Unicast:

 unicast packets are sent from host to host. The communication is from a single host to another single host. There Is one device transmitting a message destined for one receiver.

Broadcast:

 Broadcast is when a single device is transmitting a message to all other devices in a given address range. This broadcast could reach all hosts on the subnet, all subnets, or all hosts on all subnets Broadcast packets have the host (and/or subnet) portion of the address set to all ones. By design, most modern routers will block IP broadcast traffic and restrict it to the local subnet.

Multicast:

Multicast is a special protocol for use with IP. Multicast enables a single device to communicate with a specific set of hosts, not defined by any standard IP address and mask combination. This allows for communication that resembles a conference call. Anyone from anywhere can join the conference, and everyone at the conference hears what the speaker has to say. T

he speaker’s message isn’t broadcasted everywhere, but only to those in the

conference hall itself. A special ser of addresses is used for multicast communication. Website: http://www.linfo.org/time-to-live.html 

Time

-

to

-

live Definition

 

 

The

time-to-live

 (TTL) is the number of  

hops

 that a 

 packet 

 is permitted to travel before being discarded by a

router 

. A packet is the fundamental unit of information transport in all modern computer  networks, and increasingly in other communications networks as well. A router is a

network layer 

 electronic device and/or software that connects at least two networks, such as twoLANs (local area networks) or  WANs (wide area networks), and forwards packets between them. A hop is the trip that a packet takes from one router to another as it traverses a network on the way to its destination. The TTL is set in an eight  binary digit field in the packet header by the sending host and is used to prevent packets from endlessly circulating on the Internet or other network. When forwarding an IP packet, routers are required to decrease the TTL by at least one. If a packet's TTL field reached zero, the router detecting it discards the packet and sends an ICMP (Internet

 

control message protocol) message back to the originating host. The 

 ping 

 and the

traceroute

 utilities both make use of the TTL. The latter intentionally sends packets with low TTL values so that they will be discarded by each successive router in the destination path. The time  between sending a packet and receiving the ICMP message that it was discarded is used to calculate the travel time for each successive hop. A specific TTL number can indicate the maximum range for a packet. For example, zero restricts it to the same host, one to the same subnet, 32 to the same site, 64 to the same region and 128 to the same continent; 255 is unrestricted.

Website: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/34420#178065

 

Classful vs Classless network

 

Classful is based on the default Class A, B or C networks. - Class A: 0 - 127 with a mask of 255.0.0.0 (/8) - Class B: 128 - 191 with a mask of 255.255.0.0 (/16) - Class C: 192 - 223 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 (/24) All devices in the same routing domain must use the same subnet mask. Since routers running a classful routing protocol do not include subnet mask information with routing updates, the router assumes either its own subnet mask, or defaults to the classful subnet mask. Classless on the other hand, allows the use of variable length subnet masks, or VLSM, because subnet mask information is included with routing updates. You can have a mixture of different subnet masks in the same routing domain: - 10.1.0.0/19 - 10.2.0.0/20 - 172.16.8.0/21 - 172.16.16.0/24 Website: http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~pxk/352/notes/autonomous_systems.html 

 

Autonomous Systems

 

 An  Autonomous System ( AS) is a collection of routers whose prefixes and routing policies are under common administrative control. This could be a network service provider, a large company, a university, a division of a company, or a group of companies. The AS represents a connected group of one or more blocks of IP addresses (called IP prefixes) that have been assigned to that organization and provides a single routing policy to systems outside the AS. Autonomous Systems create a two-level hierarchy for routing in the Internet. Routing between  Autonomous Systems (inter-AS routing) is external to the AS allows one AS to send traffic to another AS. An IP prefix is a group of IP addresses expressed in CIDR form (i.e., address/bits, such as 128.6.0.0/16). Note that most organizations do not interconect via autonomous systems but simply connect via a single ISP. Routers within an AS use an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP), which handles routing between nodes inside the AS. Common interior gateway protocols include RIP, OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP, as well as some proprietary protocols such as IGRP. Routing within an Autonomous System (intra-AS routing) is internal to that AS and invisible to those outside it. The AS administrator decides what routing algorithm should run within it. To get traffic from a host in one AS to a host in another AS, the autonomous systems need to be connected. Most  ASes do not share a direct link with each other, in which case data traffic may be routed through the networks of other ASes that agree to carry the traffic. An Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) is a routing protocol that handles routing between Autonomous Systems (inter-AS routing). BGP version 4, the Border Gateway Protocol, is the de facto standard EGP for inter-AS routing. At some point in the future, the Internet is expected to adopt IDRP, the OSI Inter-Domain Routing protocol.

Inter-AS Routing

 

Figure 1. Inter-AS routing

 

 A routing policy defines how routing information is exchanged between the ASes. For example, suppose two ASes,  ASx and ASy, are connected to each other via a link between two gateway routers. Suppose that ASx knows how to reach some network, NET

 –

1, that is defined by an IP prefix. This network may be within ASx or may be external to it. Suppose that ASy knows how to reach some other network, NET

 –

2. For systems on NET

 –

1 to be able to send messages to systems on NET

 –

2, and vice versa, traffic will need to flow between ASx and ASy. This means that ASx needs to announce to ASy that it has a route to NET

 –

1 and ASy needs to announce to ASx that it has a route to NET

 –

2. The exterior gateway protocol is used to do this. ASx and ASy can then decide whether to accept this information or discard it (if, for example, they have better routes to those networks).

Website: http://packetlife.net/blog/2008/jun/19/ospf-network-types/