Mapping Internet to Physical Addresses

 2 machines on a physical network can only

communicate if they know each other’s physical
address (PA)
 How does a router or host map an IP addr. to a PA?
 2 machines with IP addresses IA and IB and physical
addresses PA and PB
 Devise a scheme so that high level programs can
only work with IP address

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 1

Address Mapping
 Must be done all along path from source to
destination
 2 cases
 Last step of delivering a packet
 Delivery to host on physical network
 All other steps
 Delivery to router on physical network
 Problem known as the ‘address resolution
problem’
© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 2
Physical Addresses
 2 types
 Ethernet type - large fixed address
 ProNet type - token ring - small easily
configurable
 Resolution difficult for Ethernet, easy for
ProNet
 ProNet uses small intergers, allows user to
choose the PA when installing the board
© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 3
Physical Addresses
 Key - choose IP and PA that have some part
of them overlapping
 User has choice when configuring card!
 Example: 192.5.48.3 and PA 3
 Computing PA from IP becomes easy
 PA = f (IA)

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 4

Dynamic Binding - ARP
 No hope of encoding 48 bit addr into 32 bit IP
addr
 Use the Ethernet broadcast ability to solve the
problem
 No central DB and new hosts can be
dynamically added
 Host A wants to resolve IP addr IB

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 5

ARP
 Host A broadcasts a special packet that asks
the host with IP addr IB to respond with its PA
PB
 All hosts receive the packet. Only B
recognizes its IP addr
 Sends a reply with its PA
 Host A uses the received PA to send the
packet to host B
© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 6
 ARP
 See figure 5.1 on page 80
 To reduce communication costs hosts keep ‘ARP
caches’ to maintain recently acquired IP to PA
binding information
 Cache information can become ‘stale’
 Assume hosts A and B. Over time B crashes or
leaves
 No indication that host B not there
 Use timeouts, typically 20 mins.
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IP Addressing
 All hosts on a given physical network share
same prefix
 network + host
 Splitting IP addrs keep routing tables
reasonable sizes
 Class A - 8 network + 24 host
 Class B - 16 network + 16 host
 Class C - 24 network + 8 hosts
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Addressing
 Important - Individual sites have the right to
modify addresses and routes within their
intranet as long as it remains invisible to other
sites

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 9

Addressing
 Very important to have multiple physical
networks use the same IP network address
 To minimize the use of class B addresses we
need to use as many class C addresses as
possible

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 10

Transparent Routers
 A network using a class A addr can be
extended through a simple trick
 Arrange a physical network to multiplex
several host connections through a single host
port
 See figure 10.1 on page 149
 LAN does NOT have its own IP prefix

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 11

Transparent Routers
 Hosts attached to it are assigned addresses as
if they are directly connected to the WAN
 Transparent router de-multiplexes datagrams
that arrive from the WAN assigning them to
appropriate hosts
 Uses a table of addresses

© MMII JW Ryder CS 428 Computer Networks 12

Transparent Routers
 Divide IP addresses into parts and encode
information into unused parts
 ARPANET is 10.0.0.0 ==> 10.p.u.i
 Network (10)
 Port on destination (p)
 Destination (i)
 (u) is UNUSED !!!
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Transparent Routers
 Transparent router can assign one host
10.1.1.5 and 10.1.2.5
 “Same” IP addr for 2 hosts on 2 separate
networks
 Advantage - Require fewer network addresses
because LANs can share IP prefix
 Disadvantage - Only works with class A on
ARPANET
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Proxy ARP
 aka promiscuous ARP, the ARP hack
 Maps single IP prefix into 2 physical
networks
 See figure 10.2 on page 150
 Applies only to networks that use ARP to bind
internet addresses to PAs

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Proxy ARP
 With 2 networks A and B and 1 router R
 R answers ARP requests on each network for
hosts on the other network
 It gives its PA as the addr matching PB then
routes datagrams correctly
 “In essence, R lies about IP to physical
address binding”

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Subnet Addresses
 Subnetting most common of 3 techniques
 Subnetting is a required part of IP addressing
 Main router is interface to WAN
 Routes datagrams to specific internal physical
networks
 See figure 10.3 on page 152

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Subnets
 Example class B addr 128.10.0.0
 Break internal network into several
‘independent’ class C networks
 128.10.1.0 - 128.10.2.0 - 128.10.n.0
 Gateway to WAN upon receiving datagram
discerns which local network gets packet

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