Networking Lab Week - 2 (UDP)
Shubham Kashyap - 20204197
Answer the following questions using udp-wireshark-trace file:
1. Select one UDP packet from your trace. From this packet, determine how many
fields there are in the UDP header. (You shouldn’t look in the textbook! Answer
these questions directly from what you observe in the packet trace.) Name these
fields.
The UDP header contains 4 fields: source port, destination port, length, and checksum.
2. By consulting the displayed information in Wireshark’s packet content field for this
packet, determine the length (in bytes) of each of the UDP header fields.
The UDP header has a fixed length of 8 bytes. Each of these 4 header fields is 2 bytes
long.
Source Port: 2 bytes
Destination Port: 2 bytes
Length: 2 bytes
Checksum: 2 bytes
3. The value in the Length field is the length of what? (You can consult the text for this
answer). Verify your claim with your captured UDP packet.
The length field specifies the number of bytes in the UDP segment (header plus data).
We get the UDP Payload for a selected packet by subtracting 8 from the length of that
packet (eg: For the 1st packet UDP Payload is 85-8=77 bytes)
4. What is the maximum number of bytes that can be included in a UDP payload?
(Hint: the answer to this question can be determined by your answer to 2. above)
The maximum number of bytes that can be included in a UDP Payload = (2^16-1)-8
bytes = 65535-8 bytes = 65527 bytes.
5. What is the largest possible source port number? (Hint: see the hint in 4.)
The largest possible port number = 2^16 - 1 =65535.
6. What is the protocol number for UDP? Give your answer in both hexadecimal and
decimal notation. To answer this question, need to look into the Protocol field of
the IP datagram containing this UDP segment (see Figure 4.13 in the text, and the
discussion of IP header fields).
The IP protocol number for UDP is 0x11 hex, which is 17 in decimal value.
7. Examine a pair of UDP packets in which your host sends the first UDP packet and
the second UDP packet is a reply to this first UDP packet. (Hint: for a second packet
to be sent in response to a first packet, the sender of the first packet should be the
destination of the second packet). Describe the relationship between the port
numbers in the two packets.
The source port of the UDP packet sent by the host is the same as the destination port of
the reply packet, and conversely the destination port of the UDP packet sent by the host
is the same as the source port of the reply packet.
