What Does TCP
What Does TCP
What Does TCP
TCP/IP is a suite of protocols. The acronym TCP/IP means "Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol" and is pronounced "T-C-P-I-P". It comes from the names of the two major protocols in the suite of
protocols, i.e. the TCP and IP protocols).
In some ways, TCP/IP represents all communication rules for the internet and is based on the IP addressing
notion, i.e. the idea of providing an IP address for each machine on the network so as to be able to route
data packets. Given that the TCP/IP protocol suite was originally created with a military purpose, it is
designed to respond to a certain number of criteria, including:
Knowledge of the collection of TCP/IP protocols is not essential for a simple user, just as a viewer does not
need to know how his television or audiovisual networks work. However, for people who want to
administrate or support a TCP/IP network, knowledge of it is vital.
The difference between standard and implementation
Overall TCP/IP brings together two notions:
The notion of standard: TCP/IP represents the way in which communications are carried out over a
network.
The notion of implementation: the designation TCP/IP is often extended to software based on the
TCP/IP protocol. TCP/IP is in fact a model which network application developers use. The applications
are therefore implementations of the TCP/IP protocol.
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The physical layer defines the way in which data is physically converted into digital signals on the
communication media (electric pulses, light modulation, etc.).
The data link layer defines the interface with the network interface card and the sharing of the
transmission media.
The network layer makes it possible to manage addressing and routing of data, i.e. their path via the
network
The transport layer is in charge of data transport, its division into packets and management of
potential transmission errors.
The session layer defines the opening and destruction of communication sessions between networked
machines.
The presentation layer defines the format of data handled by the application layer (its representation
and potentially its compression and encryption) independently of the system.
The application layer provides the interface with applications. It is therefore the closest level to the
users, managed directly by the software.
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As can be seen, the layers of the TCP/IP model have much more diverse tasks that those of the OSI model,
considering that certain layers from the TCP/IP model correspond to several levels of the OSI model.
The roles of the different layers are as follows:
Network Access layer: specifies the form in which data must be routed whichever type of network is
used.
Internet layer: responsible for supplying the data packet (datagram)
Transport layer: provides the routing data, along with the mechanisms making it possible to know the
status of the transmission
Application layer: incorporates standard network applications (Telnet, SMTP, FTP, ...)
Here are the main protocols which make up the TCP/IP suite:
Network applications
TCP or UDP
Data encapsulation
During a transmission, data crosses each one of the layers at the level of the originator machine. At each
layer, a piece of information is added to the data packet, this is a header, a collection of information which
guarantees transmission. At the level of the recipient machine, when passing through each layer, the header
is read, then deleted. So, upon its receipt, the message is in its original state...
At each level, the data packet changes aspect, because a header is added to it, so the designations change
according to the layers:
Fortunately all these specifications are transparent in the eyes of the user, because all these tasks are in
fact carried out by the operating system, while the hardware drivers allow connection to the network (e.g.
network card driver).
The Internet layer
The Internet layer is the "most important" layer (they are all important in their way) because it is this which
defines the datagrams and manages the IP addressing notions.
It enables the routing of datagrams (data packets) to remote machines along with the management of their
division and assembly upon receipt.
The Internet layer contains 5 protocols:
The IP protocol
The ARP protocol
The ICMP protocol
The RARP protocol
The IGMP protocol
The first three protocols are the most important protocols for this layer...
The Transport layer
The protocols for the preceding layers make it possible to send information from one machine to another.
The transport layer enables applications running on remote machines to communicate. The problem is
identifying these applications.
In fact, depending on the machine and its operating system, the application may be a program, task,
process...
Furthermore, the name of the application may vary from system to system, that is why a numbering system
has been put in place so as to be able to associate an application type with a data type, these identifiers are
called ports.
The transport layer contains two protocols enabling two applications to exchange data independently of the
type of network taken (i.e. independently of the lower layers), these are the following two protocols: