Internet Basics

• Background on Internet technologies and protocols

– LANs and WANs
– IP Addressing, DNS
– OSI model
– TCP/IP, UDP

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 Background on Internet Technologies
• Evolution of Networking
– Batch Environment - 1950s
• no direct interaction between users and their programs during execution
– Time Sharing - 1960s
• dumb terminals were connected to a central computer system
• Users were able to interact with the computer and could share its information processing
resources
• Marked the beginning of computer communications
– Distributed Processing: use of minicomputers - 1970s
• Users demanded computing closer to their work areas
• Communication between neighbor processors and applications via networks
– WAN and LAN- 1980s

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 LANs
• collection of hosts connected by a high speed network
• designed and developed for communications and
resource sharing in a local work environment (room,
campus, building)
• users can access other networks via bridges and
gateways
PC 1

Printer
PC 2

PC n File Server 3
 WANs and Internetworks
• span a large geographic area, cross public property
• often based on services provided by 3rd party companies,
use telephone networks for transmission from one node to
another
• can be used to connect several LANs together
• Routers attached to each LAN filter the network traffic to
and from the WAN
• LANs can also be connected by special modems or
dedicated leased lines
PC 1
Internetwork
Router

PC 2

File Server
PC n 4
 Routers
• Special purpose computers used for
interconnecting networks
• Essentially a router receives messages
originating from one network and sends (routes)
them to the other network
• The process of selecting a network over which
to send a message is called routing
• Ex: computers X and Y can communicate via
routers R1, R2 and R3

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 An example

R1
x
R2

R3
Y

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 Internet

• The global Internet consists of thousands of

computer networks interconnected by routers.
• Internet appears as a single, seamless
communication system to which many
computers can attach.
– each computer is assigned an address
– any computer can send a message to any other
computer

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 Packet Switching
• A message is not sent as a single unit, but
broken down into small packets that are
transmitted individually
• Each packet has header that contains the info
about source, destination and the packer number
• Packets may travel on different routes
• May even arrive the destination out of order
• Good for data communication

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 Packet Switches
• A WAN is constructed from many switches
• A switch moves packets from one connection to the other
• A switch is a dedicated computer, with two types of connections
– High-speed connections with other switches; they can be: leased phone
lines, optical fibers, microwave, satellite.
– Low-speed connection: used to connect with an individual computer, or a
LAN.

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Switched Network

Switch High speed

Switch
connection

Switch
 IP Addressing

Every host on the Internet has a unique IP address.

IP protocol (the one in use now) has 32 bits for an
address. How many hosts total? 232 =
4,294,987,296.

32 bits must be divided into a Network portion and
a Host portion.

Typically written in a "dotted decimal" form:
128.6.10.4
In this case, the network portion is 128.6
The host portion is 10.4
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 Domain Name Services
• Each host on the Internet has its own unique IP address - Who can
remember all of them ?
• DNS gives us a means to map an IP address to a "host name" and vice
versa.
• Host names are typically broken down into 4 or 5 parts:
– 1.A geographic (e.g. country) designation is given at the "highest level":
• uk us ca au fr it dr zw
– 2.An organizational designation may be in place of geographic but can also
appear in combination:
• com edu gov mil org net
– 3.The next level down in the "organizational" level:
• rutgers microsoft pizzahut plannetreebok
– 4.Within an organization, there may be several individual hosts, each with
their own name:
• CIMIC andromeda

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 Domain Name Services (cont’d)
• These parts are assembled from right to left:
– andromeda.rutgers.edu
– www.microsoft.com
– psych.leeds.ed.uk
– www.whitehouse.gov
• Resolving Internet Names using DNS
– Most commonly used IP and host name pairs are kept in a hosts
file. See /etc/hosts
– If not in the hosts file, a primary DNS site is consulted.
– UDP is used to send a DNS Query message to the designated
Name Server on port 53.
– This is done in a logical fashion. e.g. for host names ending in
rutgers.edu, a local Rutgers DNS server can be queried.
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 Domain Name Services (cont’d)

• If not found at a local DNS server, additional secondary

DNS servers are checked until
• 1.The connection times out or
• 2.The request exceeds a predefined hop count
• 3.The list of DNS servers is exhausted

• Look at: /etc/resolv.conf on UNIX

systems. In Windows, look at the properties of
the TCP/IP protocol.

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 Communication Architecture
• Why do we need?
– Communication systems involve heterogeneous
technologies
– change rapidly
– they are complex (addressing, routing, multiplexing, error
control, …)
• How to cope with the above?
– modularization
– standardization
• International Standards Organization (ISO)
developed the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
reference model (1974) 17
 OSI Reference Model
• Consists of seven layers
• Each layer provides a set of functions to the layers
above and relies on the functions provided by the
layers below
• Each layer communicates with its peer layer on the
other node (protocols)
• The layer boundaries (interfaces) should be designed
in such a way as to minimize the information flow
between the boundaries
• The main idea is to have independent standards for
different layers so that changes to one would not
cause changes in other layers 18
OSI Reference Model (cont’d)
+--------------+ +--------------+
| application |<--------------------->| application |
+--------------+ +--------------+
| presentation |<--------------------->| presentation |
+--------------+ +--------------+
| session |<--------------------->| session |
+--------------+ +--------------+
| transport |<--------------------->| transport |
+--------------+ +---------+ +--------------+
| network |<---->| network |<---->| network |
+--------------+ +---------+ +--------------+
| data link |<---->|data link|<---->| data link |
+--------------+ +---------+ +--------------+
| physical |<---->|physical |<---->| physical |
+--------------+ +---------+ +--------------+

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 OSI Reference Model (cont’d)
User A User B

application application
Higher
presentation presentation Higher
level
session session
level
protocols
protocols
transport transport
network network
Lower
data link data link Lower
level
level
protocols physical physical
protocols
physical medium

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 How layered software works?
• Each layer solves one part of the problem
• To do so, each layer on the sending computer adds information
to the outgoing data
• The same layer in the receiving computer uses the additional
information to process data (for example:checksums in data
layer)

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 How layered software works?

• Layering Principle:
Layer N software on the destination
computer, must receive the exact message
sent by layer N software on the sending
computer.
• For example
– if one layer adds a header, the
corresponding layer has to remove it.
– If one layer encrypts data, the
receiving computer layer has to
decrypt it.

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Once Again, The purpose of Layers

• Each layer can be:

– Designed
– Implemented
– Tested
independently of other layers.
Each Layer can change and evolve independent of
other layers

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 Applications
• Electronic mail
• File transfers (FTP)
• Remote login (TELNET, rlogin)
• Chat
• Bulletin boards and Network News
• Commerce
• Network news
• Networked information discovery and retrieval tools
• Fax over the Internet
• Games
• ….

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 TCP/IP Protocol Stack
Basic protocols

Layers 5-7 TELNET FTP SMTP HTTP …..

Layer 4 TCP UDP

Layer 3 IP

Layer 2 Ethernet Token-ring ATM PPP …..

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 TCP/IP Protocol Stack
Infrastructure and Security protocols

Layers 5-7 TELNET FTP SMTP HTTP …..

DNS SSL RIP EGP
Layer 4 TCP UDP BGP

ICMP IPSEC
Layer 3 IP ARP RARP

Layer 2 Ethernet Token-ring ATM PPP …..

ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol, ARP: Address Resolution Protocol

RARP: Reverse Address Resolution Protocol, DNS: Domain Name Service
RIP: Routing Information Protocol, BGP: Border Gateway Protocol 34
EGP: External Gateway Protocol, SSL: Secure Socket Layer
 TCP/IP(Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol)
• TCP/IP is the basic communication protocol of the
Internet
– Protocol: the special set of rules for communicating that the end
points in a telecommunication connection use when they send
signals back and forth.
• TCP , IP , HTTP, FTP, and other protocols, each with
defined set of rules to use with other Internet points relative
to a defined set of capabilities.

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• TCP:
TCP/IP(Cont’d)
– manages the assembling of a message into packets that are
transmitted over the Internet and received by a TCP layer that
reassembles the packets into the original message.
• A packet is the unit of data that is routed between an origin
and a destination on the Internet or any other packet-
switched network
• IP
– handles the address part of each packet so that it gets to the
right destination.

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 TCP/IP(Cont’d)
• Uses the client/server model of communication
• Communication is primarily point-to-point:
– Each communication is from one point (or host computer) in
the network to another point or host.
• Higher layer application protocols that use TCP/IP to get to
the Internet
– Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol
(FTP), Telnet (Telnet), and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP).

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 TCP
• Adds Port Numbers, packet Sequence Numbers,
Acknowledgement Numbers and other fields to IP addresses

A Port number refers to a specific application running on a host. e.g.
SMTP uses Port 25 while Telnet uses Port 23.
• TCP Header format
– source port number
• source IP address + source port number is a socket: uniquely identifies
sender
– destination port number
• destination IP address + destination port number is a socket: uniquely
identifies receiver
– SYN, ACK flags
– sequence number
– acknowledgement number
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 TCP (cont’d)
• Result is a TCP/IP "stream" - a connection established using
handshake and error detection/control through positive
acknowledgement.
– Three-way handshake:
• 1. A sends a SYN message to B - I'd like to set up a connection and I
will start with sequence number s
• 2. B Replies with a SYN and ACK message to A - Yes I will talk to
you.
• 3. A sends an ACK message to B along with the first piece of data - I
got your ACK so here's the start of my data.
SYN(
initiator A) responder
C K(A)
YN( B), A
S
ACK
(B)
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 TCP (cont’d)

• Useful for when error correction is required and

connection will last a long time (e.g. large data
transfer).
• Large data is broken into chunks and sent
separately. Can arrive in any order. Discards
duplicates.
• Provides flow control.

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 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

Adds Port Numbers to IP addresses

A Port number refers to a specific application running on a host. e.g. SMTP uses Port 25
while Telnet uses Port 23.

UPP header format
– source port number
• source IP address + source port number is a socket: uniquely identifies sender
– destination port number
• destination IP address + destination port number is a socket: uniquely identifies receiver

Also an optional Checksum - Error checking

No handshaking or error control

Also called a "Connectionless" protocol

Often referred to as "Unreliable" - meaning error control can't be relied upon.

Useful for situations where overhead is a concern. Small data requests such as
queries, etc.

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 TCP/UDP Port Numbers and
Services

TCP and UDP add Port Numbers to the IP addresses.

Each port corresponds to a specific application or
service.

Ports 1 - 1024 are generally considered privileged
ports. That is, on UNIX systems, one needs to have
special permissions to run services on these ports.

Above 1024, any port number can be used.

Internet assigned numbers committee agrees on some
standard port numbers.

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 TCP/UDP Port Numbers and Services
(cont’d)

• The following are some well known services and

their assigned IP port numbers.
– Service Port Protocol
– Day Time 13 TCP/UDP
– FTP 21 TCP
– Telnet23 TCP
– SMTP Mail 25 TCP
– DNS 53 UDP
– HTTP/WWW 80 TCP

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