Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the principal communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.

IP, as the primary protocol in the Internet layer of the Internet protocol suite, has the task of delivering packets from the source host to the destination host solely based on the IP addresses. For this purpose, IP defines datagram structures that encapsulate the data to be delivered. It also defines addressing methods that are used to label the datagram with source and destination information.

The first major version of IP, Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is the dominant protocol of the internet. Its successor is Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).

Function

The Internet Protocol is responsible for addressing hosts and for routing datagrams (packets) from a source host to a destination host across one or more IP networks. For this purpose, the Internet Protocol defines the format of packets and provides an addressing system that has two functions: identifying hosts and providing a logical location service.

Datagram construction

Each datagram has two components: a header and a payload. The IP header is tagged with the source IP address, the destination IP address, and other meta-data needed to route and deliver the datagram. The payload is the data that is transported. This method of nesting the data payload in a packet with a header is called encapsulation.

IP addressing and routing

IP addressing entails the assignment of IP addresses and associated parameters to host interfaces. The address space is divided into networks and subnetworks, involving the designation of network or routing prefixes. IP routing is performed by all hosts, but most importantly by routers, which transport packets across network boundaries. Routers communicate with one another via specially designed routing protocols, either interior gateway protocols or exterior gateway protocols, as needed for the topology of the network.

IP routing is also common in local networks. For example, many Ethernet switches support IP multicast operations. These switches use IP addresses and Internet Group Management Protocol to control multicast routing but use MAC addresses for the actual routing.

Reliability

Internet Protocol uses the end-to-end principle in its design. Under this design, the network infrastructure is assumed to be inherently unreliable at any single network element or transmission medium and assumed to be dynamic in terms of availability of links and nodes. No central monitoring or performance measurement facility exists that tracks or maintains the state of the network. For the benefit of reducing network complexity, the error-correction intelligence in the network is mostly located in the end nodes of each data transmission. Routers in the transmission path forward packets to the next known, directly reachable gateway matching the routing prefix for the destination address.

As a consequence of this design, the Internet Protocol only provides best effort delivery and its service is characterized as unreliable. In network architectural language, it is a connectionless protocol, in contrast to so-called connection-oriented modes of transmission. Various error conditions may occur, such as data corruption, packet loss, duplication and out-of-order delivery. Because routing is dynamic, meaning every packet is treated independently, and because the network maintains no state based on the path of prior packets, it is possible that some packets are routed on a different path to their destination, resulting in improper sequencing at the receiver node.

Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) provides safeguards to ensure that the IP packet header is error-free. A routing node calculates a checksum for a packet. If the checksum is bad, the routing node discards the packet. The routing node does not have to notify either end node, although the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) allows such notification. By contrast, in order to increase performance, and since current link layer technology is assumed to provide sufficient error detection, the IPv6 header has no checksum to protect it.

All error conditions in the network must be detected and compensated by the end nodes of a transmission. The upper layer protocols of the Internet protocol suite are responsible for resolving reliability issues. For example, a host may cache network data to ensure correct ordering, before the data is delivered to an application.

Link capacity and capability

The dynamic nature of the Internet and the diversity of its components provide no guarantee that any particular path is actually capable of, or suitable for, performing the data transmission requested, even if the path is available and reliable. One of the technical constraints is the size of data packets allowed on a given link. An application must assure that it uses proper transmission characteristics. Some of this responsibility lies also in the upper layer protocols. Facilities exist to examine the maximum transmission unit (MTU) size of the local link and Path MTU Discovery can be used for the entire projected path to the destination. The IPv4 internetworking layer has the capability to automatically fragment the original datagram into smaller units for transmission. In this case, IP provides re-ordering of fragments delivered out of order.

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is an example of a protocol that adjusts its segment size to be smaller than the MTU. The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) disregard MTU size, thereby forcing IP to fragment oversized datagrams.