Internet Protocol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the IP network protocol only. For Internet architecture or other protocols, see Internet Protocol Suite and TCP/IP model.

Internet protocol suite

Application layer

DHCP

DHCPv6

DNS

FTP

HTTP

IMAP

IRC LDAP

MGCP

NNTP

BGP

OSPF

NTP

POP

RPC

RTP

RTSP

RIP

SIP

SMTP

SNMP SOCKS

SSH

Telnet

TLS/SSL

XMPP

(more)

Transport layer

TCP

UDP

DCCP

SCTP

RSVP

(more)

Internet layer

IP IPv4

IPv6

ICMP

ICMPv6

ECN

IGMP IPsec

(more) Link layer

ARP/InARP

NDP

Tunnels L2TP

PPP

Media access control

Ethernet

DSL

ISDN FDDI

(more)

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams (also known as network packets) across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite. Responsible for routing packets across network boundaries, it is the primary protocol that establishes the Internet. IP is the primary protocol in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite and has the task of delivering datagrams from the source host to the destination host solely based on theaddresses. For this purpose, IP defines datagram structures thatencapsulate the data to be delivered. It also defines addressing methods that are used to label the datagram source and destination. Historically, IP was the connectionless datagram service in the original Transmission Control Program introduced by Vint Cerf andBob Kahn in 1974, the other being the connection-orientedTransmission Control Protocol (TCP). The Internet Protocol Suite is therefore often referred to as TCP/IP. The first major version of IP, Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is the dominant protocol of the internet. Its successor is Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), which is increasing in use.
Contents
[hide]

1 Function

o o

1.1 Datagram construction 1.2 IP addressing and routing

2 Reliability 3 Version history 4 Vulnerabilities

5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit]Function
The Internet Protocol is responsible for addressing hosts and routing datagrams (packets) from a source host to the destination host across one or more IP networks. For this purpose the Internet Protocol defines an addressing system that has two functions: identifying hosts and providing a logical location service. This is accomplished by defining standard datagrams and a standard addressing system.

[edit]Datagram

construction

Sample encapsulation of application data from UDP to a Link protocol frame

Each datagram has two components, a header and a payload. The IP header is tagged with the source IP address, destination IP address, and other meta-data needed to route and deliver the datagram. The payload is the data to be transported. This process of nesting data payloads in a packet with a header is called encapsulation.

[edit]IP

addressing and routing

Main articles: IP address and IP forwarding algorithm Perhaps the most complex aspects of IP are IP addressing androuting. Addressing refers to how end hosts are assigned IP addresses and how subnetworks of IP host addresses are divided and grouped. IP routing is performed by all hosts, but most importantly by routers, which typically use either interior gateway protocols (IGPs) or external gateway protocols (EGPs) to decide how to move datagrams among networks. IP routing is also common in local networks. For example, Ethernet switches sold today support IP multicast.[1] These switches use IP addresses and Internet Group Management Protocol for control of the multicast routing but use MAC addresses for the actual routing.

[edit]Reliability

The design principles of the Internet protocols assume that the network infrastructure is inherently unreliable at any single network element or transmission medium and that it is dynamic in terms of availability of links and nodes. No central monitoring or performance measurement facility exists that tracks or maintains the state of the network. For the benefit of reducing network complexity, the intelligence in the network is purposely mostly located in the end nodes of each data transmission, cf. end-to-end principle. Routers in the transmission path simply forward packets to the next known local gateway matching the routing prefix for the destination address. As a consequence of this design, the Internet Protocol only provides best effort delivery and its service is characterized as unreliable. In network architectural language it is a connection-less protocol, in contrast to socalled connection-oriented modes of transmission. The lack of reliability permits various error conditions, such as data corruption, packet loss and duplication, as well as out-of-order packet delivery. Since routing is dynamic for every packet and the network maintains no state of the path of prior packets, it is possible that some packets are routed on a longer path to their destination, resulting in improper sequencing at the receiver. The only assistance that IPv4 provides regarding unreliability is to ensure that the IP packet header is errorfree. A routing node calculates a checksum for a packet. If the checksum is bad, the routing node discards the packet. The routing node does not have to notify either end node, although the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) allows such notification. In contrast, IPv6 abandons checksums in favor of faster routing. Upper layer protocols are responsible for resolving reliability issues. For example, an upper layer protocol may cache data to make sure that it is in the correct order, before giving the data to an application. In addition to issues of reliability, the dynamic nature and the diversity of the Internet and its components provide no guarantee that any particular path is actually capable of, or suitable for, performing the data transmission requested, even if the path is available and reliable. One of the technical constraints is the size of data packets allowed on a given link. An application must assure that it uses proper transmission characteristics. Some of this responsibility lies also in the upper layer protocols between application and IP. Facilities exist to examine the maximum transmission unit (MTU) size of the local link, as well as for the entire projected path to the destination when using IPv6. The IPv4 internetworking layer has the capability to automatically fragment the original datagram into smaller units for transmission. In this case, IP does provide re-ordering of fragments delivered out-of-order.[2] Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is an example of a protocol that will adjust its segment size to be smaller than the MTU. User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) disregard MTU size, thereby forcing IP to fragment oversized datagrams.[3]

[edit]Version

history

In May 1974, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) published a paper entitled "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication."[4] The paper's authors, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, described an

internetworking protocol for sharing resources using packet-switching among the nodes. A central control component of this model was the "Transmission Control Program" (TCP) that incorporated both connectionoriented links and datagram services between hosts. The monolithic Transmission Control Program was later divided into a modular architecture consisting of the Transmission Control Protocol at the connection-oriented layer and the Internet Protocol at the internetworking (datagram) layer. The model became known informally as TCP/IP, although formally referenced as the Internet Protocol Suite. The Internet Protocol is one of the elements that define the Internet. The dominant internetworking protocol in the Internet Layer in use today is IPv4; the number 4 is the protocol version number carried in every IP datagram. IPv4 is described in RFC 791 (1981). The successor to IPv4 is IPv6. Its most prominent modification from version 4 is the addressing system. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses (c. 4 billion, or 4.3109, addresses) while IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses (c. 340undecillion, or 3.41038 addresses). Although adoption of IPv6 has been slow, as of June 2008, all United States government systems have demonstrated basic infrastructure support for IPv6 (if only at the backbone level).[5] IP versions 0 to 3 were development versions of IPv4 and were used between 1977 and 1979. [citation
needed]

Version 5 was used by the Internet Stream Protocol, an experimental streaming protocol. Version

numbers 6 through 9 were proposed for various protocol models designed to replace IPv4: SIPP (Simple Internet Protocol Plus, known now as IPv6), TP/IX (RFC 1475), PIP (RFC 1621) and TUBA (TCP and UDP with Bigger Addresses, RFC 1347). Other protocol proposals named IPv9 and IPv8 briefly surfaced, but have no support.[6] On April 1, 1994, the IETF published an April Fool's Day joke about IPv9.[7]

[edit]Vulnerabilities

IP address
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from IP adress)

For the Wikipedia user access level, see Wikipedia:User access levels#Unregistered_users. An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.[1] An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing. Its role has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."[2]

The designers of the Internet Protocol defined an IP address as a 32-bit number[1] and this system, known asInternet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is still in use today. However, due to the enormous growth of the Internet and the predicted depletion of available addresses, a new version of IP (IPv6), using 128 bits for the address, was developed in 1995.[3] IPv6 was standardized as RFC 2460 in 1998,[4] and its deployment has been ongoing since the mid-2000s. IP addresses are binary numbers, but they are usually stored in text files and displayed in humanreadablenotations, such as 172.16.254.1 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:8:1 (for IPv6). The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) manages the IP address space allocations globally and delegates five regional Internet registries (RIRs) to allocate IP address blocks to local Internet registries(Internet service providers) and other entities.
Contents
[hide]

1 IP versions

1.1 IPv4 addresses

o o

1.1.1 IPv4 subnetting 1.1.2 IPv4 private addresses

1.2 IPv4 address exhaustion 1.3 IPv6 addresses

1.3.1 IPv6 private addresses

2 IP subnetworks 3 IP address assignment

o o

3.1 Methods 3.2 Uses of dynamic addressing

o o

3.2.1 Sticky dynamic IP address

3.3 Address autoconfiguration 3.4 Uses of static addressing

4 Public addresses 5 Modifications to IP addressing

o o

5.1 IP blocking and firewalls 5.2 IP address translation

6 Diagnostic tools 7 See also

8 References 9 External links

IP versions
Two versions of the Internet Protocol (IP) are in use: IP Version 4 and IP Version 6. Each version defines an IP address differently. Because of its prevalence, the generic term IP address typically still refers to the addresses defined by IPv4. The gap in version sequence between IPv4 and IPv6 resulted from the assignment of number 5 to the experimental Internet Stream Protocol in 1979, which however was never referred to as IPv5.

IPv4 addresses
Main article: IPv4#Addressing

Decomposition of an IPv4 address from dot-decimal notation to its binary value.

In IPv4 an address consists of 32 bits which limits theaddress space to 4294967296 (232) possible unique addresses. IPv4 reserves some addresses for special purposes such as private networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~270 million addresses). IPv4 addresses are canonically represented in dot-decimal notation, which consists of four decimal numbers, each ranging from 0 to 255, separated by dots, e.g., 172.16.254.1. Each part represents a group of 8 bits (octet) of the address. In some cases of technical writing, IPv4 addresses may be presented in various hexadecimal, octal, or binary representations.

IPv4 subnetting
In the early stages of development of the Internet Protocol,[1] network administrators interpreted an IP address in two parts: network number portion and host number portion. The highest order octet (most significant eight bits) in an address was designated as the network number and the remaining bits were called the rest field orhost identifier and were used for host numbering within a network.

This early method soon proved inadequate as additional networks developed that were independent of the existing networks already designated by a network number. In 1981, the Internet addressing specification was revised with the introduction of classful network architecture.[2] Classful network design allowed for a larger number of individual network assignments and finegrainedsubnetwork design. The first three bits of the most significant octet of an IP address were defined as the classof the address. Three classes (A, B, and C) were defined for universal unicast addressing. Depending on the class derived, the network identification was based on octet boundary segments of the entire address. Each class used successively additional octets in the network identifier, thus reducing the possible number of hosts in the higher order classes (B and C). The following table gives an overview of this now obsolete system.

Historical classful network architecture

Class

Leading bits in address (binary)

Range of first octet (decimal)

Network ID format

Host ID format

Number of networks

Number of addresses per network

0127

b.c.d

2 = 128

2 = 16777216

24

10

128191

a.b

c.d

2 = 16384

14

2 = 65536

16

110

192223

a.b.c

2 =2097152

21

2 = 256

Classful network design served its purpose in the startup stage of the Internet, but it lacked scalability in the face of the rapid expansion of the network in the 1990s. The class system of the address space was replaced with Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) in 1993. CIDR is based on variable-length subnet masking (VLSM) to allow allocation and routing based on arbitrary-length prefixes. Today, remnants of classful network concepts function only in a limited scope as the default configuration parameters of some network software and hardware components (e.g. netmask), and in the technical jargon used in network administrators' discussions.

IPv4 private addresses

Early network design, when global end-to-end connectivity was envisioned for communications with all Internet hosts, intended that IP addresses be uniquely assigned to a particular computer or device. However, it was found that this was not always necessary as private networks developed and public address space needed to be conserved.

Computers not connected to the Internet, such as factory machines that communicate only with each other via TCP/IP, need not have globally unique IP addresses. Three ranges of IPv4 addresses for private networks were reserved in RFC 1918. These addresses are not routed on the Internet and thus their use need not be coordinated with an IP address registry. Today, when needed, such private networks typically connect to the Internet through network address translation (NAT).

IANA-reserved private IPv4 network ranges

Start

End

No. of addresses

24-bit block (/8 prefix, 1 A)

10.0.0.0

10.255.255.255

16777216

20-bit block (/12 prefix, 16 B) 172.16.0.0

172.31.255.255

1048576

16-bit block (/16 prefix, 256 C) 192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255 65536

Any user may use any of the reserved blocks. Typically, a network administrator will divide a block intosubnets; for example, many home routers automatically use a default address range of 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.0.255 (192.168.0.0/24).

IPv4 address exhaustion

IPv4 address exhaustion is the decreasing supply of unallocated Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) addresses available at the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the regional Internet registries (RIRs) for assignment to end users and local Internet registries, such as Internet service providers. IANA's primary address pool was exhausted on February 3, 2011, when the last 5 blocks were allocated to the 5 RIRs.[5][6]APNIC was the first RIR to exhaust its regional pool on 15 April 2011, except for a small amount of address space reserved for the transition to IPv6, intended to be allocated in a restricted process.[7]

IPv6 addresses
Main article: IPv6 address

Decomposition of an IPv6 address from hexadecimalrepresentation to its binary value.

The rapid exhaustion of IPv4 address space, despite conservation techniques, prompted the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to explore new technologies to expand the Internet's addressing capability. The permanent solution was deemed to be a redesign of the Internet Protocol itself. This next generation of the Internet Protocol, intended to replace IPv4 on the Internet, was eventually named Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) in 1995.[3][4] The address size was increased from 32 to 128 bits or 16 octets. This, even with a generous assignment of network blocks, is deemed sufficient for the foreseeable future. Mathematically, the new address space provides the potential for a maximum of 2128, or about 3.4031038unique addresses. The new design is not intended to provide a sufficient quantity of addresses on its own, but rather to allow efficient aggregation of subnet routing prefixes to occur at routing nodes. As a result, routing table sizes are smaller, and the smallest possible individual allocation is a subnet for 264 hosts, which is the square of the size of the entire IPv4 Internet. At these levels, actual address utilization rates will be small on any IPv6 network segment. The new design also provides the opportunity to separate the addressing infrastructure of a network segment that is the local administration of the segment's available space from the addressing prefix used to route external traffic for a network. IPv6 has facilities that automatically change the routing prefix of entire networks, should the global connectivity or the routing policy change, without requiring internal redesign or renumbering. The large number of IPv6 addresses allows large blocks to be assigned for specific purposes and, where appropriate, to be aggregated for efficient routing. With a large address space, there is not the need to have complex address conservation methods as used in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR). Many modern desktop and enterprise server operating systems include native support for the IPv6 protocol, but it is not yet widely deployed in other devices, such as home networking routers, voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia equipment, and network peripherals.

IPv6 private addresses

Just as IPv4 reserves addresses for private or internal networks, blocks of addresses are set aside in IPv6 for private addresses. In IPv6, these are referred to as unique local addresses (ULA). RFC 4193 sets aside the routing prefix fc00::/7 for this block which is divided into two /8 blocks with different implied policies. The addresses include a 40-bit pseudorandom number that minimizes the risk of address collisions if sites merge or packets are misrouted.[8] Early designs used a different block for this purpose (fec0::), dubbed site-local addresses.[9] However, the definition of what constituted sites remained unclear and the poorly defined addressing policy created ambiguities for routing. This address range specification was abandoned and must not be used in new systems.[10] Addresses starting with fe80:, called link-local addresses, are assigned to interfaces for communication on the link only. The addresses are automatically generated by the operating system for each network interface. This provides instant and automatic network connectivity for any IPv6 host and means that if several hosts connect to a common hub or switch, they have a communication path via their link-local IPv6 address. This feature is used in the lower layers of IPv6 network administration (e.g. Neighbor Discovery Protocol). None of the private address prefixes may be routed on the public Internet.

IP subnetworks
IP networks may be divided into subnetworks in both IPv4 and IPv6. For this purpose, an IP address is logically recognized as consisting of two parts: the network prefix and the host identifier, or interface identifier (IPv6). The subnet mask or the CIDR prefix determines how the IP address is divided into network and host parts. The term subnet mask is only used within IPv4. Both IP versions however use the Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) concept and notation. In this, the IP address is followed by a slash and the number (in decimal) of bits used for the network part, also called the routing prefix. For example, an IPv4 address and its subnet mask may be 192.0.2.1 and 255.255.255.0, respectively. The CIDR notation for the same IP address and subnet is 192.0.2.1/24, because the first 24 bits of the IP address indicate the network and subnet.

IP address assignment
Internet Protocol addresses are assigned to a host either anew at the time of booting, or permanently by fixed configuration of its hardware or software. Persistent configuration is also known as using a static IP address. In contrast, in situations when the computer's IP address is assigned newly each time, this is known as using adynamic IP address.

Methods

Static IP addresses are manually assigned to a computer by an administrator. The exact procedure varies according to platform. This contrasts with dynamic IP addresses, which are assigned either by the computer interface or host software itself, as in Zeroconf, or assigned by a server using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Even though IP addresses assigned using DHCP may stay the same for long periods of time, they can generally change. In some cases, a network administrator may implement dynamically assigned static IP addresses. In this case, a DHCP server is used, but it is specifically configured to always assign the same IP address to a particular computer. This allows static IP addresses to be configured centrally, without having to specifically configure each computer on the network in a manual procedure. In the absence or failure of static or stateful (DHCP) address configurations, an operating system may assign an IP address to a network interface using state-less auto-configuration methods, such as Zeroconf.

Uses of dynamic addressing

Dynamic IP addresses are most frequently assigned on LANs and broadband networks by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers. They are used because it avoids the administrative burden of assigning specific static addresses to each device on a network. It also allows many devices to share limited address space on a network if only some of them will be online at a particular time. In most current desktop operating systems, dynamic IP configuration is enabled by default so that a user does not need to manually enter any settings to connect to a network with a DHCP server. DHCP is not the only technology used to assign dynamic IP addresses. Dialup and some broadband networks use dynamic address features of the Point-toPoint Protocol.

Sticky dynamic IP address

A sticky dynamic IP address is an informal term used by cable and DSL Internet access subscribers to describe a dynamically assigned IP address which seldom changes. The addresses are usually assigned with DHCP. Since the modems are usually powered on for extended periods of time, the address leases are usually set to long periods and simply renewed. If a modem is turned off and powered up again before the next expiration of the address lease, it will most likely receive the same IP address.

Address autoconfiguration
RFC 3330 defines an address block, 169.254.0.0/16, for the special use in link-local addressing for IPv4 networks. In IPv6, every interface, whether using static or dynamic address assignments, also receives a locallink address automatically in the block fe80::/10. These addresses are only valid on the link, such as a local network segment or point-to-point connection, that a host is connected to. These addresses are not routable and like private addresses cannot be the source or destination of packets traversing the Internet.

When the link-local IPv4 address block was reserved, no standards existed for mechanisms of address autoconfiguration. Filling the void, Microsoft created an implementation that is called Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA). Due to Microsoft's market power, APIPA has been deployed on millions of machines and has, thus, become a de facto standard in the industry. Many years later, the IETF defined a formal standard for this functionality, RFC 3927, entitled Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses.

Uses of static addressing

Some infrastructure situations have to use static addressing, such as when finding the Domain Name System(DNS) host that will translate domain names to IP addresses. Static addresses are also convenient, but not absolutely necessary, to locate servers inside an enterprise. An address obtained from a DNS server comes with a time to live, or caching time, after which it should be looked up to confirm that it has not changed. Even static IP addresses do change as a result of network administration (RFC 2072).

Public addresses
A public IP address, in common parlance, is synonymous with a globally routable unicast IP address.[citation needed] Both IPv4 and IPv6 define address ranges that are reserved for private networks and link-local addressing. The term public IP address often used excludes these types of addresses.

Modifications to IP addressing
IP blocking and firewalls
Firewalls perform Internet Protocol blocking to protect networks from unauthorized access. They are common on today's Internet. They control access to networks based on the IP address of a client computer. Whether using a blacklist or a whitelist, the IP address that is blocked is the perceived IP address of the client, meaning that if the client is using a proxy server or network address translation, blocking one IP address may block many individual computers.

IP address translation
Multiple client devices can appear to share IP addresses: either because they are part of a shared hosting web server environment or because an IPv4 network address translator (NAT) or proxy server acts as anintermediary agent on behalf of its customers, in which case the real originating IP addresses might be hidden from the server receiving a request. A common practice is to have a NAT hide a large number of IP addresses in a private network. Only the "outside" interface(s) of the NAT need to have Internet-routable addresses.[11] Most commonly, the NAT device maps TCP or UDP port numbers on the outside to individual private addresses on the inside. Just as a telephone number may have site-specific extensions, the port numbers are site-specific extensions to an IP address.

In small home networks, NAT functions usually take place in a residential gateway device, typically one marketed as a "router". In this scenario, the computers connected to the router would have 'private' IP addresses and the router would have a 'public' address to communicate with the Internet. This type of router allows several computers to share one public IP address.

Diagnostic tools
Computer operating systems provide various diagnostic tools to examine their network interface and address configuration. Windows provides the command-line interface tools ipconfig and netsh and users of Unixlike systems can use ifconfig, netstat, route, lanstat, ifstat, or iproute2 utilities to accomplish the task.