Network Level Protocols

Network-level protocols facilitate the data transport process transparently. They are invisible to the end user unless that user employs utilities to monitor system processes.

Sniffers are devices that can monitor network processes. A sniffer is a device—either hardware or software—that can read every packet sent across a network. Sniffers are commonly used to isolate network problems that, although invisible to the end user, are degrading net work performance. As such, sniffers can read all activity occurring between network-level protocols. Moreover, sniffers can pose a tremendous security threat.

Important TCP/IP network-level protocols include the following:

· Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

· Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)

· Internet Protocol (IP)

· Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

· User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

We will briefly examine each, ascending up the stack from the data-link layer to the transport layer.

For more comprehensive information about protocols (or the stack in general), see TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 by W. Richard Stevens (Addison Wesley, ISBN # 0-201-63346-9).

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) serves the critical purpose of mapping Internet addresses into hardware addresses and translating the network layer address (or IP address) to the data-link address. This is vital in routing information between hosts on a local network, and out onto the Internet. Before a message (or other data) is sent, it is packaged into IP packets, or blocks of information suitably formatted for Internet transport. These contain the numeric, network IP address of both the originating and destination machines. What remains is to determine the hardware, or the data-link address of the destination machine. This is where ARP makes its entrance.

An ARP request message is broadcast on a local network. If the destination IP address is active on the local network, the destination host will reply with its own hardware address. The originating machine receives this reply, and the transfer process can begin.

The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)

The Internet Control Message Protocol provides error and control messages that are passed between two (or more) computers or hosts. It enables those hosts to share the information. In this respect, ICMP is critical for diagnosis of network problems. ICMP provides helpful messages, such as the following:

· Echo and reply messages to test for network availability

· Redirect messages to enable more efficient routing

· Time-exceeded messages to inform sources that a packet has exceeded its allocated time within the network

An ICMP packet can be of several types. The two most common are the ICMP_ECHO_REQUEST and ICMP_ECHO_REPLY. These packets are used to test network connectivity to make sure a host or network component is active and reachable.

Perhaps the most widely known ICMP implementation involves a network utility called ping. Ping is often used to determine whether a remote machine is alive. Ping's method of operation is simple: When the user pings a remote machine, a series of ICMP_ECHO_REQUEST packets are forwarded from the user's machine to the remote host. The remote host replies with ICMP_ ECHO_REPLY packets. If no reply packets are received at the user's end, the ping program usually generates an error message, indicating that the remote host is down or unreachable.

The Internet Protocol (IP)

The Internet Protocol provides packet delivery for all protocols within the TCP/IP suite. Thus, IP is the heart of the process by which data traverses the Internet. The IP datagram, or packet, is the vehicle for transmission of data on TCP/IP networks.

An IP datagram is composed of several parts. The first part, the header, is composed of important network information, including source and destination IP addresses. Together, these elements form a complete header. The remaining portion of a datagram contains whatever data is then being sent.

One of the important aspects of IP networking is that it can be used to transmit data using a number of protocols (that is, TCP, UDP, and so on). Each protocol serves a particular function; we'll be looking at some important ones soon. In addition, IP enables the fragmentation and reassembly of data. At the data-link layer, networks can only transmit data in discrete chunks up to a specific size, called the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU). If the data you want to transmit is larger than the MTU that a network can transmit, the data must be broken into pieces smaller than the MTU, transmitted, and then put back together at the other end. IP provides a mechanism for fragmenting the data, tracking it, and reassembling it. Fragmentation is also important from a security perspective. In some cases, it can be manipulated to work around security measures if security isn't implemented carefully.

An IP datagram also contains a time-to-live (TTL) field. A numeric value, the TTL is decremented as the IP datagram traverses the network. When that value finally reaches zero, the datagram is discarded. This ensures that the network doesn't become clogged with datagrams that can't find their destination in a timely fashion. Many other types of packets have time-to-live limitations, and some network utilities (such as Traceroute) use the time-to-live field as a marker in diagnostic routines.

IP Network Addressing

The IP address is a unique identifier for a system on the network. It is 32 bits long and is usually represented as 4 numbers, each a byte, separated by decimal points, for example, 32.96.111.130. Each byte, or octet, in an IP address can range from 0 to 255. This representation of an IP address is called dotted-decimal notation and is the most common humanly readable format for working with IP addresses.

A contiguous range of IP addresses defines an IP network. This range of IP addresses is denoted by the combination of an IP address and network mask (or netmask). A netmask is a 32-bit value like an IP address, which, when combined with the IP address, defines address boundaries of the IP network. This requires conversion of the IP address and netmask to binary format and their combination using binary arithmetic. Note that the first address in a contiguous range of IP addresses indicates the network address. The last address in the contiguous range denotes the network broadcast address.

The network layer in TCP/IP is usually considered to be unicast. This is in contrast to the data-link layer, where ARP operates in a broadcast mode. Unicast indicates that IP communications occur between two endpoints in a point-to-point fashion. However, an IP datagram can be addressed to the network broadcast address. This causes the IP datagram to be received and responded to by all nodes on the IP network. Several network based denial of service attacks take advantage of this broadcast capability in IP.

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols employed on the Internet. Working at the transport level in the stack, it facilitates such mission-critical tasks as file transfers and remote sessions. TCP accomplishes these tasks through a method called reliable communication. In this respect, TCP is more reliable than other protocols within the suite because it includes mechanisms for sequencing and acknowledgment of data transmission.

As with IP, TCP has its own packet structure, composed of source port and destination port numbers that identify services. In addition, important parts of a TCP packet are the sequence number, flags, and checksum. The sequence number tracks a TCP connection and the order in which data is sent. The flags control the connection state, whether it is being established, in use, or being closed. There are six flags that can be used in combination to describe the state of a TCP connection. The most important for this analysis are SYN, ACK, and FIN. The checksum in the TCP packet ensures that the data has not been corrupted during transmission.

The TCP system relies on a virtual circuit between the requesting machine (client) and its target (server). This circuit is opened via a three-part process, often referred to as the three-way handshake.

To establish a TCP connection, the three-way handshake must be completed as follows:

1. The client sends a TCP SYN packet to the server that it wants to establish a connection with. This is a TCP packet with only the SYN flag active. The packet also contains an initial sequence number (ISN) that will be used to track the connection.

2. The server responds with a TCP SYN packet with its own ISN. The server also acknowledges the client's TCP SYN by setting the ACK flag on this packet and using the client's ISN plus 1 as the acknowledgement number.

3. The client acknowledges the server's TCP SYN with a TCP ACK using the server's ISN plus 1.

No data is exchanged during this process, but, when it is completed, a connection is available for data transfer between the client and server. This connection provides a full-duplex transmission path. Full-duplex transmission enables data to travel to both machines at the same time. In this way, while a file transfer (or other remote session) is underway, any errors that arise can be forwarded to the requesting machine.

TCP also provides extensive error-checking capabilities. For each block of data sent, a checksum is calculated, and the sequence number is incremented. The two machines identify each transferred block using the sequence number. For each block successfully transferred, the receiving host sends an ACK message to the sender that the transfer was clean. Conversely, if the transfer is unsuccessful, one of two things might occur:

· The requesting machine receives error information.

· The requesting machine receives nothing.

When an error is received, the data is retransmitted unless the error is fatal, in which case, the transmission is usually halted. A typical example of a fatal error would be if the connection was dropped.

Similarly, if no confirmation is received within a specified time period, the information is also retransmitted. This process is repeated as many times as necessary to complete the transfer or remote session.

TCP Connection Termination

As you might expect, because TCP provides a protocol for establishing a connection, it also provides a protocol for terminating a connection. Establishing a TCP connection takes three steps, whereas terminating one takes four steps. Because a TCP connection is bi-directional or full-duplex, transmission in both directions of the connection must be shut down separately. This is done by using the TCP FIN packet, much as the TCP SYN packet is used to create a connection. When a client is finished using a connection, it will issue a TCP FIN packet to the server. The server responds with a TCP ACK to acknowledge that the connection is closing. Because the connection is bi-directional, the server will also issue a TCP FIN to the client. The client will then acknowledge the server's TCP FIN, thus completing the TCP connection termination process.

User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a simple, connectionless transport layer protocol. In fact, it is so simple that the RFC that defines it is only three pages long. Unlike TCP, UDP provides no reliability, and, because it is connectionless, it doesn't have any mechanism for connection establishment or termination. It does provide data integrity checks via a checksum. Although it might seem that UDP is inferior to TCP, it is, in fact, much better for certain applications because it has very low overhead.