Internetworking Devices Such As Routers
Internetworking Devices Such As Routers
Hosts and routers are recognized at the network level by their logical IP
addresses
Packets pass through physical networks to reach these hosts and routers
At the physical level, the hosts and routers are recognized by their physical
addresses
It involves the creation of routing tables that associates a logical address with
physical address.
It has some limitations because physical address may change in the following
ways;
In some LAN, the physical address changes every time when the computer
turned on (Apple).
Dynamic mapping
Each time a machine knows one of the two address (either logical or physical).
It can use a protocol to find the other one (either logical or physical).
• Since ARP-discovery is broadcast, every host inside that network will get
this message but the packet will be discarded by everyone except that
intended receiver host whose IP is associated.
• Now, this receiver will send a unicast packet with its MAC address (ARP-
reply) to the sender of ARP-discovery packet.
Let's say that Host A wants to communicate with host B. • Host A knows the IP
address of host B, but it doesn't know the host B's MAC address.
• In order to find out the MAC address of host B, host A sends an ARP request,
listing the host B's IP address as the destination IP address and the MAC address
of FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF (Ethernet broadcast).
• Switch will forward the frame out all interfaces (except the incoming
interface)
• Each device on the segment will receive the packet, but because the
destination IP address is host B's IP address, only host B will reply with the ARP
reply packet, listing its MAC address.
• Host A now has enough information to send the traffic to host B.e
What is physical address
• Physical address is a local address.
• It must be unique locally
• But its not necessarily unique universally
• Its called physical address
• Its implemented in hardware
• example MAC address in the ethernet protocol is imprinted on the
NIC installed in the host or router
ARP operation
ARP REPLY IS UNICAST