Introduction

Routing (or routeing) is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network
traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network,
electronic data networks (such as the Internet), and transportation networks. This article is
concerned primarily with routing in electronic data networks using packet switching technology.

In packet switching networks, routing directs packet forwarding, the transit of logically
addressed packets from their source toward their ultimate destination through intermediate
nodes; typically hardware devices called routers, bridges, gateways, firewalls, or switches.
General-purpose computers with multiple network cards can also forward packets and perform
routing, though they are not specialized hardware and may suffer from limited performance. The
routing process usually directs forwarding on the basis of routing tables which maintain a record
of the routes to various network destinations. Thus, constructing routing tables, which are held in
the routers' memory, is very important for efficient routing. Most routing algorithms use only
one network path at a time, but multipath routing techniques enable the use of multiple
alternative paths.

Switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data –
irrespective of content, type, or structure – into suitably-sized blocks, called packets. Packet
switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams (sequences of packets) over a shared
network. When traversing network adapters, switches, routers and other network nodes, packets
are buffered and queued, resulting in variable delay and throughput depending on the traffic load
in the network.

Packet switching contrasts with another principal networking paradigm, circuit switching, a
method which sets up a limited number of dedicated connections of constant bit rate and constant
delay between nodes for exclusive use during the communication session. In case of traffic fees,
for example in cellular communication, circuit switching is characterized by a fee per time unit
of connection time, even when no data is transferred, while packet switching is characterized by
a fee per unit of information.

Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in
a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes. 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."

The designers of TCP/IP defined an IP address as a 32-bit number and this system, known as
Internet Protocol Version 4 or IPv4 is still in use today. However, due to the enormous growth of
the Internet and the resulting depletion of available addresses, a new addressing system (IPv6),
using 128 bits for the address, was developed in 1995 and last standardized by RFC 2460 in
1998. Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers, they are usually displayed in human-
readable notations, such as 208.77.188.166 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:1:1 (for
IPv6).
 Background

A. Routing

Routing in a more narrow sense of the term is often contrasted with bridging in its assumption
that network addresses are structured and that similar addresses imply proximity within the
network. Because structured addresses allow a single routing table entry to represent the route to
a group of devices, structured addressing (routing, in the narrow sense) outperforms unstructured
addressing (bridging) in large networks, and has become the dominant form of addressing on the
Internet, though bridging is still widely used within localized environments.

B. Switching

The concept of switching small blocks of data was first explored by Paul Baran in the early
1960s. Independently, Donald Davies at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK had
developed the same ideas (Abbate, 2000).

Leonard Kleinrock conducted early research in queuing theory which would be important in
packet switching, and published a book in the related field of digital message switching (without
the packets) in 1961; he also later played a leading role in building and management of the
world's first packet switched network, the ARPANET.

Baran developed the concept of message block switching during his research at the RAND
Corporation for the US Air Force into survivable communications networks, first presented to
the Air Force in the summer of 1961 as briefing B-265 then published as RAND Paper P-2626 in
1962 [1], and then including and expanding somewhat within a series of eleven papers titled On
Distributed Communications in 1964. Baran's P-2626 paper described a general architecture for a
large-scale, distributed, survivable communications network. The paper focuses on three key
ideas: first, use of a decentralized network with multiple paths between any two points; and
second, dividing complete user messages into what he called message blocks (later called
packets); then third, delivery of these messages by store and forward switching.

Baran's study made its way to Robert Taylor and J.C.R. Licklider at the Information Processing
Technology Office, both wide-area network evangelists, and it helped influence Lawrence
Roberts to adopt the technology when Taylor put him in charge of development of the
ARPANET.

Baran's work was similar to the research performed independently by Donald Davies at the
National Physical Laboratory, UK. In 1965, Davies developed the concept of packet-switched
networks and proposed development of a UK wide network. He gave a talk on the proposal in
1966, after which a person from the Ministry of Defense told him about Baran's work. A member
of Davies' team met Lawrence Roberts at the 1967 ACM Symposium on Operating System
Principles, bringing the two groups together.

Interestingly, Davies had chosen some of the same parameters for his original network design as
Baran, such as a packet size of 1024 bits. In 1966 Davies proposed that a network should be built
at the laboratory to serve the needs of NPL and prove the feasibility of packet switching. The
NPL Data Communications Network entered service in 1970. Roberts and the ARPANET team
took the name "packet switching" itself from Davies's work.

The first computer network and packet switching network deployed for computer resource
sharing was the Octopus Network at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that began
connecting four Control Data 6600 computers to several shared storage devices (including an
IBM Data Cell (2321)[2] in 1968 and an IBM Photo store in 1970) and to several hundred ASR-
33 Teletype terminals for time sharing use starting in 1968.

C. Addressing

The Internet protocols are the world's most popular open-system (nonproprietary) protocol suite
because they can be used to communicate across any set of interconnected networks and are
equally well suited for LAN and WAN communications. The Internet protocols consist of a suite
of communication protocols, of which the two best known are the Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). The Internet protocol suite not only includes lower-layer
protocols (such as TCP and IP), but it also specifies common applications such as electronic
mail, terminal emulation, and file transfer. This chapter provides a broad introduction to
specifications that comprise the Internet protocols. Discussions include IP addressing and key
upper-layer protocols used in the Internet. Specific routing protocols are addressed individually
later in this document.

Internet protocols were first developed in the mid-1970s, when the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) became interested in establishing a packet-switched network that
would facilitate communication between dissimilar computer systems at research institutions.
With the goal of heterogeneous connectivity in mind, DARPA funded research by Stanford
University and Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN). The result of this development effort was the
Internet protocol suite, completed in the late 1970s.

TCP/IP later was included with Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX and has since
become the foundation on which the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) are based.

Documentation of the Internet protocols (including new or revised protocols) and policies are
specified in technical reports called Request for Comments (RFCs), which are published and
then reviewed and analyzed by the Internet community. Protocol refinements are published in the
new RFCs.
 Technology Description

A. Routing

a) Routing Components

Routing involves two basic activities: determining optimal routing paths and transporting
information groups (typically called packets) through an internetwork. In the context of the
routing process, the latter of these is referred to as packet switching. Although packet switching
is relatively straightforward, path determination can be very complex.

Fig 1: Routers & Routing Table

b) Path Determination

Routing protocols use metrics to evaluate what path will be the best for a packet to travel. A
metric is a standard of measurement, such as path bandwidth, that is used by routing algorithms
to determine the optimal path to a destination. To aid the process of path determination, routing
algorithms initialize and maintain routing tables, which contain route information. Route
information varies depending on the routing algorithm used.

Routing algorithms fill routing tables with a variety of information. Destination/next hop
associations tell a router that a particular destination can be reached optimally by sending the
packet to a particular router representing the "next hop" on the way to the final destination. When
a router receives an incoming packet, it checks the destination address and attempts to associate
this address with a next hop. Figure 2 depicts a sample destination/next hop routing table.
 Fig 2: Destination/Next Hop Associations Determine the Data's Optimal Path

Routing tables also can contain other information, such as data about the desirability of a path.
Routers compare metrics to determine optimal routes, and these metrics differ depending on the
design of the routing algorithm used. A variety of common metrics will be introduced and
described later in this chapter.

Routers communicate with one another and maintain their routing tables through the
transmission of a variety of messages. The routing update message is one such message that
generally consists of all or a portion of a routing table. By analyzing routing updates from all
other routers, a router can build a detailed picture of network topology. A link-state
advertisement, another example of a message sent between routers, informs other routers of the
state of the sender's links. Link information also can be used to build a complete picture of
network topology to enable routers to determine optimal routes to network destinations.

c) Delivery semantics

Routing Schemes Anycast Broadcast Multicast Unicast Geocast

Routing schemes differ in their delivery semantics:

• Unicast: delivers a message to a single specified node;

• Broadcast: delivers a message to all nodes in the network;
• Multicast: delivers a message to a group of nodes that have expressed interest in
receiving the message;
• Anycast: delivers a message to any one out of a group of nodes, typically the one nearest
to the source.

Unicast is the dominant form of message delivery on the Internet, and this article focuses on
unicast routing algorithms.
 d) Topology distribution

Small networks may involve manually configured routing tables (static routing) or Non-Adaptive
routing, while larger networks involve complex topologies and may change rapidly, making the
manual construction of routing tables unfeasible. Nevertheless, most of the public switched
telephone network (PSTN) uses pre-computed routing tables, with fallback routes if the most
direct route becomes blocked. Adaptive routing or Dynamic routing attempts to solve this
problem by constructing routing tables automatically, based on information carried by routing
protocols, and allowing the network to act nearly autonomously in avoiding network failures and
blockages.

For (static routing) or Non-Adaptive routing there is no algorithm, and is manually engineered.
The advantage of this routing type is maximum computing resources are saved but are
conditioned. Networks have to be prepared for disaster, by additional planning. For larger
networks, static routing is avoided.

Examples for (Dynamic routing) or Adaptive routing algorithms are Routing Information
Protocol (RIP), Open Shortest Path First(OSPF). Dynamic routing dominates the Internet.
However, the configuration of the routing protocols often requires a skilled touch; one should not
suppose that networking technology has developed to the point of the complete automation of
routing.

e) Distance vector algorithms

Distance vector algorithms use the Bellman-Ford algorithm. This approach assigns a number,
the cost, to each of the links between each node in the network. Nodes will send information
from point A to point B via the path that results in the lowest total cost (i.e. the sum of the costs
of the links between the nodes used).

Fig 3: Hierarchical Routing

The algorithm operates in a very simple manner. When a node first starts, it only knows of its
immediate neighbors, and the direct cost involved in reaching them. (This information, the list of
destinations, the total cost to each, and the next hop to send data to get there, makes up the
routing table, or distance table.) Each node, on a regular basis, sends to each neighbor its own
current idea of the total cost to get to all the destinations it knows of. The neighboring node(s)
examine this information, and compare it to what they already 'know'; anything which represents
an improvement on what they already have, they insert in their own routing table(s). Over time,
all the nodes in the network will discover the best next hop for all destinations, and the best total
cost.

When one of the nodes involved goes down, those nodes which used it as their next hop for
certain destinations discard those entries, and create new routing-table information. They then
pass this information to all adjacent nodes, which then repeat the process. Eventually all the
nodes in the network receive the updated information, and will then discover new paths to all the
destinations which they can still "reach".

f) Link-state algorithms

When applying link-state algorithms, each node uses as its fundamental data a map of the
network in the form of a graph. To produce this, each node floods the entire network with
information about what other nodes it can connect to, and each node then independently
assembles this information into a map. Using this map, each router then independently
determines the least-cost path from itself to every other node using a standard shortest paths
algorithm such as Dijkstra's algorithm. The result is a tree rooted at the current node such that the
path through the tree from the root to any other node is the least-cost path to that node. This tree
then serves to construct the routing table, which specifies the best next hop to get from the
current node to any other node.

g) Path vector protocol

Path vector routing is used for inter-domain routing. It is similar to Distance vector routing. In
path vector routing we assume there is one node (there can be many) in each autonomous system
which acts on behalf of the entire autonomous system. This node is called the speaker node. The
speaker node creates a routing table and advertises it to neighboring speaker nodes in
neighboring autonomous systems. The idea is the same as Distance vector routing except that
only speaker nodes in each autonomous system can communicate with each other. The speaker
node advertises the path, not the metric of the nodes, in its autonomous system or other
autonomous systems. Path vector routing is discussed in RFC 1322; the path vector routing
algorithm is somewhat similar to the distance vector algorithm in the sense that each border
router advertises the destinations it can reach to its neighboring router. However, instead of
advertising networks in terms of a destination and the distance to that destination, networks are
advertised as destination addresses and path descriptions to reach those destinations. A route is
defined as a pairing between a destination and the attributes of the path to that destination, thus
the name, path vector routing, where the routers receive a vector that contains paths to a set of
destinations. The path, expressed in terms of the domains (or confederations) traversed so far, is
carried in a special path attribute that records the sequence of routing domains through which the
reachability information has passed.

B. Switching

Two major packet switching modes exist; connectionless packet switching, also known as
datagram switching, and connection-oriented packet switching, also known as virtual circuit
switching. In the first case each packet includes complete addressing or routing information. The
packets are routed individually, sometimes resulting in different paths and out-of-order delivery.
In the second case a connection is defined and preallocated in each involved node before any
packet is transferred. The packets include a connection identifier rather than address information,
and are delivered in order. See below.

Packet mode communication may be utilized with or without intermediate forwarding nodes
(packet switches). In all packet mode communication, network resources are managed by
statistical multiplexing or dynamic bandwidth allocation in which a communication channel is
effectively divided into an arbitrary number of logical variable-bit-rate channels or data streams.
Each logical stream consists of a sequence of packets, which normally are forwarded by the
multiplexers and intermediate network nodes asynchronously using first-in, first-out buffering.
Alternatively, the packets may be forwarded according to some scheduling discipline for fair
queuing or for differentiated or guaranteed quality of service, such as pipeline forwarding or
time-driven priority (TDP). Any buffering introduces varying latency and throughput in
transmission. In case of a shared physical medium, the packets may be delivered according to
some packet-mode multiple access schemes.

a) How Packet Switching Works

Packet switching entails packaging data in specially formatted units (called packets) that are
typically routed from source to destination using network switches and routers. Each packet
contains address information that identifies the sending computer and intended recipient. Using
these addresses, network switches and routers determine how best to transfer the packet between
hops on the path to its destination.

b) Connectionless and connection-oriented packet switching

The service actually provided to the user by networks using packet switching nodes can be either
connectionless (based on datagram messages), or virtual circuit switching (also known as
connection oriented). Some connectionless protocols are Ethernet, IP, and UDP; connection
oriented packet-switching protocols include X.25, Frame relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM), Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), and TCP.

In connection oriented networks, each packet is labeled with a connection ID rather than an
address. Address information is only transferred to each node during a connection set-up phase,
when an entry is added to each switching table in the network nodes.
In connectionless networks, each packet is labeled with a destination address, and may also be
labeled with the sequence number of the packet. This precludes the need for a dedicated path to
help the packet find its way to its destination. Each packet is dispatched and may go via different
routes. At the destination, the original message/data is reassembled in the correct order, based on
the packet sequence number. Thus a virtual connection, also known as a virtual circuit or byte
stream is provided to the end-user by a transport layer protocol, although intermediate network
nodes only provides a connectionless network layer service.

c) Packet switching in networks

Packet switching is used to optimize the use of the channel capacity available in digital
telecommunication networks such as computer networks, to minimize the transmission latency
(i.e. the time it takes for data to pass across the network), and to increase robustness of
communication.

The most well-known use of packet switching is the Internet and local area networks. The
Internet is implemented by the Internet Protocol Suite using a variety of Link Layer
technologies. For example, Ethernet and Frame Relay are common. Newer mobile phone
technologies (e.g., GPRS, I-mode) also use packet switching.

X.25 is a notable use of packet switching in that, despite being based on packet switching
methods, it provided virtual circuits to the user. These virtual circuits carry variable-length
packets. In 1978, X.25 was used to provide the first international and commercial packet
switching network, the International Packet Switched Service (IPSS). Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM) also is a virtual circuit technology, which uses fixed-length cell relay connection
oriented packet switching.

Datagram packet switching is also called connectionless networking because no connections are
established. Technologies such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and the Resource
Reservation Protocol (RSVP) create virtual circuits on top of datagram networks. Virtual circuits
are especially useful in building robust failover mechanisms and allocating bandwidth for delay-
sensitive applications.

MPLS and its predecessors, as well as ATM, have been called "fast packet" technologies. MPLS,
indeed, has been called "ATM without cells" [5]. Modern routers, however, do not require these
technologies to be able to forward variable-length packets at multigigabit speeds across the
network.

d) Packet Switching versus Circuit Switching

Packet switching is the alternative to circuit switching protocols used historically for telephone
(voice) networks and sometimes with ISDN connections.
Compared to circuit switching, packet switching offers the following:

• More efficient use of overall network bandwidth due to flexibility in routing the smaller
packets over shared links. Packet switching networks are often cheaper to build as less
equipment is needed given this ability to share.

• Longer delays in receiving messages due to the time required to package and route
packets. For many applications, delays are not long enough to be significant, but for high-
performance applications like real-time video, additional data compression and QoS
technology is often required to achieve the required performance levels.

• Potential for network security risks due to the use of shared physical links. Protocols and
other related elements on packet switching networks must designed with the appropriate
security precautions.

C. Addressing

There are two addressing mechanism: IP Addressing and MAC Addressing

a) IP Addressing

The Internet Protocol routes data packets between networks; IP addresses specify the locations of
the source and destination nodes in the topology of the routing system. For this purpose, some of
the bits in an IP address are used to designate a sub network. The number of these bits is
indicated in CIDR notation, appended to the IP address; e.g., 208.77.188.166/24.

As the development of private networks raised the threat of IPv4 address exhaustion, RFC 1918
set aside a group of private address spaces that may be used by anyone on private networks.
They are often used with network address translators to connect to the global public Internet.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the IP address space
allocations globally, cooperates with five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) to allocate IP
address blocks to Local Internet Registries (Internet service providers) and other entities.

(i) IPv4
IP addresses are broken into 4 octets (IPv4) separated by dots called dotted decimal
notation. An octet is a byte consisting of 8 bits. The IPv4 addresses are in the following
form: 192.168.10.1

There are two parts of an IP address:

o Network ID
o Host ID
The various classes of networks specify additional or fewer octets to designate the
network ID versus the host ID.

Class 1st Octet 2nd Octet 3rd Octet 4th Octet

Net ID Host ID
A
Net ID Host ID
B
Net ID Host ID
C

When a network is set up, a netmask is also specified. The netmask determines the class of the
network as shown below, except for CIDR. When the netmask is setup, it specifies some number
of most significant bits with a 1's value and the rest have values of 0. The most significant part of
the netmask with bits set to 1's specifies the network address, and the lower part of the address
will specify the host address. When setting addresses on a network, remember there can be no
host address of 0 (no host address bits set), and there can be no host address with all bits set.

Fig 4: IP addressing with subnets

Class A‐E networks

The addressing scheme for class A through E networks is shown below. Note: We use the 'x'
character here to denote doesn’t care situations which include all possible numbers at the
location. It is many times used to denote networks.
Network Type Address Range Normal Netmask Comments
Class A 001.x.x.x to 126.x.x.x 255.0.0.0 For very large networks
Class B 128.1.x.x to 191.254.x.x 255.255.0.0 For medium size networks
Class C 192.0.1.x to 223.255.254.x 255.255.255.0 For small networks
Class D 224.x.x.x to 239.255.255.255 Used to support multicasting
Class E 240.x.x.x to 247.255.255.255

RFCs 1518 and 1519 define a system called Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) which is
used to allocate IP addresses more efficiently. This may be used with subnet masks to establish
networks rather than the class system shown above. A class C subnet may be 8 bits but using
CIDR, it may be 12 bits.

There are some network addresses reserved for private use by the Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority (IANA) which can be hidden behind a computer which uses IP masquerading to
connect the private network to the internet. There are three sets of addresses reserved. These
addresses are shown below:

• 10.x.x.x
• 172.16.x.x - 172.31.x.x
• 192.168.x.x

Other reserved or commonly used addresses:

• 127.0.0.1 - The loopback interface address. All 127.x.x.x addresses are used by the
loopback interface which copies data from the transmit buffer to the receive buffer of the
NIC when used.
• 0.0.0.0 - This is reserved for hosts that don't know their address and use BOOTP or
DHCP protocols to determine their addresses.
• 255 - The value of 255 is never used as an address for any part of the IP address. It is
reserved for broadcast addressing. Please remember, this is exclusive of CIDR. When
using CIDR, all bits of the address can never be all ones.

To further illustrate, a few examples of valid and invalid addresses are listed below:

1. Valid addresses:
o 10.1.0.1 through 10.1.0.254
o 10.0.0.1 through 10.0.0.254
o 10.0.1.1 through 10.0.1.254
2. Invalid addresses:
o 10.1.0.0 - Host IP can't be 0.
o 10.1.0.255 - Host IP can't be 255.
o 10.123.255.4 - No network or subnet can have a value of 255.
o 0.12.16.89 - No Class A network can have an address of 0.
o 255.9.56.45 - No network address can be 255.
o 10.34.255.1 - No network address can be 255.
 (ii) IPv6

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, aimed 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, which, 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 3.403 × 1038 unique addresses.

The new design is not based on the goal to provide a sufficient quantity of addresses alone, 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).

All 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 Internet Protocol (VoIP) and multimedia equipment, and network peripherals.

Example of an IPv6 address:

2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

IPv6 private addresses

Just as IPv4 reserves addresses for private or internal networks, there are blocks of addresses 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 (cf. IPv6) the addresses include a 40-bit pseudorandom
number that minimizes the risk of address collisions if sites merge or packets are misrouted.

Early designs (RFC 3513) used a different block for this purpose (fec0 ::), dubbed site-local
addresses. However, the definition of what constituted sites remained unclear and the poorly
defined addressing policy created ambiguities for routing. The address range specification was
abandoned and must no longer be used in new systems.
Addresses starting with fe80: — called link-local addresses — are assigned only in the local link
area. The addresses are generated usually automatically by the operating system's IP layer for
each network interface. This provides instant automatic network connectivity for any IPv6 host
and means that if several hosts connect to a common hub or switch, they have an instant
communication path via their link-local IPv6 address. This feature is used extensively and
invisibly to most users, in the lower layers of IPv6 network administration (cf. Neighbor
Discovery Protocol).

None of the private address prefixes may be routed in the public Internet.

b) MAC addressing

In computer networking, a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier
assigned to most network adapters or network interface cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for
identification, and used in the Media Access Control protocol sub-layer. If assigned by the
manufacturer, a MAC address usually encodes the manufacturer's registered identification
number. It may also be known as an Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA), hardware address,
adapter address, or physical address.

There are three numbering spaces, managed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), which are in common use for formulating a MAC address: MAC-48, EUI-48,
and EUI-64. The IEEE claims trademarks on the names "EUI-48" and "EUI-64", where "EUI"
stands for Extended Unique Identifier.

Although intended to be a permanent and globally unique identification, it is possible to change

the MAC address on most of today's hardware, an action often referred to as MAC spoofing.
Unlike IP address spoofing, where a sender spoofing their address in a request tricks the other
party into sending the response elsewhere, in MAC address spoofing, the response is received by
the spoofing party. However, MAC address spoofing is limited to the local broadcast domain.

A host cannot determine from the MAC address of another host whether that host is on the same
OSI Layer 2 network segment as the sending host, or on a network segment bridged to that
network segment.

In TCP/IP networks, the MAC address of a subnet interface can be queried with the IP address
using the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) for Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) or the
Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) for IPv6. On broadcast networks, such as Ethernet, the
MAC address uniquely identifies each node on that segment and allows frames to be marked for
specific hosts. It thus forms the basis of most of the Link layer (OSI Layer 2) networking upon
which upper layer protocols rely to produce complex, functioning networks.
 Discussion

Routing and switching can be two terms that are difficult to differentiate, so here is a simple
explanation that may help to clarify things. First of all switching and routing is not the same
thing. Switching involves moving packets between devices on the same network. Conversely,
routing involves moving packets between different networks. Switches operate at layer 2 of the
OSI Model. A switch, also referred to as a multi-port bridge, is able to determine where a packet
should be sent by examining the MAC address within the data link header of the packet (the
MAC address is the hardware address of a network adapter). A switch maintains a database of
MAC addresses and what port they are connected to. Routers, on the other hand, operate at layer
3 of the OSI Model. A router is able to determine where to send a packet using the Network ID
within the Network layer header. It then uses the routing table to determine the route to the
destination host.

As with any other network-layer protocol, the IP addressing scheme is integral to the process of
routing IP datagram through an internetwork. Each IP address has specific components and
follows a basic format. These IP addresses can be subdivided and used to create addresses for
sub networks, as discussed in more detail later in this chapter.

Each host on a TCP/IP network is assigned a unique 32-bit logical address that is divided into
two main parts: the network number and the host number. The network number identifies a
network and must be assigned by the Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) if the
network is to be part of the Internet. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) can obtain blocks of
network addresses from the InterNIC and can itself assign address space as necessary. The host
number identifies a host on a network and is assigned by the local network administrator.

Conclusion

Routing, Switching and Addressing –these all are parts of computer networking. Routing is just
the act of moving information across an internetwork from a source to a destination. Along the
way, at least one intermediate node typically is encountered. Routing is often contrasted with
bridging, which might seem to accomplish precisely the same thing to the casual observer. The
primary difference between the two is that bridging occurs at Layer 2 (the link layer) of the OSI
reference model, whereas routing occurs at Layer 3 (the network layer). Whereas packet
switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data –
irrespective of content, type, or structure – into suitably-sized blocks, called packets. Packet
switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams (sequences of packets) over a shared
network. When traversing network adapters, switches, routers and other network nodes, packets
are buffered and queued, resulting in variable delay and throughput depending on the traffic load
in the network. In addition an Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical label that is assigned
to devices participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication
between its nodes.[1] An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface
identification and location addressing