
index.htm is retrieved.

HTTP Response
Like HTTP request, HTTP response also has certain structure. HTTP response contains:
• Status line
• Headers
• Message body

-> IP Address
IP address is an address having information about how to reach a specific host, especially outside the
LAN. An IP address is a 32 bit unique address having an address space of 232.
Generally, there are two notations in which IP address is written, dotted decimal notation and hexadecimal
notation.
Dotted Decimal Notation:

Hexadecimal Notation:

Some points to be noted about dotted decimal notation:

1. The value of any segment (byte) is between 0 and 255 (both included).
2. There are no zeroes preceding the value in any segment (054 is wrong, 54 is correct).
Classful Addressing
The 32 bit IP address is divided into five sub-classes. These are:
• Class A
• Class B
• Class C
• Class D
• Class E
Each of these classes has a valid range of IP addresses. Classes D and E are reserved for multicast and
experimental purposes respectively. The order of bits in the first octet determine the classes of IP address.
IPv4 address is divided into two parts:
• Network ID
• Host ID
The class of IP address is used to determine the bits used for network ID and host ID and the number of total
networks and hosts possible in that particular class. Each ISP or network administrator assigns IP address to each
device that is connected to its network.

Note: IP addresses are globally managed by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority(IANA) and regional Internet
registries(RIR).
Note: While finding the total number of host IP addresses, 2 IP addresses are not counted and are therefore,
decreased from the total count because the first IP address of any network is the network number and whereas the
last IP address is reserved for broadcast IP.

Class A:

IP address belonging to class A are assigned to the networks that contain a large number of hosts.
• The network ID is 8 bits long.
• The host ID is 24 bits long.
The higher order bit of the first octet in class A is always set to 0. The remaining 7 bits in first octet are used to
determine network ID. The 24 bits of host ID are used to determine the host in any network. The default subnet
mask for class A is 255.x.x.x. Therefore, class A has a total of:
• 2^7-2= 126 network ID(Here 2 address is subracted because 0.0.0.0 and 127.x.y.z are special address. )
• 2^24 – 2 = 16,777,214 host ID
IP addresses belonging to class A ranges from 1.x.x.x – 126.x.x.x

Class B:

IP address belonging to class B are assigned to the networks that ranges from medium-sized to large-sized
networks.
• The network ID is 16 bits long.
• The host ID is 16 bits long.
The higher order bits of the first octet of IP addresses of class B are always set to 10. The remaining 14 bits are
used to determine network ID. The 16 bits of host ID is used to determine the host in any network. The default
sub-net mask for class B is 255.255.x.x. Class B has a total of:
• 2^14 = 16384 network address
• 2^16 – 2 = 65534 host address
IP addresses belonging to class B ranges from 128.0.x.x – 191.255.x.x.

Class C:

IP address belonging to class C are assigned to small-sized networks.

• The network ID is 24 bits long.
• The host ID is 8 bits long.

The higher order bits of the first octet of IP addresses of class C are always set to 110. The remaining 21
bits are used to determine network ID. The 8 bits of host ID is used to determine the host in any network. The
default sub-net mask for class C is 255.255.255.x. Class C has a total of:

• 2^21 = 2097152 network address

• 2^8 – 2 = 254 host address
IP addresses belonging to class C ranges from 192.0.0.x – 223.255.255.x.
 Class D:

IP address belonging to class D are reserved for multi-casting. The higher order bits of the first octet of IP
addresses belonging to class D are always set to 1110. The remaining bits are for the address that interested hosts
recognize.
Class D does not posses any sub-net mask. IP addresses belonging to class D ranges from 224.0.0.0 –
239.255.255.255.

Class E:

IP addresses belonging to class E are reserved for experimental and research purposes. IP addresses of class E
ranges from 240.0.0.0 – 255.255.255.254. This class doesn’t have any sub-net mask. The higher order bits of first
octet of class E are always set to 1111.

Range of special IP addresses:

169.254.0.0 – 169.254.0.16 : Link local addresses

127.0.0.0 – 127.0.0.8 : Loop-back addresses
0.0.0.0 – 0.0.0.8 : used to communicate within the current network.

Rules for assigning Host ID:

Host ID’s are used to identify a host within a network. The host ID are assigned based on the following rules:

->Within any network, the host ID must be unique to that network.

->Host ID in which all bits are set to 0 cannot be assigned because this host ID is used to represent the network ID
of the IP address.
->Host ID in which all bits are set to 1 cannot be assigned because this host ID is reserved as a broadcast address to
send packets to all the hosts present on that particular network.

Rules for assigning Network ID:

Hosts that are located on the same physical network are identified by the network ID, as all host on the same
physical network is assigned the same network ID. The network ID is assigned based on the following rules:
->The network ID cannot start with 127 because 127 belongs to class A address and is reserved for internal loop-
back functions.
->All bits of network ID set to 1 are reserved for use as an IP broadcast address and therefore, cannot be used.
->All bits of network ID set to 0 are used to denote a specific host on the local network and are not routed and
therefore, aren’t used.
Summary of Classful addressing :
Problems with Classful Addressing:
The problem with this classful addressing method is that millions of class A address are wasted, many of
the class B address are wasted, whereas, number of addresses available in class C is so small that it cannot
cater the needs of organizations. Class D addresses are used for multicast routing and are therefore
available as a single block only. Class E addresses are reserved.
Since there are these problems, Classful networking was replaced by Classless Inter-Domain Routing
(CIDR) in 1993. We will be discussing Classless addressing in next post.

->SUBNET
A subnet, or subnetwork, is a segmented piece of a larger network. More specifically, subnets are a
logical partition of an IP network into multiple, smaller network segments. The Internet Protocol (IP) is the
method for sending data from one computer to another over the internet. Each computer, or host, on the
internet has at least one IP address as a unique identifier.

Organizations will use a subnet to subdivide large networks into smaller, more efficient subnetworks. One goal
of a subnet is to split a large network into a grouping of smaller, interconnected networks to help minimize
traffic. This way, traffic doesn't have to flow through unnecessary routs, increasing network speeds.

Subnetting, the segmentation of a network address space, improves address allocation efficiency. It is
described in the formal document, Request for Comments 950, and is tightly linked to IP addresses, subnet
masks and Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation.
How subnets work

Each subnet allows its connected devices to communicate with each other, while routers are used to communicate between
subnets. The size of a subnet depends on the connectivity requirements and the network technology employed. A point-to-
point subnet allows two devices to connect, while a data center subnet might be designed to connect many more devices.

Each organization is responsible for determining the number and size of the subnets it creates, within the limits of the
address space available for its use. Additionally, the details of subnet segmentation within an organization remain local to
that organization.

An IP address is divided into two fields: a Network Prefix (also called the Network ID) and a Host ID. What separates the
Network Prefix and the Host ID depends on whether the address is a Class A, B or C address. Figure 1 shows an IPv4
Class B address, 172.16.37.5. Its Network Prefix is 172.16.0.0, and the Host ID is 37.5.

The subnet mechanism uses a portion of the Host ID field to identify individual subnets. Figure 2, for example, shows the
third group of the 172.16.0.0 network being used as a Subnet ID. A subnet mask is used to identify the part of the address
that should be used as the Subnet ID. The subnet mask is applied to the full network address using a
binary AND operation. AND operations operate, assuming an output is "true" only when both inputs are "true."
Otherwise, the output is "false." Only when two bits are both 1. This results in the Subnet ID.

Figure 2 shows the AND of the IP address, as well as the mask producing the Subnet ID. Any remaining address bits
identify the Host ID. The subnet in Figure 2 is identified as 172.16.2.0, and the Host ID is 5. In practice, network staff will
typically refer to a subnet by just the Subnet ID. It would be common to hear someone say, "Subnet 2 is having a problem
today," or, "There is a problem with the dot-two subnet."
The Subnet ID is used by routers to determine the best route between subnetworks. Figure 3 shows the 172.16.0.0
network, with the third grouping as the Subnet ID. Four of the 256 possible subnets are shown connected to one router.
Each subnet is identified either by its Subnet ID or the subnet address with the Host ID set to .0. The router interfaces are
assigned the Host ID of .1 -- e.g., 172.16.2.1.

When the router receives a packet addressed to a host on a different subnet than the sender -- host A to host C, for
example -- it knows the subnet mask and uses it to determine the Subnet ID of host C. It examines its routing table to find
the interface connected to host C's subnet and forwards the packet on that interface.

Subnet segmentation

A subnet itself also may be segmented into smaller subnets, giving organizations the flexibility to create smaller subnets
for things like point-to-point links or for subnetworks that support a few devices. The example below uses an 8-bit Subnet
ID. The number of bits in the subnet mask depends on the organization's requirements for subnet size and the number of
subnets. Other subnet mask lengths are common. While this adds some complexity to network addressing, it significantly
improves the efficiency of network address utilization.
A subnet can be delegated to a suborganization, which itself may apply the subnetting process to create additional subnets,
as long as sufficient address space is available. Subnetting performed by a delegated organization is hidden from other
organizations. As a result, the Subnet ID field length and where subnets are assigned can be hidden from the parent
(delegating) organization, a key characteristic that allows networks to be scaled up to large sizes.

In modern routing architectures, routing protocols distribute the subnet mask with routes and provide mechanisms to
summarize groups of subnets as a single routing table entry. Older routing architectures relied on the default Class A, B
and C IP address classification to determine the mask to use. CIDR notation is used to identify Network Prefix and Mask,
where the subnet mask is a number that indicates the number of ones in the Mask (e.g., 172.16.2.0/24). This is also known
as Variable-Length Subnet Masking (VLSM) and CIDR. Subnets and subnetting are used in both IPv4 and IPv6 networks,
based on the same principles.

Beneficial uses of subnets

• Reallocating IP addresses. Each class has a limited number of host allocations; for example, networks with
more than 254 devices need a Class B allocation. If a network administrator is working with a Class B or C
network and needs to allocate 150 hosts for three physical networks located in three different cities, they
would need to either request more address blocks for each network -- or divide a network into subnets that
enable administrators to use one block of addresses on multiple physical networks.

• Relieving network congestion. If much of an organization's traffic is meant to be shared regularly between the
same cluster of computers, placing them on the same subnet can reduce network traffic. Without a
subnet, all computers and servers on the network would see data packets from every other computer.
• Improving network security. Subnetting allows network administrators to reduce network- wide threats by
quarantining compromised sections of the network and by making it more difficult for trespassers to move
around an organization's network.

->Internetworking
Internetworking is combined of 2 words, inter and networking which implies an association between
totally different nodes or segments. This connection area unit is established through intercessor devices akin to
routers or gateway. The first term for associate degree internetwork was catenet. This interconnection is often
among or between public, private, commercial, industrial, or governmental networks. Thus, associate degree
internetwork could be an assortment of individual networks, connected by intermediate networking devices, that
functions as one giant network. Internetworking refers to the trade, products, and procedures that meet the
challenge of making and administering internetworks.
To enable communication, every individual network node or phase is designed with similar protocol or
communication logic, that is Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) or Internet Protocol (IP). Once a network
communicates with another network having constant communication procedures, it’s called Internetworking.
Internetworking was designed to resolve the matter of delivering a packet of information through many links.
There a minute difference between extending the network and Internetworking. Merely exploitation of either a
switch or a hub to attach 2 local area networks is an extension of LAN whereas connecting them via the router is
associate degree example of Internetworking. Internetworking is enforced in Layer three (Network Layer) of OSI-
ISO model. The foremost notable example of internetworking is that the Internet.

There are chiefly 3 unit of Internetworking:

1. Extranet
2. Intranet
3. Internet
Intranets and extranets might or might not have connections to the net. If there is a connection to the net, the
computer network or extranet area unit is usually shielded from being accessed from the net if it is not authorized.
The net isn’t thought-about to be a section of the computer network or extranet, though it should function a portal
for access to parts of associate degree extranet.

1. Extranet – It’s a network of the internetwork that’s restricted in scope to one organization or entity however that
additionally has restricted connections to the networks of one or a lot of different sometimes, however not essential.
It’s very lowest level of Internetworking, usually enforced in an exceedingly personal area. Associate degree
extranet may additionally be classified as a Man, WAN, or different form of network however it cannot encompass
one local area network i.e. it should have a minimum of one reference to associate degree external network.
2. Intranet – This associate degree computer network could be a set of interconnected networks, which exploits the
Internet Protocol and uses IP-based tools akin to web browsers and FTP tools, that’s underneath the management of
one body entity. That body entity closes the computer network to the remainder of the planet and permits solely
specific users. Most typically, this network is the internal network of a corporation or different enterprise. An
outsized computer network can usually have its own internet server to supply users with browseable data.
3. Internet – A selected Internetworking, consisting of a worldwide interconnection of governmental, academic,
public, and personal networks based mostly upon the Advanced analysis comes Agency Network (ARPANET)
developed by ARPA of the U.S. Department of Defense additionally home to the World Wide Web (WWW) and
cited as the ‘Internet’ to differentiate from all different generic Internetworks. Participants within the web, or their
service suppliers, use IP Addresses obtained from address registries that management assignments.
Internetworking has evolved as an answer to a few key problems: isolated LANs, duplication of resources, and an
absence of network management. Isolated LANs created transmission problem between totally different offices or
departments. Duplication of resources meant that constant hardware and code had to be provided to every
workplace or department, as did a separate support employee. This lack of network management meant that no
centralized methodology of managing and troubleshooting networks existed.
One more form of interconnection of networks usually happens among enterprises at the Link Layer of the
networking model, i.e. at the hardware-centric layer below the amount of the TCP/IP logical interfaces. Such
interconnection is accomplished through network bridges and network switches. This can be typically incorrectly
termed internetworking, however, the ensuing system is just a bigger, single subnetwork, and no internetworking
protocol, akin to web Protocol, is needed to traverse these devices.
However, one electronic network is also reborn into associate degree internetwork by dividing the network into
phases and logically dividing the segment traffic with routers. The Internet Protocol is meant to supply an
associate degree unreliable packet service across the network. The design avoids intermediate network
components maintaining any state of the network. Instead, this task is allotted to the endpoints of every
communication session. To transfer information correctly, applications should utilize associate degree applicable
Transport Layer protocol, akin to Transmission management Protocol (TCP), that provides a reliable stream.
Some applications use a less complicated, connection-less transport protocol, User Datagram Protocol (UDP), for
tasks that don’t need reliable delivery of information or that need period of time service, akin to video streaming
or voice chat.

Internetwork Addressing –

Internetwork addresses establish devices severally or as members of a bunch. Addressing schemes differ based on
the protocol family and therefore the OSI layer. Three kinds of internetwork addresses area unit ordinarily used:
data-link layer addresses, Media Access control (MAC) addresses, and network-layer addresses.
1. Data Link Layer addresses: A data-link layer address unambiguously identifies every physical network
association of a network device. Data-link addresses typically area unit cited as physical or hardware addresses.
Data-link addresses sometimes exist among a flat address area and have a pre-established and usually fastened
relationship to a selected device. End systems usually have just one physical network association, and therefore
have just one data-link address. Routers and different internetworking devices usually have multiple physical
network connections and so eventually have multiple data-link addresses.
2. MAC Addresses: Media Access management (MAC) addresses encompass a set of data-link layer addresses.
MAC addresses establish network entities in LANs that implement the IEEE MAC addresses of the data-link layer.
MAC addresses different area unit distinctively for every local area network interface. MAC addresses are forty-
eight bits long and are expressed in form of twelve hexadecimal digits. The primary half dozen hexadecimal digits,
that are usually administered by the IEEE, establish the manufacturer or merchant and therefore comprise the
Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI). The last half dozen positional notation digits comprise the interface serial
variety or another price administered by the particular merchant. MAC addresses typically area unit referred to as
burned-in addresses (BIAs) as a result of burned into read-only memory(ROM) and are traced into random-access
memory (RAM) once the interface card initializes.
3. Network-Layer Addresses: Network addresses sometimes exist among a gradable address area and typically
area unit referred to as virtual or logical addresses. the connection between a network address and a tool is logical
and unfixed, it usually relies either on physical network characteristics or on groupings that don’t have any physical
basis. finish systems need one network-layer address for every network-layer protocol they support. Routers and
different Internetworking devices need one network-layer address per physical network association for every
network-layer protocol supported.

Challenges to Internetworking –

Implementing a useful internetwork isn’t at any certainty. There are several challenging fields, particularly in the
areas of dependableness, connectivity, network management, and adaptability and each and every space is
essential in establishing associate degree economical and effective internetwork. Few of them are:-
 • The initial challenge lies when we are trying to connect numerous systems to support communication between
disparate technologies. For example, Totally different sites might use different kinds of media, or they could
operate at variable speeds.
• Another essential thought is reliable service that should be maintained in an internetwork. Individual users and
whole organizations depend upon consistent, reliable access to network resources.
• Network management should give centralized support associate degreed troubleshooting capabilities in an
internetwork. Configuration, security, performance, and different problems should be adequately addressed for the
internetwork to perform swimmingly.
• Flexibility, the ultimate concern, is important for network enlargement and new applications and services, among
different factors.

4. Transport layer
->Transport Service

Transport protocols occupy layer 4 of the OSI protocol model. The protocols at this level
provide connection-oriented sessions and reliable data delivery services. The transport layer sits
on top of layer 3 networking services. In the Internet Protocol suite, TCP provides transport
services, while IP provides network services. In Novell's SPX/IPX protocol suite, SPX (Sequenced
Packet Exchange) provides transport services, while IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange)
provides network services. NetBIOS is also a transport layer protocol.

Network layer protocols like IP provide best effort services-that is, they deliver packets but don't
guarantee that the packets will actually be delivered. Think about the postal service. It delivers
letters, but you don't know that it was received unless you arrange to have a delivery
confirmation returned to you. Some applications, such as real-time voice and video, do not need
TCP's services. In a real-time stream, it does not make sense to recover a lost packet. Speed of
delivery is more important, so UDP (a limited services transport protocol) is used.

Transport layer protocols provide delivery guarantees that are essential for file transfers and
mission-critical applications. TCP uses IP, but adds the reliability services at the cost of more
overhead and slightly reduced performance. These services operate over a "virtual connection"
that is established between sender and receiver. When a session begins, the sender uses a
handshaking technique to establish a connection with the receiver. During the session, sender
and receiver engage in a dialog that manages the flow of data to prevent from overflowing the
receiver and confirms the receipt of TCP segments. A communication session goes like this:

1. Establish a connection (virtual circuit).

2. Negotiate session parameters.
3. Manage data transfers and ensure that data is reliably delivered.
4. Terminate the connection.

The services provided by transport protocols are listed below with links to appropriate topics.
You should also refer to "TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)" for detailed information on the
Internet's transport protocol. A related section is "UDP (User Datagram Protocol)."

• Connection setup and multiplexing The sender must contact the receiver before its
starts sending data packets. They engage in a three-way handshake operation to establish
the connection, then start transmitting data. A single computer can establish multiple
connections with multiple computers at the same time, a feature called multiplexing (since
 the packets for these different connections are transmitted over the same network
connection). See "Connection Establishment" for details.

• Flow control mechanisms While slow start and congestion control are used to avoid
network congestion, flow controls help prevent the sender from overflowing the receiver
with too much data. These controls are essential because the receiver drops packets when
it is overloaded and those packets must be retransmitted, potentially increasing network
congestion and reducing system performance. See "Flow-Control Mechanisms."

• Slow start and congestion control Once a connection has been made, the sender
starts sending packets, slowly at first so it does not overwhelm the network. If congestion
is not bad, it picks up the pace. This is called "slow start." Later, congestion controls help
the sender scale back if the network gets busy. See "Congestion Control Mechanisms" for
more details.

• Reliability services These services are used to retransmit corrupt, lost, and dropped
packets. Positive acknowledgements confirm to the sender that the recipient actually
received a packet (failure to transmit this acknowledgement means "resend the packet").
Sequencing is used to number packets so that packets can be put back in order and lost
packets can be detected. Error checking detects corrupted packets. Refer to "Reliable Data
Delivery Services" and "TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)" for more information.

->Elements of Transport Protocols

The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) was developed by the ISO (International
Organization for Standardization) in the year 1984. At present, it is considered as an architectural
model of inter-computer communications. The OSI model is a theoretical model of a
telecommunication otherwise computing system that differentiates the functions of communication. In
one computer to another, this model mainly explains how the information can be transmitted from a
software application of one computer to the software application of another computer. This OSI model
includes seven layers where each layer is used for a specific network function. So this article
discusses one of the OSI model layer namely the transport layer.

Transport Layer in the OSI Model

The OSI model divides the entire task into seven layers where every layer can be used for a particular
task because they are self-contained. So, the task assigned to every layer in the OSI model can be
executed independently. The layers in the OSI model mainly separated into two types namely upper
layers & lower layers.
The upper layer is mainly used to deal with the issues based on the application. These are executed
within the software only. The application layer in the model is nearest to the end customer. Both the
application layer & customer interact with the applications of software. The lower layer in the OSI
model deals with the issues of data transport.

What is the Transport Layer?

Definition: The fourth layer in the OSI model is known as the transport layer from the top. This layer
provides the communication services directly to the running application processes on different hosts.
Even though these processes on various hosts are not linked physically, and uses logical
communication to transmit the messages to each other. Here, this layer provides logical
communication.
The protocols of this layer are implemented within the end systems, not in the routers of the network.
A transport layer in the computer network gives above one protocol to the applications of the network.
For instance, the two transport layer protocols like TCP &UDP provides different services to
the network layer. All the protocols in this layer provide different services like multiplexing, de-
multiplexing, reliable data transfer, bandwidth & delay guarantees.

Elements of Transport Layer

The elements of this layer include the following.

Service-point Addressing

Computers frequently run several programs at a time, because of this reason, the delivery of source
to destination in two computers is not possible. So this layer is used for an exact kind of address to its
header which is known as a port address or service point address. Through this address, every
packet arrives at the correct computer & also transport layer attains the total message to the exact
method on that computer.

Segmentation & Reassembly

In a segmentation process, a message can be separated into communicable segments where each
segment includes a sequence number that enables the layer to rebuild the message. Once the
message arrives from the source system to the destination system then the message can be
reassembled properly, packets can be identified and replaced because of the lost data in
transmission.

Connection Control

These are two types namely connectionless and connection-based. In connectionless, the transport
layer treats every packet like an individual & transmits it to the destination computer. In this kind of
transmission, the receiver doesn’t transmit an acceptance to the sender regarding a packet receipt.
This is an earlier communication method.

Connection based Transport Layer

This layer makes a connection with the layer at the destination of the computer before sending the
packets toward the target. The connection can be created by using the following steps:

• Establishment of Connection
• Transfer of Data
• Termination Connection
So connection-based service is used for the entire data transmission, whereas connectionless service
is less consistent

Multiplexing & De-multiplexing

Several packets are transmitted across a system from various applications by using control systems
and these are found within the transport layer. This layer allows packets using different methods, and
these packets are distinguished through their port numbers & transmit them to the layer once adding
correct headers.

In the De-multiplexing process, the data can be obtained which is transmitted from different
processes. It gets the data segments from this layer to deliver it to the suitable method running on the
machine at the receiver end.

Flow Control

The transport layer is also accountable for the flow control between the contiguous layers of
the TCP/IP model. It doesn’t execute across a single link even it executes a continuous node. By
impressive flow control methods, loss of data can be stopped from the sender & slow receiver.
For example, it uses the sliding window protocol technique. In this technique, the receiver transmits a
window back toward the sender to update the received data size.

Error Control
This is also achieved back-to-back similar to the data link layer. In this layer, the total message can
appear at the receiving end of the layer without any fault. The improvement of error can be attained
through the packet re-transmission. The integrity of data can be checked once the data has arrived or
not by using the services like the ACK & NACK to update the sender.

->TCP and UDP Protocols

Common TCP/IP Protocols and Ports

Protocol TCP/UDP Port Number Description

File Transfer Protocol TCP 20/21 FTP is one of the most commonly used file transfer
(FTP) protocols on the Internet and within private networks.
An FTP server can easily be set up with little
(RFC 959)
networking knowledge and provides the ability to
easily relocate files from one system to another. FTP
control is handled on TCP port 21 and its data transfer
can use TCP port 20 as well as dynamic ports
depending on the specific configuration.

Secure Shell (SSH) TCP 22 SSH is the primary method used to manage network
devices securely at the command level. It is typically
(RFC 4250-4256)
used as a secure alternative to Telnet which does not
support secure connections.

Telnet TCP 23 Telnet is the primary method used to manage network

devices at the command level. Unlike SSH which
(RFC 854)
provides a secure connection, Telnet does not, it
simply provides a basic unsecured connection. Many
lower level network devices support Telnet and not
SSH as it required some additional processing.
Caution should be used when connecting to a device
using Telnet over a public network as the login
credentials will be transmitted in the clear.

Simple Mail Transfer TCP 25 SMTP is used for two primary functions, it is used to
Protocol (SMTP) transfer mail (email) from source to destination
between mail servers and it is used by end users to
(RFC 5321)
send email to a mail system.
Domain Name System TCP/UDP 53 The DNS is used widely on the public internet and on
(DNS) private networks to translate domain names into IP
addresses, typically for network routing. DNS is
(RFC 1034-1035)
hieratical with main root servers that contain databases
that list the managers of high level Top Level
Domains (TLD) (such as .com). These different TLD
managers then contain information for the second
level domains that are typically used by individual
users (for example, cisco.com). A DNS server can also
be set up within a private network to private naming
services between the hosts of the internal network
without being part of the global system.

Dynamic Host UDP 67/68 DHCP is used on networks that do not use static IP
Configuration Protocol address assignment (almost all of them). A DHCP
(DHCP) server can be set up by an administrator or engineer
with a poll of addresses that are available for
(RFC 2131)
assignment. When a client device is turned on it can
request an IP address from the local DHCP server, if
there is an available address in the pool it can be
assigned to the device. This assignment is not
permanent and expires at a configurable interval; if an
address renewal is not requested and the lease expires
the address will be put back into the poll for
assignment.

Trivial File Transfer UDP 69 TFTP offers a method of file transfer without the
Protocol (TFTP) session establishment requirements that FTP uses.
Because TFTP uses UDP instead of TCP it has no way
(RFC 1350)
of ensuring the file has been properly transferred, the
end device must be able to check the file to ensure
proper transfer. TFTP is typically used by devices to
upgrade software and firmware; this includes Cisco
and other network vendors’ equipment.

Hypertext Transfer TCP 80 HTTP is one of the most commonly used protocols on
Protocol (HTTP) most networks. HTTP is the main protocol that is used
by web browsers and is thus used by any client that
(RFC 2616)
 uses files located on these servers.

Post Office Protocol TCP 110 POP version 3 is one of the two main protocols used to
(POP) version 3 retrieve mail from a server. POP was designed to be
very simple by allowing a client to retrieve the
(RFC 1939)
complete contents of a server mailbox and then
deleting the contents from the server.

Network Time Protocol UDP 123 One of the most overlooked protocols is NTP. NTP is
(NTP) used to synchronize the devices on the Internet. Even
most modern operating systems support NTP as a
(RFC 5905)
basis for keeping an accurate clock. The use of NTP is
vital on networking systems as it provides an ability to
easily interrelate troubles from one device to another
as the clocks are precisely accurate.

NetBIOS TCP/UDP 137/138/139 NetBIOS itself is not a protocol but is typically used in
combination with IP with the NetBIOS over TCP/IP
(RFC 1001-1002)
(NBT) protocol. NBT has long been the central
protocol used to interconnect Microsoft Windows
machines.

Internet Message TCP 143 IMAP version3 is the second of the main protocols
Access Protocol used to retrieve mail from a server. While POP has
(IMAP) wider support, IMAP supports a wider array of remote
mailbox operations which can be helpful to users.
(RFC 3501)

Simple Network TCP/UDP 161/162 SNMP is used by network administrators as a method

Management Protocol of network management. SNMP has a number of
(SNMP) different abilities including the ability to monitor,
configure and control network devices. SNMP traps
(RFC 1901-1908,
can also be configured on network devices to notify a
3411-3418)
central server when specific actions are occurring.
Typically, these are configured to be used when an
alerting condition is happening. In this situation, the
device will send a trap to network management stating
that an event has occurred and that the device should
 be looked at further for a source to the event.

Border Gateway TCP 179 BGP version 4 is widely used on the public internet
Protocol (BGP) and by Internet Service Providers (ISP) to maintain
very large routing tables and traffic processing. BGP is
(RFC 4271)
one of the few protocols that have been designed to
deal with the astronomically large routing tables that
must exist on the public Internet.

Lightweight Directory TCP/UDP 389 LDAP provides a mechanism of accessing and

Access Protocol maintaining distributed directory information. LDAP
(LDAP) is based on the ITU-T X.500 standard but has been
simplified and altered to work over TCP/IP networks.
(RFC 4510)

Hypertext Transfer TCP 443 HTTPS is used in conjunction with HTTP to provide
Protocol over SSL/TLS the same services but doing it using a secure
(HTTPS) connection which is provided by either SSL or TLS.

(RFC 2818)

Lightweight Directory TCP/UDP 636 Just like HTTPS, LDAPS provides the same function
Access Protocol over as LDAP but over a secure connection which is
TLS/SSL (LDAPS) provided by either SSL or TLS.

(RFC 4513)

FTP over TLS/SSL TCP 989/990 Again, just like the previous two entries, FTP over
TLS/SSL uses the FTP protocol which is then secured
(RFC 4217)
using either SSL or TLS.

User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

is a Transport Layer protocol. UDP is a part of Internet Protocol suite, referred as UDP/IP suite. Unlike
TCP, it is unreliable and connectionless protocol. So, there is no need to establish connection prior to data
transfer.
Though Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the dominant transport layer protocol used with most of Internet
services; provides assured delivery, reliability and much more but all these services cost us with additional
overhead and latency. Here, UDP comes into picture. For the realtime services like computer gaming, voice or
video communication, live conferences; we need UDP. Since high performance is needed, UDP permits packets to
be dropped instead of processing delayed packets. There is no error checking in UDP, so it also save bandwidth.
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is more efficient in terms of both latency and bandwidth.
UDP Header –
UDP header is 8-bytes fixed and simple header, while for TCP it may vary from 20 bytes to 60 bytes. First 8
Bytes contains all necessary header information and remaining part consist of data. UDP port number fields are
each 16 bits long, therefore range for port numbers defined from 0 to 65535; port number 0 is reserved. Port
numbers help to distinguish different user requests or process.

1. Source Port : Source Port is 2 Byte long field used to identify port number of source.
2. Destination Port : It is 2 Byte long field, used to identify the port of destined packet.
3. Length : Length is the length of UDP including header and the data. It is 16-bits field.
4. Checksum : Checksum is 2 Bytes long field. It is the 16-bit one’s complement of the one’s complement
sum of the UDP header, pseudo header of information from the IP header and the data, padded with zero
octets at the end (if necessary) to make a multiple of two octets.
Notes – Unlike TCP, Checksum calculation is not mandatory in UDP. No Error control or flow control is provided
by UDP. Hence UDP depends on IP and ICMP for error reporting.
Applications of UDP:

• Used for simple request response communication when size of data is less and hence there is lesser
concern about flow and error control.
• It is suitable protocol for multicasting as UDP supports packet switching.
• UDP is used for some routing update protocols like RIP(Routing Information Protocol).
• Normally used for real time applications which can not tolerate uneven delays between sections of a
received message.

• Following implementations uses UDP as a transport layer protocol:

->Network Time Protocol:
Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a protocol that synchronizes the clocks of computer systems over data
networks. NTP was designed by David L. Mills. NTP permits network devices to synchronize their time
settings with the NTP server. NTP is one of the most established internet protocols in current use.
->Domain Name System:
DNS resolves a Uniform Resource Locator or website address to the IP address of the site. When users
type a web address into the address bar they rely on DNS servers to resolve the actual IP address of that
destination. DNS translates domain names to IP addresses.
->Routing Information Protocol:
It constrains the number of hops permitted in a path on a network from the source device to the
destination. The maximum number of hops permitted for RIP is fifteen. It is a routing protocol used to
 exchange routing information. It figures the best route based on hop count. It actualizes the split horizon,
route poisoning and, holddown mechanisms.
->Dynamic Host Control Protocol:
Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) uses a server to allocate an IP address and other configuration
information to network devices. As a result, the device is getting a permission slip from the DHCP server
to use the network. DHCP enables users to send a request to the DHCP server whenever they connect to a
network. The server recognizes by providing an IP address to the user. DHCP is also known as RFC
2131.

• Application layer can do some of the tasks through UDP-

• Trace Route
• Record Route
• Time stamp
• UDP takes datagram from Network Layer, attach its header and send it to the user. So, it works fast.
• Actually UDP is null protocol if you remove checksum field.
1. Reduce the requirement of computer resources.
2. When using the Multicast or Broadcast to transfer.
3. The transmission of Real-time packets, mainly in multimedia applications.

->Quality of Service Model

QoS is an overall performance measure of the computer network.

Important flow characteristics of the QoS are given below:

1. Reliability
If a packet gets lost or acknowledgement is not received (at sender), the re-transmission of data
will be needed. This decreases the reliability.
The importance of the reliability can differ according to the application.
For example:
E- mail and file transfer need to have a reliable transmission as compared to that of an audio
conferencing.

2. Delay
Delay of a message from source to destination is a very important characteristic. However, delay
can be tolerated differently by the different applications.
For example:
The time delay cannot be tolerated in audio conferencing (needs a minimum time delay), while
the time delay in the e-mail or file transfer has less importance.

3. Jitter
The jitter is the variation in the packet delay.
If the difference between delays is large, then it is called as high jitter. On the contrary, if the
difference between delays is small, it is known as low jitter.
Example:
Case1: If 3 packets are sent at times 0, 1, 2 and received at 10, 11, 12. Here, the delay is same for all
packets and it is acceptable for the telephonic conversation.
Case2: If 3 packets 0, 1, 2 are sent and received at 31, 34, 39, so the delay is different for all packets.
In this case, the time delay is not acceptable for the telephonic conversation.

4. Bandwidth
 Different applications need the different bandwidth.
For example:
Video conferencing needs more bandwidth in comparison to that of sending an e-mail.

Integrated Services and Differentiated Service

These two models are designed to provide Quality of Service (QoS) in the network.

1. Integrated Services( IntServ)

Integrated service is flow-based QoS model and designed for IP.

In integrated services, user needs to create a flow in the network, from source to destination and needs to
inform all routers (every router in the system implements IntServ) of the resource requirement.

Following are the steps to understand how integrated services works.

I) Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP)

An IP is connectionless, datagram, packet-switching protocol. To implement a flow-based model, a
signaling protocol is used to run over IP, which provides the signaling mechanism to make reservation
(every applications need assurance to make reservation), this protocol is called as RSVP.

ii) Flow Specification

While making reservation, resource needs to define the flow specification. The flow specification
has two parts:
a) Resource specification
It defines the resources that the flow needs to reserve. For example: Buffer, bandwidth,
etc.
b) Traffic specification
It defines the traffic categorization of the flow.

iii) Admit or deny

After receiving the flow specification from an application, the router decides to admit or deny
the service and the decision can be taken based on the previous commitments of the router and
current availability of the resource.

Classification of services

The two classes of services to define Integrated Services are:

a) Guaranteed Service Class

This service guarantees that the packets arrive within a specific delivery time and not discarded, if the
traffic flow maintains the traffic specification boundary.
This type of service is designed for real time traffic, which needs a guaranty of minimum end to end delay.
For example: Audio conferencing.

b) Controlled Load Service Class

This type of service is designed for the applications, which can accept some delays, but are sensitive to
overload network and to the possibility to lose packets.
For example: E-mail or file transfer.

Problems with Integrated Services.

The two problems with the Integrated services are:

i) Scalability
 In Integrated Services, it is necessary for each router to keep information of each flow. But, this
is not always possible due to growing network.

ii) Service- Type Limitation

The integrated services model provides only two types of services, guaranteed and control-load.

2. Differentiated Services (DS or Diffserv):

• DS is a computer networking model, which is designed to achieve the scalability by managing

the network traffic.
• DS is a class based QoS model specially designed for IP.
• DS was designed by IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) to handle the problems of Integrated
Services.
The solutions to handle the problems of Integrated Services are explained below:

1. Scalability
The main processing unit can be moved from central place to the edge of the network to achieve the
scalability. The router does not need to store the information about the flows and the applications (or the
hosts) define the type of services they want every time while sending the packets.

2. Service Type Limitation

The routers, route the packets on the basis of class of services define in the packet and not by the flow. This
method is applied by defining the classes based on the requirement of the applications.

->Best Effort Model

Best-effort delivery describes a network service in which the network does not provide any special
features that recover lost or corrupted packets. These services are instead provided by end systems. By
removing the need to provide these services, the network operates more efficiently. The postal service
delivers letters using a best-effort delivery approach. You don't know for sure whether a letter has been
delivered. However, you can pay extra for a delivery confirmation receipt, which requires that the carrier
get a signature from the recipient and return it to you.

In the TCP/IP protocol suite, TCP provides guaranteed services while IP provides best-effort delivery. TCP
performs the equivalent of obtaining a delivery confirmation from the recipient and returning it to the
sender. Because IP provided basic packet delivery services without guarantees, it is called a best-effort
delivery service. It does its best to deliver packets to the destination, but takes no steps to recover
packets that are lost or misdirected.

The early Internet protocol suite consisted only of TCP and IP (although IP was not differentiated as a
separate service). During development, TCP protocol designers realized a need for timeliness rather than
accuracy. In other words, speed was more important than packet recovery. In real-time voice or video
transfers, a few lost packets are tolerable. Recovering them creates excessive overhead that reduces
performance. To accommodate this type of traffic, TCP was reorganized into TCP, IP, and UDP. The basic
addressing and packet-forwarding services in the network layer were called IP. TCP and UDP are in the
transport layer on top of IP. Both use IP's services, but UDP is a stripped-down version of TCP that
provides applications with access to IP's best-effort services. Applications go through UDP when they don't
need TCP's services.

With best-effort services, packet discard is acceptable because recovery is handled by other
services. The following figure illustrates where discards may occur. In the lower physical and
data link layers, frames may be corrupted and dropped. In the network layer, congested routers
drop packets.

TCP is a reliable data delivery service that end systems use to recover packets that are dropped
in the network due to congestion, or that are dropped at the end system itself due to overflowing
buffers. In the network, packets may be dropped on purpose to "signal" congestion to the
sender. When a packet is dropped in a TCP connection, the receiver fails to acknowledge it and
the sender slows down its transmissions. These mechanisms are discussed further under
"Congestion Control Mechanisms," "Flow-Control Mechanisms," and "Reliable Data Delivery
Services."

->Network Performance Issues

There are myriad reasons behind faulty network performance. Network problems can arise from faulty
hardware such as routers, switches, and firewalls. They can also arise from unexpected usage patterns such
as in the case of network bandwidth spikes that exceed their allocated bandwidth for users, or due to security
breaches, changes in device configuration, etc. Let’s explore seven key network performance issues that
commonly and persistently impact enterprise networks.

#1 High CPU Utilization – The most common cause of high CPU utilization is when your network is bogged
down by enormous network traffic. CPU utilization increases when processes need more time to execute or
when more network packets are sent and received. For instance, if a switch or a router fails to respond or
performs processes very slowly, it’s usually due to high CPU utilization.

#2 Route Flapping – Any misconfiguration on the router, hardware failure, or a loop in the network can cause
route flapping. This is noted as an instability in the routing table where the existence of the route is on and off,
which in turn advertises alternate routes, frequently.

#3 High Network Errors and Discards – Errors indicate packets that were received unprocessed because
there was a problem with the packet. The reasons can be misconfiguration on one end or a bad cable on the
other, etc. But with Discards, the packets are received with no errors but were dumped before being passed on
to a higher layer protocol. Normally, the root cause of discards is when the router wants to recover some buffer
space.

#4 Network Access Link Congestion – If your sales (VoIP) calls are dropping, it means there’s a network
access link congestion. This is a bottleneck between a high bandwidth LAN and a high bandwidth IP network.
An increase in traffic can cause the queue in router to fill, which increases jitter and causes a short term
increase in time delay. High levels of jitter cause excessive numbers of packets to be discarded by the
receiving VoIP system, which leads to degraded voice quality.

#5 Network Link Failure – A link failure typically appears as a period of consecutive packet loss that lasts for
many seconds, followed by a change in delay after the link is re-established. But, routers are capable enough
to find alternate routes if they find a link failure. Regular occurrence of packet loss/link failure could be a
symptom of equipment or power supply reliability problems.

#6 Misconfigured Hardware or Software –The negative effects of misconfiguration may result from a LAN
being oversubscribed or overloaded, but most often they result from overlooked configurations. For instance, a
segment (VLAN) can be easily overloaded by multicast traffic, if multicast traffic constraining techniques are
not properly configured on that VLAN. Such multicast traffic may affect the data transfer rate of all the users in
the network.

#7 Packet Loss – In some cases, a network is considered slow when applications require extended time to
complete an operation that usually runs faster. That slowness is caused by the loss of some packets on the
network, which causes higher-level protocols like TCP to time out and initiate retransmission.

5. Application Layer
->Over View of DNS

An application layer protocol defines how the application processes running on different systems,
pass the messages to each other.

o DNS stands for Domain Name System.

o DNS is a directory service that provides a mapping between the name of a host on the network and
its numerical address.
o DNS is required for the functioning of the internet.
o Each node in a tree has a domain name, and a full domain name is a sequence of symbols specified
by dots.
o DNS is a service that translates the domain name into IP addresses. This allows the users of
networks to utilize user-friendly names when looking for other hosts instead of remembering the IP
addresses.
o For example, suppose the FTP site at EduSoft had an IP address of 132.147.165.50, most people
would reach this site by specifying ftp.EduSoft.com. Therefore, the domain name is more reliable
than IP address.

DNS is a TCP/IP protocol used on different platforms. The domain name space is divided into three
different sections: generic domains, country domains, and inverse domain.
Generic Domains
o It defines the registered hosts according to their generic behavior.
o Each node in a tree defines the domain name, which is an index to the DNS database.
o It uses three-character labels, and these labels describe the organization type.

Label Description

aero Airlines and aerospace companies

biz Businesses or firms

com Commercial Organizations

coop Cooperative business Organizations

edu Educational institutions

gov Government institutions

info Information service providers

int International Organizations

mil Military groups

museum Museum & other nonprofit organizations

name Personal names

net Network Support centers

org Nonprofit Organizations

pro Professional individual Organizations

Country Domain
The format of country domain is same as a generic domain, but it uses two-character country
abbreviations (e.g., us for the United States) in place of three character organizational abbreviations.

Inverse Domain
The inverse domain is used for mapping an address to a name. When the server has received a request
from the client, and the server contains the files of only authorized clients. To determine whether the
client is on the authorized list or not, it sends a query to the DNS server and ask for mapping an address
to the name.

Working of DNS
o DNS is a client/server network communication protocol. DNS clients send requests to the. server
while DNS servers send responses to the client.
o Client requests contain a name which is converted into an IP address known as a forward DNS
lookups while requests containing an IP address which is converted into a name known as reverse
DNS lookups.
o DNS implements a distributed database to store the name of all the hosts available on the internet.
o If a client like a web browser sends a request containing a hostname, then a piece of software such
as DNS resolver sends a request to the DNS server to obtain the IP address of a hostname. If
DNS server does not contain the IP address associated with a hostname, then it forwards the
request to another DNS server. If IP address has arrived at the resolver, which in turn completes
the request over the internet protocol.
->Over View of SNMP
If an organization has 1000 of devices then to check all devices, one by one every day, are working
properly or not is a hectic task. To ease these up, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) –
SNMP is an application layer protocol which uses UDP port number 161/162.SNMP is used to monitor the
network, detect network faults and sometimes even used to configure remote devices.

SNMP components –

There are 3 components of SNMP:

1. SNMP Manager –
It is a centralised system used to monitor network.It is also known as Network Management
Station (NMS)
2. SNMP agent –
It is a software management software module installed on a managed device. Managed devices
can be network devices like PC, router, switches, servers etc.
3. Management Information Base –
MIB consists of information of resources that are to be managed. These information is organised
hierarchically. It consists of objects instances which are essentially variables.

SNMP messages –

Different variables are:

1. GetRequest –
SNMP manager sends this message to request data from SNMP agent. It is simply used to
retrieve data from SNMP agent. In response to this, SNMP agent responds with requested value
through response message.
2. GetNextRequest –
This message can be sent to discover what data is available on a SNMP agent. The SNMP
manager can request for data continuously until no more data is left. In this way, SNMP manager
can take knowledge of all the available data on SNMP agent.
3. GetBulkRequest –
This message is used to retrieve large data at once by the SNMP manager from SNMP agent. It is
introduced in SNMPv2c.
4. SetRequest –
It is used by SNMP manager to set the value of an object instance on the SNMP agent.
5. Response –
It is a message send from agent upon a request from manager. When sent in response to Get
messages, it will contain the data requested. When sent in response to Set message, it will
contain the newly set value as confirmation that the value has been set.
6. Trap –
These are the message send by the agent without being requested by the manager. It is sent when
a fault has occurred.
7. InformRequest –
It was introduced in SNMPv2c, used to identify if the trap message has been received by the
manager or not. The agents can be configured to set trap continuously until it receives an Inform
message. It is same as trap but adds an acknowledgement that trap doesn’t provide.

SNMP security levels –

It defines the type of security algorithm performed on SNMP packets. These are used in only SNMPv3. There are
3 security levels namely:
1. noAuthNoPriv –
This (no authentication, no privacy) security level uses community string for authentication and
no encryption for privacy.
2. authNopriv –
This security level (authentication, no privacy) uses HMAC with Md5 for authentication and no
encryption is used for privacy.
3. authPriv –
This security level (authentication, privacy) uses HMAC with Md5 or SHA for authentication
and encryption uses DES-56 algorithm.

SNMP versions –

There are 3 versions of SNMP:

1. SNMPv1 –
It uses community strings for authentication and use UDP only.
2. SNMPv2c –
It uses community strings for authentication. It uses UDP but can be configured to use TCP.
3. SNMPv3 –
It uses Hash based MAC with MD5 or SHA for authentication and DES-56 for privacy.This
version uses TCP. Therefore, conclusion is the higher the version of SNMP, more secure it will
be.

->Electronic mail
Electronic Mail (e-mail) is one of most widely used services of Internet. This service allows an Internet
user to send a message in formatted manner (mail) to the other Internet user in any part of world. Message in
mail not only contain text, but it also contains images, audio and videos data. The person who is sending mail is
called sender and person who receives mail is called recipient. It is just like postal mail service.
Components of E-Mail System :
The basic components of an email system are : User Agent (UA), Message Transfer Agent (MTA), Mail Box, and
Spool file. These are explained as following below.

1. User Agent (UA) :

The UA is normally a program which is used to send and receive mail. Sometimes, it is called as mail
reader. It accepts variety of commands for composing, receiving and replying to messages as well as for
manipulation of the mailboxes.

2. Message Transfer Agent (MTA) :

MTA is actually responsible for transfer of mail from one system to another. To send a mail, a system
must have client MTA and system MTA. It transfer mail to mailboxes of recipients if they are connected
in the same machine. It delivers mail to peer MTA if destination mailbox is in another machine. The
delivery from one MTA to another MTA is done by Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
 3. Mailbox :
It is a file on local hard drive to collect mails. Delivered mails are present in this file. The user can read it
delete it according to his/her requirement. To use e-mail system each user must have a mailbox . Access
to mailbox is only to owner of mailbox.

4. Spool file :
This file contains mails that are to be sent. User agent appends outgoing mails in this file using SMTP.
MTA extracts pending mail from spool file for their delivery. E-mail allows one name, an alias, to
represent several different e-mail addresses. It is known as mailing list, Whenever user have to sent a
message, system checks recipients’s name against alias database. If mailing list is present for defined
alias, separate messages, one for each entry in the list, must be prepared and handed to MTA. If for
defined alias, there is no such mailing list is present, name itself becomes naming address and a single
message is delivered to mail transfer entity.
Services provided by E-mail system :
• Composition –
The composition refer to process that creates messages and answers. For composition any kind of text
editor can be used.
• Transfer –
Transfer means sending procedure of mail i.e. from the sender to recipient.
• Reporting –
Reporting refers to confirmation for delivery of mail. It help user to check whether their mail is delivered,
lost or rejected.
• Displaying –
It refers to present mail in form that is understand by the user.
• Disposition –
This step concern with recipient that what will recipient do after receiving mail i.e save mail, delete
before reading or delete after reading.
->Over view of Ftp
File Transfer Protocol(FTP) is an application layer protocol which moves files between local and remote
file systems. It runs on the top of TCP, like HTTP. To transfer a file, 2 TCP connections are used by FTP in
parallel: control connection and data connection.

What is control connection?

For sending control information like user identification, password, commands to change the remote
directory, commands to retrieve and store files, etc., FTP makes use of control connection. The control
connection is initiated on port number 21.
What is data connection?
For sending the actual file, FTP makes use of data connection. A data connection is initiated on port
number 20.
FTP sends the control information out-of-band as it uses a separate control connection. Some protocols
send their request and response header lines and the data in the same TCP connection. For this reason, they
are said to send their control information in-band. HTTP and SMTP are such examples.

FTP Session :
When a FTP session is started between a client and a server, the client initiates a control TCP connection with the
server side. The client sends control information over this. When the server receives this, it initiates a data
connection to the client side. Only one file can be sent over one data connection. But the control connection
remains active throughout the user session. As we know HTTP is stateless i.e. it does not have to keep track of any
user state. But FTP needs to maintain a state about its user throughout the session.

Data Structures : FTP allows three types of data structures :

1. File Structure – In file-structure there is no internal structure and the file is considered to be a
continuous sequence of data bytes.
2. Record Structure – In record-structure the file is made up of sequential records.
3. Page Structure – In page-structure the file is made up of independent indexed pages.
FTP Commands – Some of the FTP commands are :

USER – This command sends the user identification to the server.

PASS – This command sends the user password to the server.

CWD – This command allows the user to work with a different directory or dataset for file storage or retrieval
without altering his login or accounting information.

RMD – This command causes the directory specified in the path-name to be removed as a directory.

MKD – This command causes the directory specified in the pathname to be created as a directory.

PWD – This command causes the name of the current working directory to be returned in the reply.

RETR – This command causes the remote host to initiate a data connection and to send the requested file over the
data connection.

STOR – This command causes to store a file into the current directory of the remote host.

LIST – Sends a request to display the list of all the files present in the directory.

ABOR – This command tells the server to abort the previous FTP service command and any associated transfer of
data.

QUIT – This command terminates a USER and if file transfer is not in progress, the server closes the control
connection.

FTP Replies – Some of the FTP replies are :

200 Command okay.
530 Not logged in.
331 User name okay, need a password.
225 Data connection open; no transfer in progress.
221 Service closing control connection.
551 Requested action aborted: page type unknown.
502 Command not implemented.
503 Bad sequence of commands.
504 Command not implemented for that parameter.

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP): It is also file transfer protocol without sophisticated features of FTP.
• It is good for simple file transfers, such as during boot time.
• It uses UDP as transport layer protocols. Errors in the transmission (lost packets, checksum errors) must
be handled by the TFTP server.
• It uses only one connection through well known port 69.
• TFTP uses a simple lock-step protocol (each data packet needs to be acknowledged). Thus the
throughput is limited

Anonymous FTP :
Anonymous FTP is enabled on some sites whose files are available for public access. A user can access
these files without having any username or password. Instead, the username is set to anonymous and
password to the guest by default. Here, user access is very limited. For example, the user can be allowed to
copy the files but not to navigate through directories.
->Over view of TFTP

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a network protocol used to transfer files between hosts in a TCP/IP
network. It is a simpler version of FTP and it doesn’t have all of its functions; for example, you can not list, delete, or
rename files or directories on a remote server. In fact, TFTP can only be used to send and receive files between the two
computers. TFTP doesn’t support user authentication and all data is sent in clear text.
The only real advantage that TFTP has over FTP is that it uses less resources. It is not widely used today, but Cisco does
still use it on its devices, for example to backup a router’s IOS image.
Consider the following example:

A user wants to transfer files from Host A to the router R1. R1 is a Cisco device and it has a TFTP server installed. The
user will start an TFTP client program and initiate the data transfer.

->Overview of BOOTP
Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP) is a TCP/IP protocol and service that allows diskless workstations
to obtain their IP address and their boot image file from a server.

What is BOOTP (Bootstrap protocol)?

BOOTP stands for Bootstrap protocol, is a TCP/IP protocol and service that allows diskless workstations to
obtain their IP address, other TCP/IP configuration information, and their boot image file from a bootstrap
protocol (BOOTP) server.

The network interface card (NIC) on these diskless workstations contains a programmable read-only memory
(PROM) chip containing code necessary to initialize the client.

How does BOOTP Work?

When a BOOTP client is started, it has no IP address, so it broadcasts a message containing its MAC address
onto the network. This message is called a “BOOTP request,” and it is picked up by the BOOTP server, which
replies to the client with the following information that the client needs:

• The client’s IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway address

• The IP address and host name of the BOOTP server
• The IP address of the server that has the boot image, which the client needs to load its operating
system

When the client receives this information from the BOOTP server, it configures and initializes its TCP/IP
protocol stack, and then connects to the server on which the boot image is shared. The client loads the boot
image and uses this information to load and start its operating system.
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) was developed as an extension of BOOTP. BOOTP is
defined in Request for Comments (RFC) 951 and 1084.

Bootstrap
Protocol (BOOTP)

The term “bootstrap protocol”

The term “bootstrap protocol” (or “boot protocol”) comes from the idea of lifting yourself up by your own
bootstraps—something that is obviously difficult to do. In other words, how does a client machine start up when
it initially has neither an IP address nor an operating system? BOOTP makes this difficult task possible.

Windows NT doesn’t support BOOTP

Microsoft Windows NT supports DHCP but not BOOTP. Windows NT Service Pack 3 and later provides some
support for BOOTP clients, as does Microsoft Windows 2000. See the readme.txt file for Service Pack 3 for
more details.

->HTTP PROTOCOL

HTTP
o HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.
o It is a protocol used to access the data on the World Wide Web (www).
o The HTTP protocol can be used to transfer the data in the form of plain text, hypertext, audio,
video, and so on.
o This protocol is known as HyperText Transfer Protocol because of its efficiency that allows us to use
in a hypertext environment where there are rapid jumps from one document to another document.
 o HTTP is similar to the FTP as it also transfers the files from one host to another host. But, HTTP is
simpler than FTP as HTTP uses only one connection, i.e., no control connection to transfer the files.
o HTTP is used to carry the data in the form of MIME-like format.
o HTTP is similar to SMTP as the data is transferred between client and server. The HTTP differs from
the SMTP in the way the messages are sent from the client to the server and from server to the
client. SMTP messages are stored and forwarded while HTTP messages are delivered immediately.

Features of HTTP:
o Connectionless protocol: HTTP is a connectionless protocol. HTTP client initiates a request and
waits for a response from the server. When the server receives the request, the server processes
the request and sends back the response to the HTTP client after which the client disconnects the
connection. The connection between client and server exist only during the current request and
response time only.
o Media independent: HTTP protocol is a media independent as data can be sent as long as both
the client and server know how to handle the data content. It is required for both the client and
server to specify the content type in MIME-type header.
o Stateless: HTTP is a stateless protocol as both the client and server know each other only during
the current request. Due to this nature of the protocol, both the client and server do not retain the
information between various requests of the web pages.

HTTP Transactions

The above figure shows the HTTP transaction between client and server. The client initiates a transaction
by sending a request message to the server. The server replies to the request message by sending a
response message.
Messages
HTTP messages are of two types: request and response. Both the message types follow the same message
format.

Request Message: The request message is sent by the client that consists of a request line, headers, and
sometimes a body.

Response Message: The response message is sent by the server to the client that consists of a status
line, headers, and sometimes a body.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
o A client that wants to access the document in an internet needs an address and to facilitate the
access of documents, the HTTP uses the concept of Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
o The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a standard way of specifying any kind of information on the
internet.
o The URL defines four parts: method, host computer, port, and path.

o Method: The method is the protocol used to retrieve the document from a server. For example,
HTTP.
o Host: The host is the computer where the information is stored, and the computer is given an alias
name. Web pages are mainly stored in the computers and the computers are given an alias name
that begins with the characters "www". This field is not mandatory.
o Port: The URL can also contain the port number of the server, but it's an optional field. If the port
number is included, then it must come between the host and path and it should be separated from
the host by a colon.
o Path: Path is the pathname of the file where the information is stored. The path itself contain
slashes that separate the directories from the subdirectories and files.

->World Wide Web

The World Wide Web abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as the web. The WWW was initiated
by CERN (European library for Nuclear Research) in 1989.

History:
It is a project created, by Timothy Berner’s Lee in 1989, for researchers to work together effectively at CERN. is
an organisation, named World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), was developed for further development in web.
This organisation is directed by Tim Berner’s Lee, aka father of web.

System Architecture:
From user’s point of view, the web consists of a vast, worldwide connection of documents or web pages. Each
page may contain links to other pages anywhere in the world. The pages can be retrieved and viewed by using
browsers of which internet explorer, Netscape Navigator, Google, Chrome, etc are the popular ones. The browser
fetches the page requested interprets the text and formatting commands on it, and displays the page, properly
formatted, on the screen.
The basic model of how the web works is shown in figure below. Here the browser is displaying a web page on
the client machine. When the user clicks on a line of text that is linked to a page on the abd.com server, the
browser follows the hyperlink by sending a message to the abd.com server asking it for the page.
Here the browser displaying web page om the client machine when the user clicks on a line of text that is linked to
a page on abd.com, the vbrowser follows the hyperlink by sending a message to abd.com server asking it for the
page.

Working of WWW:
The World Wide Web is based on several different technologies : Web browsers, Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
An Web browser is used to access webpages. Web browsers can be defined as programs which display text, data,
pictures, animation and video on the Internet. Hyperlinked resources on the World Wide Web can be accessed
using software interface provided by Web browsers. Initially Web browsers were used only for surfing the Web
but now they have become more universal. Web browsers can be used for several tasks including conducting
searches, mailing, transferring files, and much more. Some of the commonly used browsers are Internet Explorer,
Opera Mini, Google Chrome.

Features of WWW:
• HyperText Information System
• Cross-Platform
• Distributed
• Open Standards and Open Source
• Uses Web Browsers to provide a single interface for many services
• Dynamic, Interactive and Evolving.
• “Web 2.0”

Components of Web
There are 3 components of web:
1. Uniform Resource Locator (URL): serves as system for resources on web.
2. HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP): specifies communication of browser and server.
3. Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML): defines structure, organisation and content of webpage.

->Firewalls
A firewall is a network security device, either hardware or software-based, which monitors all incoming
and outgoing traffic and based on a defined set of security rules it accepts, rejects or drops that specific traffic.
Accept : allow the traffic
Reject : block the traffic but reply with an “unreachable error”
Drop : block the traffic with no reply
A firewall establishes a barrier between secured internal networks and outside untrusted network, such as the
Internet.

History and Need for Firewall

Before Firewalls, network security was performed by Access Control Lists (ACLs) residing on routers. ACLs are
rules that determine whether network access should be granted or denied to specific IP address.
But ACLs cannot determine the nature of the packet it is blocking. Also, ACL alone does not have the capacity to
keep threats out of the network. Hence, the Firewall was introduced.
Connectivity to the Internet is no longer optional for organizations. However, accessing the Internet provides
benefits to the organization; it also enables the outside world to interact with the internal network of the
organization. This creates a threat to the organization. In order to secure the internal network from unauthorized
traffic, we need a Firewall.
How Firewall Works
Firewall match the network traffic against the rule set defined in its table. Once the rule is matched, associate
action is applied to the network traffic. For example, Rules are defined as any employee from HR department
cannot access the data from code server and at the same time another rule is defined like system administrator can
access the data from both HR and technical department. Rules can be defined on the firewall based on the
necessity and security policies of the organization.
From the perspective of a server, network traffic can be either outgoing or incoming. Firewall maintains a distinct
set of rules for both the cases. Mostly the outgoing traffic, originated from the server itself, allowed to pass. Still,
setting a rule on outgoing traffic is always better in order to achieve more security and prevent unwanted
communication.
Incoming traffic is treated differently. Most traffic which reaches on the firewall is one of these three major
Transport Layer protocols- TCP, UDP or ICMP. All these types have a source address and destination address.
Also, TCP and UDP have port numbers. ICMP uses type code instead of port number which identifies purpose of
that packet.
Default policy: It is very difficult to explicitly cover every possible rule on the firewall. For this reason, the
firewall must always have a default policy. Default policy only consists of action (accept, reject or drop).
Suppose no rule is defined about SSH connection to the server on the firewall. So, it will follow the default policy.
If default policy on the firewall is set to accept, then any computer outside of your office can establish an SSH
connection to the server. Therefore, setting default policy as drop (or reject) is always a good practice.

Generation of Firewall
Firewalls can be categorized based on its generation.
1. First Generation- Packet Filtering Firewall : Packet filtering firewall is used to control network
access by monitoring outgoing and incoming packet and allowing them to pass or stop based on source
and destination IP address, protocols and ports. It analyses traffic at the transport protocol layer (but
mainly uses first 3 layers).
Packet firewalls treat each packet in isolation. They have no ability to tell whether a packet is part of an
existing stream of traffic. Only It can allow or deny the packets based on unique packet headers.

Packet filtering firewall maintains a filtering table which decides whether the packet will be forwarded or
discarded. From the given filtering table, the packets will be Filtered according to following rules:

1. Incoming packets from network 192.168.21.0 are blocked.

2. Incoming packets destined for internal TELNET server (port 23) are blocked.
3. Incoming packets destined for host 192.168.21.3 are blocked.
4. All well-known services to the network 192.168.21.0 are allowed.
2. Second Generation- Stateful Inspection Firewall : Stateful firewalls (performs Stateful Packet
Inspection) are able to determine the connection state of packet, unlike Packet filtering firewall, which
makes it more efficient. It keeps track of the state of networks connection travelling across it, such as TCP
streams. So the filtering decisions would not only be based on defined rules, but also on packet’s history in
the state table.
3. Third Generation- Application Layer Firewall : Application layer firewall can inspect and filter the
packets on any OSI layer, up to the application layer. It has the ability to block specific content, also
recognize when certain application and protocols (like HTTP, FTP) are being misused.
In other words, Application layer firewalls are hosts that run proxy servers. A proxy firewall prevents the
direct connection between either side of the firewall, each packet has to pass through the proxy. It can
allow or block the traffic based on predefined rules.
Note: Application layer firewalls can also be used as Network Address Translator(NAT).
4. Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) : Next Generation Firewalls are being deployed these days to stop
modern security breaches like advance malware attacks and application-layer attacks. NGFW consists of
Deep Packet Inspection, Application Inspection, SSL/SSH inspection and many functionalities to protect
the network from these modern threats.
Types of Firewall
Firewalls are generally of two types: Host-based and Network-based.

1. Host- based Firewalls : Host-based firewall is installed on each network node which controls each
incoming and outgoing packet. It is a software application or suite of applications, comes as a part of the
operating system. Host-based firewalls are needed because network firewalls cannot provide protection
inside a trusted network. Host firewall protects each host from attacks and unauthorized access.
2. Network-based Firewalls : Network firewall function on network level. In other words, these firewalls
filter all incoming and outgoing traffic across the network. It protects the internal network by filtering the
 traffic using rules defined on the firewall. A Network firewall might have two or more network interface
cards (NICs). A network-based firewall is usually a dedicated system with proprietary software installed.

6. Network Devices
->Over View of Repeaters
Repeaters are network devices operating at physical layer of the OSI model that amplify or regenerate
an incoming signal before retransmitting it. They are incorporated in networks to expand its coverage area.
They are also known as signal boosters.

Why are Repeaters needed?

When an electrical signal is transmitted via a channel, it gets attenuated depending upon the nature of the
channel or the technology. This poses a limitation upon the length of the LAN or coverage area of cellular
networks. This problem is alleviated by installing repeaters at certain intervals.
Repeaters amplifies the attenuated signal and then retransmits it. Digital repeaters can even reconstruct
signals distorted by transmission loss.So, repeaters are popularly incorporated to connect between two LANs
thus forming a large single LAN. This is shown in the following diagram −
Types of Repeaters
According to the types of signals that they regenerate, repeaters can be classified into two categories −

• Analog Repeaters − They can only amplify the analog signal.

• Digital Repeaters − They can reconstruct a distorted signal.
According to the types of networks that they connect, repeaters can be categorized into two types −

• Wired Repeaters − They are used in wired LANs.

• Wireless Repeaters − They are used in wireless LANs and cellular networks.
According to the domain of LANs they connect, repeaters can be divided into two categories −

• Local Repeaters − They connect LAN segments separated by small distance.

• Remote Repeaters − They connect LANs that are far from each other.
Advantages of Repeaters
• Repeaters are simple to install and can easily extend the length or the coverage area of networks.
• They are cost effective.
• Repeaters don’t require any processing overhead. The only time they need to be investigated is in case
of degradation of performance.
• They can connect signals using different types of cables.
Disadvantages of Repeaters
• Repeaters cannot connect dissimilar networks.
• They cannot differentiate between actual signal and noise.
• They cannot reduce network traffic or congestion.
• Most networks have limitations upon the number of repeaters that can be deployed.

->Over view of Bridge

A bridge is a network device that connects multiple LANs (local area networks) together to form a larger
LAN. The process of aggregating networks is called network bridging. A bridge connects the different
components so that they appear as parts of a single network. Bridges operate at the data link layer of the OSI
model and hence also referred as Layer 2 switches.
The following diagram shows a bridges connecting two LANs −
Uses of Bridge

• Bridges connects two or more different LANs that has a similar protocol and provides communication
between the devices (nodes) in them.
• By joining multiple LANs, bridges help in multiplying the network capacity of a single LAN.
• Since they operate at data link layer, they transmit data as data frames. On receiving a data frame, the
bridge consults a database to decide whether to pass, transmit or discard the frame.
o If the frame has a destination MAC (media access control) address in the same network, the
bridge passes the frame to that node and then discards it.
o If the frame has a destination MAC address in a connected network, it will forward the frame
toward it.
• By deciding whether to forward or discard a frame, it prevents a single faulty node from bringing down
the entire network.
• In cases where the destination MAC address is not available, bridges can broadcast data frames to
each node. To discover new segments, they maintain the MAC address table.
• In order to provide full functional support, bridges ideally need to be transparent. No major hardware,
software or architectural changes should be required for their installation.
• Bridges can switch any kind of packets, be it IP packets or AppleTalk packets, from the network layer
above. This is because bridges do not examine the payload field of the data frame that arrives, but
simply looks at the MAC address for switching.
• Bridges also connect virtual LANs (VLANs) to make a larger VLAN.
• A wireless bridge is used to connect wireless networks or networks having a wireless segment.

->Over view of Routers

The router is a physical or virtual internetworking device that is designed to receive, analyze, and
forward data packets between computer networks. A router examines a destination IP address of a given
data packet, and it uses the headers and forwarding tables to decide the best way to transfer the packets.
There are some popular companies that develop routers; such are Cisco, 3Com, HP, Juniper, D-
Link, Nortel, etc. Some important points of routers are given below:

o A router is used in LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) environments. For
example, it is used in offices for connectivity, and you can also establish the connection between
distant networks such as from Bhopal to
o It shares information with other routers in networking.
o It uses the routing protocol to transfer the data across a network.
o Furthermore, it is more expensive than other networking devices like switches and hubs.
A router works on the third layer of the OSI model, and it is based on the IP address of a computer. It
uses protocols such as ICMP to communicate between two or more networks. It is also known as
an intelligent device as it can calculate the best route to pass the network packets from source to the
destination automatically.

A virtual router is a software function or software-based framework that performs the same functions as a
physical router. It may be used to increase the reliability of the network by virtual router redundancy
protocol, which is done by configuring a virtual router as a default gateway. A virtual router runs on
commodity servers, and it is packaged with alone or other network functions, like load balancing, firewall
packet filtering, and wide area network optimization capabilities.

Why Routers?
A router is more capable as compared to other network devices, such as a hub, switch, etc., as these
devices are only able to execute the basic functions of the network. For example, a hub is a basic
networking device that is mainly used to forward the data between connected devices, but it cannot
analyze or change anything with the transferring data. On the other hand, the router has the capability to
analyze and modify the data while transferring it over a network, and it can send it to another network.
For example, generally, routers allow sharing a single network connection between multiple devices.

How does Router work?

A router analyzes a destination IP address of a given packet header and compares it with the routing table
to decide the packet's next path. The list of routing tables provides directions to transfer the data to a
particular network destination. They have a set of rules that compute the best path to forward the data to
the given IP address.

Routers use a modem such as a cable, fiber, or DSL modem to allow communication between other
devices and the internet. Most of the routers have several ports to connect different devices to the
internet at the same time. It uses the routing tables to determine where to send data and from where
the traffic is coming.
A routing table mainly defines the default path used by the router. So, it may fail to find the best way to
forward the data for a given packet. For example, the office router along a single default path instructs all
networks to its internet services provider.

There are two types of tables in the router that are static and dynamic. The static routing tables are
configured manually, and the dynamic routing tables are updated automatically by dynamic routers based
on network activity.

Features of Router
o A router works on the 3rd layer (Network Layer) of the OSI model, and it is able to communicate
with its adjacent devices with the help of IP addresses and subnet.
o A router provides high-speed internet connectivity with the different types of ports like gigabit,
fast-Ethernet, and STM link port.
o It allows the users to configure the port as per their requirements in the network.
o Routers' main components are central processing unit (CPU), flash memory, RAM, Non-Volatile
RAM, console, network, and interface card.
o Routers are capable of routing the traffic in a large networking system by considering the sub-
network as an intact network.
o Routers filter out the unwanted interference, as well as carry out the data encapsulation and
decapsulation process.
o Routers provide the redundancy as it always works in master and slave mode.
o It allows the users to connect several LAN and WAN.
o Furthermore, a router creates various paths to forward the data.

Applications of Routers
There are various areas where a router is used:

o Routers are used to connect hardware equipment with remote location networks like BSC, MGW,
IN, SGSN, and other servers.
o It provides support for a fast rate of data transmission because it uses high STM links for
connectivity; that's why it is used in both wired or wireless communication.
 o Internet service providers widely use routers to send the data from source to destination in the
form of e-mail, a web page, image, voice, or a video file. Furthermore, it can send data all over the
world with the help of an IP address of the destination.
o Routers offer access restrictions. It can be configured in a way that allows for few users to access
the overall data and allows others to access the few data only, which is defined for them.
o Routers are also used by software testers for WAN communications. For example, the software
manager of an organization is located in Agra, and its executive is located at a different place like
Pune or Bangalore. Then the router provides the executive the method to share his software tools
and other applications with the manager with the help of routers by connecting their PCs to the
router using WAN architecture.
o In wireless networks, by configuring VPN in routers, it can be used in the client-server model,
which allows sharing the internet, video, data, voice, and hardware resources. As shown in the
below picture:

o In modern times, routers have the facility of inbuilt USB ports within the hardware. They have
enough internal storage capacity. External storage devices can be used with routers to store and
share data.
o Routers are used to set up the operation and maintenance center of an organization, which is
known as the NOC center. All equipment at a distant location are connected by routers on optical
cable at a central location, which also offer redundancy through the main link and protection link
topology.

Types of Routers
There are various types of routers in networking; such are given below:

1. Wireless Router: Wireless routers are used to offer Wi-Fi connectivity to laptops, smartphones, and
other devices with Wi-Fi network capabilities, and it can also provide standard ethernet routing for a small
number of wired network systems.
Wireless routers are capable of generating a wireless signal in your home or office, and it allows the
computers to connect with routers within a range, and use the internet. If the connection is indoors, the
range of the wireless router is about 150 feet, and when the connection is outdoors, then its range is up to
300 feet.

Furthermore, you can make more secure wireless routers with a password or get your IP address.
Thereafter, you can log in to your router by using a user ID and password that will come with your router.

2. Brouter: A brouter is a combination of the bridge and a router. It allows transferring the data between
networks like a bridge. And like a router, it can also route the data within a network to the individual
systems. Thus, it combines these two functions of bridge and router by routing some incoming data to the
correct systems while transferring the other data to another network.

3. Core router: A core router is a type of router that can route the data within a network, but it is not
able to route the data between the networks. It is a computer communication system device and the
backbone of networks, as it helps to link all network devices. It is used by internet service providers
(ISPs), and it also provides various types of fast and powerful data communication interfaces.

4. Edge router: An edge router is a lower-capacity device that is placed at the boundary of a network. It
allows an internal network to connect with the external networks. It is also called as an access router. It
uses an External BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) to provides connectivity with remote networks over the
internet.

There are two types of edge routers in networking:

o Subscriber edge router

o Label edge router

The subscriber edge router belongs to an end-user organization, and it works in a situation where it
acts on a border device.

The label edge router is used in the boundary of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks. It acts
as a gateway between the LAN, WAN, or the internet.

5. Broadband routers: Broadband routers are mainly used to provide high-speed internet access to
computers. It is needed when you connect to the internet through phone and use voice over IP technology
(VOIP).

All broadband routers have the option of three or four Ethernet ports for connecting the laptop and
desktop systems. A broadband router is configured and provided by the internet service provider (ISP). It
is also known as a broadband modem, asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), or digital subscriber
line (DSL) modem.

Benefits of Router
There are so many benefits of a router, which are given below:

o Security: Router provides the security, as LANs work in broadcast mode. The information is
transmitted over the network and traverses the entire cable system. Although the data is available
to each station, but the station which is specifically addressed reads the data.
o Performance enhancement: It enhances the performance within the individual network. For
example, if a network has 14 workstations, and all generate approximately the same volume of
traffic. The traffic of 14 workstations runs through the same cable in a single network. But if the
network is divided into two sub-networks each with 7 workstations, then a load of traffic is reduced
 to half. As each of the networks has its own servers and hard disk, so fewer PCs will need the
network cabling system.
o Reliability: Routers provide reliability. If one network gets down when the server has stopped, or
there is a defect in the cable, then the router services, and other networks will not be affected. The
routers separate the affected network, whereas the unaffected networks remain connected, without
interrupting the work and any data loss.
o Networking Range: In networking, a cable is used to connect the devices, but its length cannot
exceed 1000 meters. A router can overcome this limitation by performing the function of a repeater
(Regenerating the signals). The physical range can be as per the requirement of a particular
installation, as long as a router is installed before the maximum cable range exceeds.

Routing Protocols
Routing protocols specify a way for the router to identify other routers on the network and make dynamic
decisions to send all network messages. There are several protocols, which are given below:

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF): It is used to calculate the best route for the given packets to reach
the destination, as they move via a set of connected networks. It is identified by the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) as Interior Gateway Protocol.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP): It helps manage how packets are routed on the internet via exchange
of information between edge routers. It provides network stability for routers if one internet connection
goes down while forwarding the packets, it can adapt another network connection quickly to send the
packets.

Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP): It specifies how routing information will be exchanged
between gateways within an independent network. Then, the other network protocols can use the routing
information to determine how transmissions should be routed.

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP): In this protocol, if a router is unable to find a
path to a destination from the tables, it asks route to its neighbors, and they pass the query to their
neighbors until a router has found the path. When the entry of routing table changes in one of the routers,
it informs its neighbors only about the changes, but do not send the entire table.

Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP): It decides how routing information can be exchanged between two
neighbor gateway hosts, each of which has its own router. Additionally, it is commonly used to exchange
routing table information between hosts on the internet.

Routing Information Protocol (RIP): It determines how routers can share information while
transferring traffic among connected group of local area networks. The maximum number of hops that can
be allowed for RIP is 15, which restricts the size of networks that RIP can support.

Difference between Bridge and Router

Bridge Router

A bridge is a networking device that is used A router is also a networking device that sends
to connect two local area networks (LANs) by the data from one network to another network
using media access control addresses and with the help of their IP addresses.
transmit the data between them.
 A bridge is able to connect only two different A router is capable of connecting the LAN and WAN.
LAN segments.

A bridge transfers the data in the form of A router transfers the data in the form of packets.
frames.

It sends data based on the MAC address of a It sends data based on the IP address of a device.
device.

The bridge has only one port to connect the The router has several ports to connect the devices.
device.

The bridge does not use any table to forward The router uses a routing table to send the data.
the data.

Difference between Hub, Switch, and Router

There are three primarily networking devices that connect the computers from one to another. These
devices are hub, switch, and router. These all have the ability to connect one computer to another, but
there is some difference between them. The difference between a hub, switch, and router are given below:

Hub: A hub is a basic networking device that is used to connect computers or other networking devices
together. A hub does not use any routing table to send the data to the destination. Although it can identify
basic errors of networks like collisions, it can be a security risk to broadcast all information to the multiple
ports. As the hub is a dumb device, it does not need an IP address. Furthermore, Hubs are cheaper than a
switch or router.

Switch: A switch is a hardware device that also connects computers to each other. A switch is different as
compared to a hub in that way; it handles packets of data. Whenever a switch receives a packet, it
decides the device to which the packet can be sent, and sends it to that device only. A hub broadcasts the
packet to all computers, but the switch does not circulate the packet to all devices, which means
bandwidth is not shared with the network, and thus it increases the efficiency of the network. That's why
switches are more preferred as compared to a hub.

Router: A router is more different from a switch or hub. It is mainly used to route the data packets to
another network instead of transmitting the data to the local networks only. A router is commonly found in
homes and offices as it allows your network to communicate with other networks through the internet.
Basically, a router provides more features to your networks like firewall, VPN, QoS, traffic monitoring, etc.

What is Routing Table in Router?

A routing table determines the path for a given packet with the help of an IP address of a device and
necessary information from the table and sends the packet to the destination network. The routers have
the internal memory that is known as Random Access Memory (RAM). All the information of the routing
table is stored in RAM of routers.

For example:

Destination (Network ID) Subnet mask Interface

 200.1.2.0 255.255.255.0 Eth0

200.1.2.64 255.255.255.128 Eth1

200.1.2.128 255.255.255.255 Eth2

Default Eth3

A routing table contains the following entities:

o It contains an IP address of all routers which are required to decide the way to reach the
destination network.
o It includes extrovert interface information.
o Furthermore, it is also contained IP addresses and subnet mask of the destination host.

Network Element in Router

There are two types of a network element in the router which are as follows:

Control plane: A router supports a routing table that determines which path and physical interface
connection should be used to send the packet. It is done by using internal pre-configured directives, which
are called static routes, or by learning routes with the help of routing protocol. A routing table stores the
static and dynamic routes. Then the control-plane logic eliminates the unnecessary directives from the
table and constructs a forwarding information base that is used by the forwarding plane.

Forwarding plane: A router sends data packets between incoming and outgoing interface connections. It
uses information stored in the packet header and matches it to entries in the FIB, which is supplied by the
control plane; accordingly, it forwards the data packet to the correct network type. It is also called the
user plane or data plane.

How to buy a Router?

There are many points to keep in mind while buying a router:

1. Type of Connection: Which kind of router should you buy depends on the type of connection you
have. For example, if you want to use the internet connection from your telephone services
providers like BSNL or MTNL, you will need an ADSL router. In this router, you have to use the
hardware that is provided to you with your connection. Although this router may have limited
functionalities on some fronts.
Alternatively, you can purchase an advanced router that allows you sharing storage, including
printer over a wireless connection. If you use the connection provided by the local cable operator,
you will need a non-ADSL router.
2. Standard: The routers support standards like 802.11ac, 802.11n, etc. The routers that support
802.11ac standard, enhances the speed to transfer the data more than three times the speed of
802.11n standard routers. It uses the 5GHz frequency band, which is less crowded as compared to
the regular 2.4GHz band. Furthermore, it also provides better network performance for file
transfers and streaming media content.
The routers that support 802.11ac standard are beneficial as they are compatible with 'n' standard,
 by which your older devices can also work without any problem.Alternatively; you can save some
money and full fill your requirements by purchasing 'n' standard routers.
3. Dual-band: Most of 'n' standard routers operate in the 2.4GHz frequency, but a dual-band router
is better as it supports the 5GHz band. Furthermore, it can also connect with smartphones and
laptops on 5GHz, while other routers can operate over 2.4GHz only.
4. USB port: Routers with USB ports allow you to plug flash drives, including printers, to share these
resources over the network. These functions are suitable for a small area as they can be used
within the wireless network without using the internet.
Some routers provide backup internet by 3G data dongles when your main connection goes down.
But these routers work with specific brands only. So, before purchasing a router, check if it
supports the dongle you are using.
5. Multiple antennas: External antennas are strong enough to increase the overall range of your
router as well as are suitable for environments where you need signals across multiple walls or
doors.

->Over view of Gateways

A gateway is a network node that forms a passage between two networks operating with different
transmission protocols. The most common type of gateways, the network gateway operates at layer 3, i.e.
network layer of the OSI (open systems interconnection) model. However, depending upon the functionality, a
gateway can operate at any of the seven layers of OSI model. It acts as the entry – exit point for a network
since all traffic that flows across the networks should pass through the gateway. Only the internal traffic
between the nodes of a LAN does not pass through the gateway.
Features of Gateways
• Gateway is located at the boundary of a network and manages all data that inflows or outflows from that
network.
• It forms a passage between two different networks operating with different transmission protocols.
• A gateway operates as a protocol converter, providing compatibility between the different protocols
used in the two different networks.
• The feature that differentiates a gateway from other network devices is that it can operate at any layer
of the OSI model.
• It also stores information about the routing paths of the communicating networks.
• When used in enterprise scenario, a gateway node may be supplemented as proxy server or firewall.
• A gateway is generally implemented as a node with multiple NICs (network interface cards) connected
to different networks. However, it can also be configured using software.
• It uses packet switching technique to transmit data across the networks.
Types of Gateways
On basis of direction of data flow, gateways are broadly divided into two categories −
• Unidirectional Gateways − They allow data to flow in only one direction. Changes made in the source
node are replicated in the destination node, but not vice versa. They can be used as archiving tools.
• Bidirectional Gateways − They allow data to flow in both directions. They can be used as
synchronization tools.
On basis of functionalities, there can be a variety of gateways, the prominent among them are as follows −
• Network Gateway − This is the most common type of gateway that provides as interface between two
dissimilar networks operating with different protocols. Whenever the term gateway is mentioned without
specifying the type, it indicates a network gateway.
• Cloud Storage Gateway − It is a network node or server that translates storage requests with different
cloud storage service API calls, such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) or REST
(REpresentational State Transfer).It facilitates integration of private cloud storage into applications
without necessitating transfer of the applications into any public cloud, thus simplifying data
communication.
• Internet-To-Orbit Gateway (I2O) − It connects devices on the Internet to satellites and spacecraft
orbiting the earth. Two prominent I2O gateways are Project HERMES and Global Educational Network
for Satellite Operations (GENSO).
• IoT Gateway − IoT gateways assimilates sensor data from IoT (Internet of Things) devices in the field
and translates between sensor protocols before sending it to the cloud network. They connect IoT
devices, cloud network and user applications.
• VoiP Trunk Gateway − It facilitates data transmission between plain old telephone service (POTS)
devices like landline phones and fax machines, with VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) network.

->Multiprotocol routers
A router that supports two or more communications protocols, such as IP and IPX. It is
used to switch network traffic between different LANs located throughout the enterprise as
well as to switch LAN traffic to WANs.
->Over view of Hubs
Hubs are networking devices operating at a physical layer of the OSI model that are used to connect
multiple devices in a network. They are generally used to connect computers in a LAN.
A hub has many ports in it. A computer which intends to be connected to the network is plugged in to one of
these ports. When a data frame arrives at a port, it is broadcast to every other port, without considering
whether it is destined for a particular destination device or not.

Features of Hubs
• A hub operates in the physical layer of the OSI model.
• A hub cannot filter data. It is a non-intelligent network device that sends message to all ports.
• It primarily broadcasts messages. So, the collision domain of all nodes connected through the hub
stays one.
• Transmission mode is half duplex.
• Collisions may occurs during setup of transmission when more than one computers place data
simultaneously in the corresponding ports.
• Since they lack intelligence to compute best path for transmission of data packets, inefficiencies and
wastage occur.
• They are passive devices, they don’t have any software associated with it.
• They generally have fewer ports of 4/12.
Types of Hubs
Initially, hubs were passive devices. However, with development of advanced technology, active hubs and
intelligent hubs came into use.
 • Passive Hubs − Passive hubs connects nodes in a star configuration by collecting wiring from nodes.
They broadcast signals onto the network without amplifying or regenerating them. As they cannot
extend the distance between nodes, they limit the size of the LAN.
• Active Hubs − Active hubs amplify and regenerate the incoming electrical signals before broadcasting
them. They have their own power supply and serves both as a repeater as well as connecting centre.
Due to their regenerating capabilities, they can extend the maximum distance between nodes, thus
increasing the size of LAN.
• Intelligent Hubs − Intelligent hubs are active hubs that provide additional network management
facilities. They can perform a variety of functions of more intelligent network devices like network
management, switching, providing flexible data rates etc.

->Overview of Switch
Switches
A switch is a data link layer networking device which connects devices in a network and uses
packet switching to send and receive data over the network.
Like a hub, a switch also has many ports, to which computers are plugged in. However, when a data
frame arrives at any port of a network switch, it examines the destination address and sends the
frame to the corresponding device(s). Thus, it supports both unicast and multicast communications.
Differences between Hub and Switch

Hub Switch

They operate in the physical layer of the OSI model. They operate in the data link layer
of the OSI model.

It is a non-intelligent network device that sends It is an intelligent network device

message to all ports. that sends message to selected
destination ports.

It primarily broadcasts messages. It is supports unicast, multicast and

broadcast.

Transmission mode is half duplex. Transmission mode is full duplex.

Collisions may occurs during setup of transmission Collisions do not occur since the
when more than one computers place data communication is full duplex.
simultaneously in the corresponding ports.

They are passive devices, they don’t have any They are active devices, equipped
software associated with it. with network software.

They generally have fewer ports of 4/12. The number of ports is higher –
24/48.

->Modems
Modem is a device that enables a computer to send or receive data over telephone or cable
lines. The data stored on the computer is digital whereas a telephone line or cable wire can transmit
only analog data.
 The main function of the modem is to convert digital signal into analog and vice versa. Modem is a
combination of two devices − modulator and demodulator. The modulator converts digital data
into analog data when the data is being sent by the computer. The demodulator converts analog
data signals into digital data when it is being received by the computer.

Types of Modem

Modem can be categorized in several ways like direction in which it can transmit data, type of
connection to the transmission line, transmission mode, etc.
Depending on direction of data transmission, modem can be of these types −
• Simplex − A simplex modem can transfer data in only one direction, from digital device to
network (modulator) or network to digital device (demodulator).
• Half duplex − A half-duplex modem has the capacity to transfer data in both the directions but
only one at a time.
• Full duplex − A full duplex modem can transmit data in both the directions simultaneously.

->Channel Service Unit CSU

Channel Service Unit is a digital communication device that is used to connect a digital line to a digital
device.

What is Channel Service Unit

Channel Service Unit or CSU is a digital communication device that is used to connect a digital line to a digital
device. Channel Service Units (CSUs) can be used to link local area networks (LANs) into a wide area
network (WAN) using telecommunications carrier services such as:

• Digital data service (DDS)

• T-carrier services such as a T1 line
• Frame relay links

How it works
The CSU is used to terminate the end of the digital telecommunications line located at the customer premises.
It terminates on the customer premises end with a data terminal equipment (DTE) device such as a router,
switch, multiplexer (MUX), or dedicated server.

The connection to a DTE is typically an RS-232 or a V.35 serial transmission interface. The service provider
interface of the CSU must connect to a Data Service Unit (DSU), which is a data communications equipment
(DCE) device responsible for converting signals into a format suitable for transmission over the digital
communications line, and for creating and maintaining the connection.
 Channel Service Unit (CSU)

Typically, the telecommunications service provider will lease the CSU to the customer, having preconfigured it
for the type of communications to be supported. CSUs typically include remote diagnostic capabilities, such as
remote loop testing and even Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) features that allow the unit to be
monitored by the service provider.

CSUs are usually combined with DSUs

Currently, CSUs are usually combined with DSUs to create a single device called a CSU/DSU (Channel
Service Unit/Data Service Unit). Dedicated stand-alone CSUs are typically used only for interfacing with
installed customer premises telecommunications equipment that contains integrated DSUs. This installed
equipment could be a channel bank, Private Branch Exchange (PBX), T1 multiplexer, or some other device.

->Data Service Units DSU

Before we can understand what Digital Service Unit is and the role that it plays, we must first understand
what telecommunication is. Telecommunication is basically, communicating with someone over a long distance
by cable, telegraph, telephone, or via other broadcasting media. As one then realizes, the entire process of
communication is a long one and is built up of many components, not least of which includes the human users
and as such, one of the most important components is the Digital Service Unit. A Digital Service Unit, much like a
telephone, is instrumental in sending and receiving signals to and from a certain device.

Working and Usage

One of those components which makes this entire process possible is the Digital Service Unit. A digital service
unit is a piece of hardware – no bigger than the size of an external modem – concerned with the task of converting
a digital data frame from the communications technology used on a Local Area Network into a frame appropriate
to a wide area network. It works in conjunction with the Channel Service Unit to connect to a local area network.
These are digital interface devices that connect user communications equipment – in particular those concerned
with data – to digital access lines. In other words, the digital service unit converts the data encoded in the digital
circuit into synchronous serial data. The digital service unit also performs the additional function of electrically
isolating the digital communication line from the networking equipment wherever it is used. Integral to the
functioning of a digital service unit, from a consumer’s point of ease, is that the Channel Service Unit and the
Digital Service Unit should belong to the same company or the same manufacturer. If it is not the case, then the
consumer runs the risk of accidentally running into problems by way of encountering incompatibility issues. There
are various network types that are created by the digital service units include DDS, ATM, E1/FE, E3, SMDS, T3
etc.

Application

• They are thus, frequently integrated with the Channel Service Units so as to free the consumer from the
additional hassle of installing them separately.
• They make operations very convenient and easy for the customer. Take for instance, the case of a person
working from his home (which in this world affected coronavirus is not far from reality). In order to
effectively do so, he or she needs a working internet or network signal. For that purpose, he or she might
have been owning a digital line to a phone company or any other suitable gateway at an Internet Service
Provider’s behest that has a digital service unit at its terminal end and the gateway through which it
operates too has a digital service unit at its end – both of which are set to the same communications
standard.
• In that situation, the channel service unit is the one that does most of the “receiving” – receiving and
relaying signals to and from the wide-area network line. The digital service unit manages line control
and converts input and output between RS-232C, RS-449, or V.xx frames.
• It manages timing errors and signals regeneration. It provides a common medium of exchange between
the computer or the desktop, as the case may be, and the CSU.

There are various forms in which digital service units are available and these are fairly diverse and various. They
are available in chip, board, and module forms. Some forms can even be stacked on top of one another. However,
the choice of digital service units has to take into consideration various things like line rate etc.

Advantages

There are many advantages of using a digital services unit:

• It’s small modem like size makes it easy to handle to access while in use.
• It manages line control, timing errors, and signals regeneration tasks – all of which would have been
unbelievable hard to master had it not been for this device. Indeed, it is so good in its job that our
dependence on it has greatly increased – even more so in today’s world where everybody needs it to
carry out their affairs on the internet. It stands to reason then, if one classifies this piece of equipment to
be very integral to the functioning of the entire telecommunications process and by that very token,
integral to the world at large as well.

Disadvantages

• It is quite costly and is, therefore, not economical to use.

• Delay in setup time. It is quite complicated to put into use and is therefore, not viable for a layperson to
do on his own.
• If the CSU is not compatible with the DSU, it can result in problems for the consumer

->Network Interface Card

A network interface card (NIC) is a hardware component without which a computer cannot be
connected over a network. It is a circuit board installed in a computer that provides a dedicated network
connection to the computer. It is also called network interface controller, network adapter or LAN adapter.
Purpose
 • NIC allows both wired and wireless communications.
• NIC allows communications between computers connected via local area network (LAN) as well as
communications over large-scale network through Internet Protocol (IP).
• NIC is both a physical layer and a data link layer device, i.e. it provides the necessary hardware
circuitry so that the physical layer processes and some data link layer processes can run on it.
Types of NIC Cards
NIC cards are of two types −

Internal Network Cards

In internal networks cards, motherboard has a slot for the network card where it can be inserted. It requires
network cables to provide network access. Internal network cards are of two types. The first type uses
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) connection, while the second type uses Industry Standard
Architecture (ISA).

External Network Cards

In desktops and laptops that do not have an internal NIC, external NICs are used. External network cards are
of two types: Wireless and USB based. Wireless network card needs to be inserted into the motherboard,
however no network cable is required to connect to the network. They are useful while traveling or accessing a
wireless signal.
->Network Access Point
An access point is a device, such as a wireless router, that allows wireless devices to connect to
a network. Most access points have built-in routers, while others must be connected to a router in order to
provide network access. In either case, access points are typically hardwired to other devices, such as
network switches or broadband modems.
Access points can be found in many places, including houses, businesses, and public locations. In most
houses, the access point is a wireless router, which is connected to a DSL or cable modem. However, some
modems may include wireless capabilities, making the modem itself the access point. Large businesses often
provide several access points, which allows employees to wirelessly connect to a central network from a wide
range of locations. Public access points can be found in stores, coffee shops, restaurants, libraries, and other
locations. Some cities provide public access points in the form of wireless transmitters that are connected to
streetlights, signs, and other public objects.
While access points typically provide wireless access to the Internet, some are intended only to provide access
to a closed network. For example, a business may provide secure access points to its employees so they can
wirelessly access files from a network server. Also, most access points provide Wi-Fi access, but it is possible
for an access point to refer to a Bluetooth device or other type of wireless connection. However, the purpose of
most access points is to provide Internet access to connected users.
The term "access point" is often used synonymously with base station, though base stations are technically
only Wi-Fi devices. It may also be abbreviated AP or WAP (for wireless access point). However, WAP is not as
commonly used as AP since WAP is the standard acronym for Wireless Access Protocol.

->Transceivers

The term transceiver does not necessarily describe a separate network device but rather an integrated technology
embedded in devices such as network cards. In a network environment, a transceiver gets its name from being both a
transmitter and a receiver of signals, such as analog or digital. Technically, on a LAN the transceiver is responsible to place
signals onto the network media and also detecting incoming signals traveling through the same cable. Given the description of
the function of a transceiver, it makes sense that that technology would be found with network cards.

Although transceivers are found in network cards, they can be external devices as well. As far as networking is concerned,
transceivers can ship as a module or chip type. Chip transceivers are small and are inserted into a system board or wired
directly on a circuit board. Module transceivers are external to the network and are installed and function similarly to other
computer peripherals, or they may function as standalone devices.

There are many types of transceivers: RF transceivers, fiber-optic transceivers, Ethernet transceivers, wireless (WAP)
transceivers, and more. Though each of these media types is different, the function of the transceiver remains the same. Each
type of the transceiver used has different characteristics such as the number of ports available to connect to the network and
whether full-duplex communication is supported.

Listed with transceivers in the CompTIA objectives are media converters. Media converters are a technology that allows
administrators to interconnect different media types—for example, twisted pair, fiber, and thin or thick coax—within an existing
network. Using a media converter, it is possible to connect newer 100Mbps, Gigabit Ethernet, or ATM equipment to existing
networks such as 10Base-T or 100Base-T. They can also be used in pairs to insert a fiber segment into copper networks to
increase cabling distances and enhance immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI).
->Firewalls
A firewall is a network security device, either hardware or software-based, which monitors all incoming
and outgoing traffic and based on a defined set of security rules it accepts, rejects or drops that specific traffic.
Accept : allow the traffic
Reject : block the traffic but reply with an “unreachable error”
Drop : block the traffic with no reply
A firewall establishes a barrier between secured internal networks and outside untrusted network, such as the
Internet.

History and Need for Firewall

Before Firewalls, network security was performed by Access Control Lists (ACLs) residing on routers. ACLs are
rules that determine whether network access should be granted or denied to specific IP address.
But ACLs cannot determine the nature of the packet it is blocking. Also, ACL alone does not have the capacity to
keep threats out of the network. Hence, the Firewall was introduced.
Connectivity to the Internet is no longer optional for organizations. However, accessing the Internet provides
benefits to the organization; it also enables the outside world to interact with the internal network of the
organization. This creates a threat to the organization. In order to secure the internal network from unauthorized
traffic, we need a Firewall.
How Firewall Works
Firewall match the network traffic against the rule set defined in its table. Once the rule is matched, associate
action is applied to the network traffic. For example, Rules are defined as any employee from HR department
cannot access the data from code server and at the same time another rule is defined like system administrator can
access the data from both HR and technical department. Rules can be defined on the firewall based on the
necessity and security policies of the organization.
From the perspective of a server, network traffic can be either outgoing or incoming. Firewall maintains a distinct
set of rules for both the cases. Mostly the outgoing traffic, originated from the server itself, allowed to pass. Still,
setting a rule on outgoing traffic is always better in order to achieve more security and prevent unwanted
communication.
Incoming traffic is treated differently. Most traffic which reaches on the firewall is one of these three major
Transport Layer protocols- TCP, UDP or ICMP. All these types have a source address and destination address.
Also, TCP and UDP have port numbers. ICMP uses type code instead of port number which identifies purpose of
that packet.
Default policy: It is very difficult to explicitly cover every possible rule on the firewall. For this reason, the
firewall must always have a default policy. Default policy only consists of action (accept, reject or drop).
Suppose no rule is defined about SSH connection to the server on the firewall. So, it will follow the default policy.
If default policy on the firewall is set to accept, then any computer outside of your office can establish an SSH
connection to the server. Therefore, setting default policy as drop (or reject) is always a good practice.

Generation of Firewall
Firewalls can be categorized based on its generation.
1. First Generation- Packet Filtering Firewall : Packet filtering firewall is used to control network
access by monitoring outgoing and incoming packet and allowing them to pass or stop based on source
and destination IP address, protocols and ports. It analyses traffic at the transport protocol layer (but
mainly uses first 3 layers).
Packet firewalls treat each packet in isolation. They have no ability to tell whether a packet is part of an
existing stream of traffic. Only It can allow or deny the packets based on unique packet headers.

Packet filtering firewall maintains a filtering table which decides whether the packet will be forwarded or
discarded. From the given filtering table, the packets will be Filtered according to following rules:

1. Incoming packets from network 192.168.21.0 are blocked.

2. Incoming packets destined for internal TELNET server (port 23) are blocked.
3. Incoming packets destined for host 192.168.21.3 are blocked.
4. All well-known services to the network 192.168.21.0 are allowed.
2. Second Generation- Stateful Inspection Firewall : Stateful firewalls (performs Stateful Packet
Inspection) are able to determine the connection state of packet, unlike Packet filtering firewall, which
makes it more efficient. It keeps track of the state of networks connection travelling across it, such as TCP
streams. So the filtering decisions would not only be based on defined rules, but also on packet’s history in
the state table.
3. Third Generation- Application Layer Firewall : Application layer firewall can inspect and filter the
packets on any OSI layer, up to the application layer. It has the ability to block specific content, also
recognize when certain application and protocols (like HTTP, FTP) are being misused.
In other words, Application layer firewalls are hosts that run proxy servers. A proxy firewall prevents the
direct connection between either side of the firewall, each packet has to pass through the proxy. It can
allow or block the traffic based on predefined rules.
Note: Application layer firewalls can also be used as Network Address Translator(NAT).
4. Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) : Next Generation Firewalls are being deployed these days to stop
modern security breaches like advance malware attacks and application-layer attacks. NGFW consists of
Deep Packet Inspection, Application Inspection, SSL/SSH inspection and many functionalities to protect
the network from these modern threats.

Types of Firewall
Firewalls are generally of two types: Host-based and Network-based.
1. Host- based Firewalls : Host-based firewall is installed on each network node which controls each
incoming and outgoing packet. It is a software application or suite of applications, comes as a part of the
 operating system. Host-based firewalls are needed because network firewalls cannot provide protection
inside a trusted network. Host firewall protects each host from attacks and unauthorized access.
2. Network-based Firewalls : Network firewall function on network level. In other words, these firewalls
filter all incoming and outgoing traffic across the network. It protects the internal network by filtering
the traffic using rules defined on the firewall. A Network firewall might have two or more network
interface cards (NICs). A network-based firewall is usually a dedicated system with proprietary software
installed.

->Proxy
Proxy server is an intermediary server between client and the internet. Proxy servers offers the
following basic functionalities:
• Firewall and network data filtering.
• Network connection sharing
• Data caching
Proxy servers allow to hide, conceal and make your network id anonymous by hiding your IP address.

Purpose of Proxy Servers

Following are the reasons to use proxy servers:

• Monitoring and Filtering
• Improving performance
• Translation
• Accessing services anonymously
• Security
Monitoring and Filtering
Proxy servers allow us to do several kind of filtering such as:
• Content Filtering
• Filtering encrypted data
• Bypass filters
• Logging and eavesdropping
Improving performance
It fasten the service by process of retrieving content from the cache which was saved when previous
request was made by the client.
Translation
It helps to customize the source site for local users by excluding source content or substituting
source content with original local content. In this the traffic from the global users is routed to the
source website through Translation proxy.
Accessing services anonymously
In this the destination server receives the request from the anonymzing proxy server and thus does
not receive information about the end user.
Security
Since the proxy server hides the identity of the user hence it protects from spam and the hacker
attacks.

Type of Proxies

Following table briefly describes the type of proxies:

Forward Proxies
In this the client requests its internal network server to forward to the internet.

Open Proxies
Open Proxies helps the clients to conceal their IP address while browsing the web.

Reverse Proxies
In this the requests are forwarded to one or more proxy servers and the response from the proxy
server is retrieved as if it came directly from the original Server.

Architecture
The proxy server architecture is divided into several modules as shown in the following diagram:

Proxy user interface

This module controls and manages the user interface and provides an easy to use graphical
interface, window and a menu to the end user. This menu offers the following functionalities:
• Start proxy
• Stop proxy
• Exit
• Blocking URL
• Blocking client
• Manage log
• Manage cache
• Modify configuration
Proxy server listener
It is the port where new request from the client browser is listened. This module also performs
blocking of clients from the list given by the user.
Connection Manager
It contains the main functionality of the proxy server. It performs the following functions:
• It contains the main functionality of the proxy server. It performs the following functions:
• Read request from header of the client.
• Parse the URL and determine whether the URL is blocked or not.
 • Generate connection to the web server.
• Read the reply from the web server.
• If no copy of page is found in the cache then download the page from web server else will
check its last modified date from the reply header and accordingly will read from the cache or
server from the web.
• Then it will also check whether caching is allowed or not and accordingly will cache the page.
Cache Manager
This module is responsible for storing, deleting, clearing and searching of web pages in the cache.
Log Manager
This module is responsible for viewing, clearing and updating the logs.
Configuration
This module helps to create configuration settings which in turn let other modules to perform desired
configurations such as caching.

7.
->Overview of Cellular Networks
Cellular network is an underlying technology for mobile phones, personal communication systems,
wireless networking etc. The technology is developed for mobile radio telephone to replace high power
transmitter/receiver systems. Cellular networks use lower power, shorter range and more transmitters for data
transmission.

Features of Cellular Systems

Wireless Cellular Systems solves the problem of spectral congestion and increases user capacity. The
features of cellular systems are as follows −
• Offer very high capacity in a limited spectrum.
• Reuse of radio channel in different cells.
• Enable a fixed number of channels to serve an arbitrarily large number of users by reusing the channel
throughout the coverage region.
• Communication is always between mobile and base station (not directly between mobiles).
• Each cellular base station is allocated a group of radio channels within a small geographic area called
a cell.
• Neighboring cells are assigned different channel groups.
• By limiting the coverage area to within the boundary of the cell, the channel groups may be reused to
cover different cells.
• Keep interference levels within tolerable limits.
• Frequency reuse or frequency planning.
• Organization of Wireless Cellular Network.
Cellular network is organized into multiple low power transmitters each 100w or less.
Shape of Cells

The coverage area of cellular networks are divided into cells, each cell having its own antenna for transmitting
the signals. Each cell has its own frequencies. Data communication in cellular networks is served by its base
station transmitter, receiver and its control unit.
The shape of cells can be either square or hexagon −

Square
A square cell has four neighbors at distance d and four at distance Root 2 d

• Better if all adjacent antennas equidistant

• Simplifies choosing and switching to new antenna

Hexagon
A hexagon cell shape is highly recommended for its easy coverage and calculations. It offers the following
advantages −

• Provides equidistant antennas

• Distance from center to vertex equals length of side

Frequency Reuse

Frequency reusing is the concept of using the same radio frequencies within a given area, that are separated
by considerable distance, with minimal interference, to establish communication.
Frequency reuse offers the following benefits −

• Allows communications within cell on a given frequency

• Limits escaping power to adjacent cells
• Allows re-use of frequencies in nearby cells
• Uses same frequency for multiple conversations
• 10 to 50 frequencies per cell
For example, when N cells are using the same number of frequencies and K be the total number of
frequencies used in systems. Then each cell frequency is calculated by using the formulae K/N.
In Advanced Mobile Phone Services (AMPS) when K = 395 and N = 7, then frequencies per cell on an
average will be 395/7 = 56. Here, cell frequency is 56.
->Ad-hoc Networks
An ad hoc network is one that is spontaneously formed when devices connect and communicate with
each other. The term ad hoc is a Latin word that literally means "for this," implying improvised or impromptu.
Ad hoc networks are mostly wireless local area networks (LANs). The devices communicate with each other
directly instead of relying on a base station or access points as in wireless LANs for data transfer co-ordination.
Each device participates in routing activity, by determining the route using the routing algorithm and forwarding
data to other devices via this route.

Classifications of Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc networks can be classified into several types depending upon the nature of their applications. The most
prominent ad hoc networks that are commonly incorporated are illustrated in the diagram below −
->Mobile Ad-hoc Networks
MANET stands for Mobile adhoc Network also called as wireless adhoc network or adhoc wireless
network that usually has a routable networking environment on top of a Link Layer ad hoc network.. They consist
of set of mobile nodes connected wirelessly in a self configured, self healing network without having a fixed
infrastructure. MANET nodes are free to move randomly as the network topology changes frequently. Each node
behaves as a router as they forward traffic to other specified node in the network.

MANET may operate as standalone fashion or they can be the part of larger internet. They form highly dynamic
autonomous topology with the presence of one or multiple different transceivers between nodes. The main
challenge for the MANET is to equipped each devices to continuously maintain the information required to
properly route traffic. MANETs consist of a peer-to-peer, self-forming, self-healing network MANET’s circa
2000-2015 typically communicate at radio frequencies (30MHz-5GHz). This can be used in road safety, ranging
from sensors for the environment, home, health, disaster rescue operations, air/land/navy defense, weapons,
robots, etc.

Characteristics of MANET –
• Dynamic Topologies: Network topology which is typically multihops, may change randomly and
rapidly with time, it can form unidirectional or bi-directional links.
• Bandwidth constrained, variable capacity links: Wireless links usually have lower reliability,
efficiency, stability, and capacity as compared to wired network. The throughput of wireless
communication is even less than a radio’s maximum transmission rate after dealing with the constraints
like multiple access, noise, interference conditions, etc.
• Autonomous Behavior: Each node can act as a host and router, which shows its autonomous behavior.
• Energy Constrained Operation: As some or all the nodes rely on batteries or other exhaustible means
for their energy. Mobile nodes are characterized with less memory, power, and lightweight features.
• Limited Security: Wireless network are more prone to security threats. A centralized firewall is absent
due to its distributed nature of the operation for security, routing, and host configuration.
• Less Human Intervention: They require minimum human intervention to configure the network,
therefore they are dynamically autonomous in nature.
Pros and Cons of MANET –

Pros:
1. Separation from central network administration.
2. Each nodes can play both the roles ie. of router and host showing autonomous nature.
3. Self configuring and self healing nodes, does not require human intervention.
Cons:
1. Resources are limited due to various constraints like noise, interference conditions, etc.
2. Lack of authorization facilities.
3. More prone to attacks due to limited physical security.

->Sensor Networks
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an infrastructure-less wireless network that is deployed in a large
number of wireless sensors in an ad-hoc manner that is used to monitor the system, physical or environmental
conditions.
Sensor nodes are used in WSN with the onboard processor that manages and monitors the environment in a
particular area. They are connected to the Base Station which acts as a processing unit in the WSN System.
Base Station in a WSN System is connected through the Internet to share data.

WSN can be used for processing, analysis, storage, and mining of the data.
Applications of WSN:

1. Internet of Things (IOT)

2. Surveillance and Monitoring for security, threat detection
3. Environmental temperature, humidity, and air pressure
4. Noise Level of the surrounding
5. Medical applications like patient monitoring
6. Agriculture
7. Landslide Detection
Challenges of WSN:
1. Quality of Service
2. Security Issue
3. Energy Efficiency
4. Network Throughput
5. Performance
6. Ability to cope with node failure
7. Cross layer optimisation
8. Scalability to large scale of deployment
Components of WSN:
1. Sensors:
Sensors in WSN are used to capture the environmental variables and which is used for data acquisition.
Sensor signals are converted into electrical signals.
2. Radio Nodes:
It is used to receive the data produced by the Sensors and sends it to the WLAN access point. It consists
of a microcontroller, transceiver, external memory, and power source.
3. WLAN Access Point:
It receives the data which is sent by the Radio nodes wirelessly, generally through the internet.
4. Evaluation Software:
The data received by the WLAN Acess Poing is processed by a software called as Evaluation Software
for presenting the report to the users for further processing of the data which can be used for processing,
analysis, storage, and mining of the data.