The OSI Presentation Layer
At this layer applications communicate on a format for exchanging data. The Session layer provides character set conversion and formats the data. It performs encryption and decryption, compression and decompression. More ...
Wireless Standards - 802.11a 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11i Explained
The IEEE 802.11 family of standards which provides for Wireless Ethernet or (Wi-Fi) has evolved over the years. This article explains the differences between 802.11a 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n and 802.11i. More ...
Networking Routing Believability and Administrative Distance
If a network is running more than one routing protocol and a router receives two route advertisements from different routing protocols, which route advertisement does the router believe?. More ...
IPv4 Address Classes
Originally, IP network numbers were defined with rigid boundaries and grouped into address classes. Even though address classes was created to facilitate efficient use of the IPv4 address space, because of its rigidity it has been abandoned for more flexible classless addressing. More ...
IPv6 Anycast Addresses
An IPv6 anycast address can be assigned to more than one interface. In other words, multiple devices can have the same anycast address. A packet sent to an anycast address is routed to the nearest interface having that address, according to the routers routing table. More ...
IPv6 Address Types and Scopes
An IPv6 addresses have a size of 128 bits have three types, unicast, multicast, and anycast. Unicast addresses are for a one-to-one communication. Multicast addresses are for a one-to-many communication. Anycast addresses are for one node to nearest node of multiple nodes communication. More ...
Network Routing Protocols - IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, ISIS, BGP
The purpose of routing protocols is to learn of available routes on the network and make routing decisions. There are two primary routing protocol types; link state and distance vector. Some of the most common routing protocols include RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS and BGP. More ...
TCP Windowing
It would be inefficient to return an ACK message as each segment is received. The number of segments received before an ACK message is returned is called the TCP receive window size. More ...
Routing Datagrams
Systems can deliver packets only to other devices attached to the same physical network. A gateway is a network point, referred to as a router, that acts as an entrance to another network. More ...
Protocol Suites
Network protocols define rules for handling data and communicating in a particular networking environment. Individual protocols operate at specific layers in the OSI reference model. A protocol suite is a group of protocols designed to work together. More ...
Wireless Network Standards - 80211a, 80211b, 80211g, 80211n, 80216
This article describes the 80211a, 80211b, 80211g, 80211n, 80216, the current IEEE defined wireless protocol standards in use today, their bandwidth, maximum data rate, and coverage area. More ...
IPv6 Address Format
IPv4 is running out of addresses. IPv6 was designed to solve this problem therefore it is important
to understand the format of an IPv6 address. More ...
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Explained
In the early days of TCP/IP each device on a network had stored on its hard disk a configuration file that an administrator used to manually assign a static IP address. Today a network administrator is no longer required to maintain an IP and MAC address configuration file a server. Every device on a network is automatically assigned a unique IP address by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). More ...
A Simple Description of the IPv6 Header and Datagram
This article provides a simple description of the IPv6 header and datagram without a lot referring back to IPv4. More ...
Free eBook: IPv6 Addressing
All the IPv4 addresses are quickly being used up. The conversion to IPv6 is now underway. In this free eBook, Aaron Balchunas describes IPv6 and how to configure it to work along side IPv4. Learn which protocols will need to be updated to work with IPv6. Learn how to configure IPv6. More ...
