CS 457 Lecture 3
Link Layer Protocols
Fall 2011
The Internet Hourglass Design
Application Layer
Protocol Layer
Transport Layer
Network Layer
Link Layer
Data Communication
Physical Layer
[Deering98]
Topics
Link-layer services
Encoding, framing, and error detection
Error correction and flow control
Forms necessary background
Reliable Transmission
First look at an essential part of networking
Ethernet, WiFi, Cellular
How to share a transmission medium
Carrier sense, collision detection, and random
access
Message, Segment, Packet, & Frame
host
HTTP message
HTTP
router
Ethernet
interface
HTTP
TCP segment
TCP
IP
host
IP packet
IP
Ethernet
interface
Ethernet frame
TCP
router
IP packet
SONET
interface
SONET
interface
IP packet
IP
Ethernet
interface
SONET frame
WE ARE HERE IN THE LAYERS
IP
Ethernet
interface
Ethernet frame
Adaptors Communicating
datagram
sending
link layer protocol
frame
frame
adapter
adapter receiving
node
node
Link layer implemented in adaptor (network interface card)
Ethernet card, PCMCIA card, 802.11 card
Sending side:
Encapsulates datagram in a frame
Adds error checking bits, flow control, etc.
Receiving side
Looks for errors, flow control, etc.
Extracts datagram and passes to receiving node
Point to Point Data Links
One sender, One receiver, One link:
easier than broadcast link:
no Media Access Control
no need for explicit MAC addressing
e.g., dialup link, ISDN line
Popular Point-to-Point DLC protocols:
PPP (point-to-point protocol)
HDLC: High level data link control
PPP Design Requirements [RFC 1557]
Packet framing: encapsulation of network-layer
datagram in data link frame
carry network layer data of any network layer
protocol (not just IP) at same time
ability to demultiplex upwards
Bit transparency: must carry any bit pattern in the
data field
Error detection (no correction)
Connection liveness: detect, signal link failure to
network layer
Network layer address negotiation: endpoint can
learn/configure each others network address
PPP non-requirements
No error correction/recovery
No flow control
Out of order delivery OK
No need to support multipoint links
(e.g., polling)
Error recovery, flow control, data re-ordering
all relegated to higher layers!
PPP Data Frame
Flag: delimiter (framing)
Address: does nothing (only one option)
Control: does nothing; in the future possible
multiple control fields
Protocol: upper layer protocol to which frame
delivered (eg, PPP-LCP, IP, IPCP, etc)
PPP Data Frame
info: upper layer data being carried
check: cyclic redundancy check for error
detection
Ethernet Frame Structure
Sending adapter encapsulates packet in frame
Preamble: synchronization
Seven bytes with pattern 10101010, followed by
one byte with pattern 10101011
Used to synchronize receiver, sender clock rates
Ethernet Frame Structure (Cont.)
Addresses: source and destination MAC addresses
Adaptor passes frame to network-level protocol
If destination address matches the adaptor
Or the destination address is the broadcast address
Otherwise, adapter discards frame
Type: indicates the higher layer protocol
Usually IP
But also Novell IPX, AppleTalk,
CRC: cyclic redundancy check
Checked at receiver
If error is detected, the frame is simply dropped
Encoding Bits
Simple idea of high for 1 and low for 0
Say 1 usec per bit. Sender sends 4 bits with 4 usec high
Receiver sees 4.6 usec of high. Was that 4 or 5 bits?
Allows clocks in sending and receiving nodes to
synchronize to each other
no need for a centralized, global clock among nodes!
Physical-layer stuff for Electrical Engineers!
Error Detection
EDC= Error Detection and Correction bits (redundancy)
D
= Data protected by error checking, may include header fields
Error detection not 100% reliable!
protocol may miss some errors, but rarely
larger EDC field yields better detection and correction
Parity Checking
Single Bit Parity:
Detect single bit errors
Two Dimensional Bit Parity:
Detect and correct single bit errors
Internet Checksum
Goal: detect errors (e.g., flipped bits) in transmitted
segment
Receiver:
Sender:
treat segment contents as
sequence of 16-bit integers
checksum: addition (1s
complement sum) of
segment contents
sender puts checksum
value into UDP checksum
field
compute checksum of received
segment
check if computed checksum
equals checksum field value:
NO - error detected
YES - no error detected. But
maybe errors nonetheless?
More later .
Checksumming:
Cyclic Redundancy Check
view data bits D as a polynomial
choose r+1 polynomial C
goal: choose r CRC bits, R, such that
<D,R> exactly divisible by C (modulo 2)
receiver knows C, divides <D,R> by C. If non-zero
remainder: error detected!
can detect all burst errors less than r+1 bits
widely used in practice (ATM, HDCL)
Reliable Transfer
Fundamental Networking Topic
Most important topic thus far in this course
Frames may be lost or corrupted
Encoding failures where clocks get out of sync
Error detection reports packet is corrupted
And a vast number of other reasons.
Can we build link so it appears reliable?
Build link so errors never occur??
not feasible
Add error correction to frames?
requires lots of additional overhead bytes for each frame
doesnt help if entire frame lost (e.g. clock sync error)
Stop and Wait
(first attempt has an error)
Sender writes frame onto wire
and sets a timeout to wait for an ACK
Sender now stops and waits for the ACK
Upon receiving a packet,
receiver sends an ACK
Sender Will Either
1) receive an ACK and can send next frame
2) times out and receives the lost frame
ACK
Packet lost
ACK
Pack
et
ACK
Timeout
Pack
et
Timeout
Pack
et
Timeout
Pack
et
Timeout
Timeout
Timeout
Reasons for Retransmission
Pack
et
K
C
A
Pack
et
ACK
ACK lost
Early timeout
DUPLICATE
PACKET
DUPLICATE
PACKETS
