Computer Networks

CS F303

Obtaining IP Addresses &

Supporting Protocols
Ashutosh Bhatia
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
BITS Pilani Birla Institute of Technology and Science
Pilani|Dubai|Goa|Hyderabad Pilani Campus, Pilani
 BITS Pilani
Pilani|Dubai|Goa|Hyderabad

Outline
• Obtaining IP Addresses (DHCP)
• Supporting Protocols (ARP, ICMP)
• Routing Table
 Organization

• IP layer forwarding is based on IP addresses

• Next-hop delivery based on Link addresses (MAC)

• Need to perform IP to MAC address translation

• Answer: Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

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BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Internet Service Provider (ISP)
• How does an ISP get address blocks?
• Ans: From Regional Internet Registries (RIR) which are controlled by
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Organization
• How does an organization get an address block?
• Ans: From provider Internet Service Provider (ISP)

During routing process: ISP Routers will advertise “send me anything

with addresses beginning 133.197.128.0/18”
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 Host

• Organization has an IP prefix

- How does a host get a specific IP address?

• Address needs to be unique and location-dependent

 Re-configurable address

• Before any communication, the host needs an IP

address and default router’s IP address
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 Configuration
• Manual Configuration
– Windows: control-panel-> Network and Internet -> Network
Connections -> Local Area Connection -> TCP/IPv4 -> properties
– Unix: ifconfig
– Remote configuration difficult, error prone

• Automatic Configuration: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

(DHCP)
– Dynamically get address from a server
– “plug-and-play”

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Idea

• DHCP server maintains a pool of available addresses

• Addresses handed out on demand (leased for some specific time)

– Host periodically needs to renew the lease

• Advantages: Ease of configuration (automated), reuse of IP

addresses, supports portability

• But how does the host know address of DHCP server?

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 DHCP Operation
• Operates at application layer using UDP protocol

• A newly booted/attached host ‘broadcasts’ DHCP discover

message
– IP address: 255.255.255.255 goes as link-layer broadcast (broadcast
restricted to physical network)
– Received by all hosts/routers in the physical network

• DHCP Server replies to host (others ignore message)

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Relay Operation
• One DHCP server over multiple subnets

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Message Exchange

• Host broadcasts “DHCP discover” msg

• DHCP server responds with “DHCP offer” msg
• Host requests IP address: “DHCP request” msg
• DHCP server confirms address: “DHCP ack” msg
• DHCP server also passes subnet mask, default router, domain
name, DNS server info etc if host asks for it

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

DHCP Packet Format

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Router Configuration

• How are router interface addresses configured?

• By a system administrator manually via a network
management tool

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Summary

• IP addresses crucial for communication

• Organizations get IP prefixes from ISPs
• ISPs get from RIRs
• Hosts gets from DHCP server
• Ahead: Supporting Protocols – ARP, ICMP

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Demo in Linux

• Run a packet capture tool like wireshark or tcpdump

• Run “dhclient eth0” (replace eth0 with whatever is the correct
interface).
• Stop packet capture and analyze captured packets
• Next : Address Resolution Protocol

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Problem Statement

• IP layer forwarding is based on IP addresses

• Next-hop delivery based on Link addresses (MAC)

• Need to perform IP to MAC address translation

• Answer: Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
• Operates at Link layer (Frame type = 0x0806)

• Based on broadcast: What is the MAC address corresponding

to given IP address?
– Host with matching IP address replies

• Each host maintains a cache with IP to MAC translations

– Entries in cache timed out periodically (15 min)
– arp –a shows all the ARP cache entries

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

• Originator: Add entry to cache corresponding to target

• Target: Add entry to cache corresponding to the originator

(sender)

• Intermediate hosts: Refresh existing entries

• When forwarding a datagram, check cache, if no mapping,
invoke ARP

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 ARP Packet Format

Numbers in brackets capture mapping IP

addresses to Ethernet addresses

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Proxy ARP
• Router answers ARP requests for a host on of the network on another
interface
• The sender of the ARP request thinks that the router is the destination host
• The router acts as proxy agent for the destination host, and relays its packets
• Motivation
– Can hide a number of machines
– All packets for these machines have to pass through the router running
Proxy ARP, where the packets can be examined
– The sender does not know that its packets are passing through a machine
and are being checked

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 How Does Proxy ARP Work?
• The Host A (172.16.10.100) on Subnet A needs to send
packets to Host D (172.16.20.200) on Subnet B.

• As Host A has a /16 subnet mask, it believes that it is

directly connected to Host D, so it sends an ARP request
to Host D. But does not reach Host D.

• The router sends Proxy ARP reply to Host A telling its

own MAC address as the host D MAC address .

• Upon receipt of this ARP reply, Host A updates its ARP

table

• Later whenever router receives a packet for host D at

interface e0 from anybody in subnet A, it relays the
packet to interface e1
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 Gratuitous ARP
• Wireshark/Tcpdump Output
– arp who-has IP_x tell IP_y
– Source protocol address: IP_y
– Target protocol address: IP_x

• Sometimes, one sees IP_x= IP_y

– The sender knows its address; yet it issues a request asking to resolve its address
– Hence “gratuitous”
– Does not expect a reply

• But if a reply arrives: misconfigured system!

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Gratuitous ARP

• A feature of ARP
– Host H has an entry in its ARP cache for IP address X
– It receives an ARP request from IP address X for some
address Y
– Even though H does not reply to the ARP request, it updates
its ARP cache with X’s hardware address (contained in the
ARP Req)
– “Latest” hardware address is maintained

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Uses of Gratuitous ARPs
• Backup server taking over from a failed server

• After detecting that the primary server has failed, the backup
server

– Issues a gratuitous ARP request, with the primary server’s IP address and
its own hardware address

– Causes all machines to update their ARP cache entries, so that the
backup’s hardware address is noted

– Henceforth, all traffic is directed to the backup server

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol

• Used by hosts & routers to communicate network-level

information
– Error reporting: unreachable host, network, port, protocol
– Diagnostic purposes: Echo request/reply (used by ping)
– Routing: Source quench

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 ICMP Packet Format
• ICMP messages carried in IP datagrams
• 8 bytes of header followed by data.
• Data field in error messages carry
– entire IP header and first 8 bytes of data of IP packet that caused the
error

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Select ICMP Messages

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

Select ICMP Messages

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 Routing Table
• Typical entries
– Destination network (netid or net-subnetid) or host
– Routing table mask (may be implicit)
– Next-hop IP address (often denoted as “gateway”)
– Outgoing interface
– Flags to indicate
• whether destination address (in table) is a network/host address
• destination (in table) is directly connected

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

Routing Table

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

 Routing Table: Basic Operation
• Pick up the packet’s destination address
• Apply the routing table mask
– Routing table mask may default to the subnet mask of the associated
interface
• The network-prefix of the packet’s destination address is extracted
• Now match this extracted id with entries in the column named
“Destination”
• If match is seen, obtain the next hop address from the “Gateway”
column

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 Routing tables: an example

What is the routing table used by machine A?

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

IP Routing Table (BSD systems)

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956

IP Routing Table (BSD systems)

BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956