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CCNA-Notes/10. IPv4 Header.md
2026-04-29 01:22:50 +02:00

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1777370971-DYNV
IPv4 Header
Cisco
CCNA

IPv4 Header

OSI Model - PDUs

Application Data ↓ Data + L4 Header = Segment ↓ Segment + L3 Header = Packet ↓ Packet + L2 Header + L2 Trailer = Frame

We will focus on the Packet for this lesson

IPV4 header

Version Field

length: 4 bits (half of on octet)

  • identifies the version of IP used.
  • IPv4 = 4 (0b0100)
  • IPv4 = 6 (0b0110)

Internet Header Length (IHL)

length: 4 bits (half of on octet)

  • The final field of the IPv4 header (Options) is variable in length, so this field is necessary to indicate the total length of the header
  • identifies the lenght of the header in 4 byte increments
  • Value of 5 = 5*4 bytes = 20 bytes
  • minimum value is 5 (= 20 bytes)
    • Minimum IPv4 Header Length = 20 bytes
  • Maximum value is 15 (15*4 bytes = 60 bytes)
    • Maximum IPv4 Header Length = 60 bytes

DSCP field

  • Length: 6 bits
  • Differentiated Services Code Point
  • Used for Qos (Quality of Service)
  • Used to prioritize delay-sensitive dta (streaming voice, video, etc..)

ECN field

Explicit Congestion Notification

  • Length: 2 bits
  • Provides end-to-end (between two endpoints) notification of network congestion without dropping packets
  • Optional feature that requires both endpoints, as well as the underlying network infrastructure, to support it.

Total Length field

Length: 16 bits

  • Indicates the total lenght of the packet (L3 header+ L4 segment)
  • Measured in bytes (not 4-byte increments like IHL)
  • Minimum value of 20 (=IPv4 header with no encapsulated data)
  • Maximum value of 65,535 (maximum 16-bit value)

Identification field

Length: 16 bits

  • if a packet is fragmented due to being too large, this field is used to identify which packet the fragment belongs to
  • All fragments of the same packet will have their own IPv4 header with the same value in this field
  • Packets are fragmented if larger than the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit)
  • The MTU is usually 1500 bytes
  • Fragments are reassembled by the receiving host

Flags field

Length: 3bits

  • Used to control/identify fragments.
  • Bit 0: Reserved, always set to 0
  • Bit 1: Don't Fragment (DF bit), used to indicate a packet that should not be fragmented
  • Bit 2: More Fragments (MF bit), set to 1 if there are more fragments in the packet, set to 0 for the last fragment

Unfragemented packets will always have their MF bit set to 0

Fragment Offset field

Length: 13 bits

  • Used to indicate the position of the fragment within the original, unfragmented IP packet
  • Allows fragmented packets to be reassembled even if the fragments arrive out of order

Time to live field

Length: 8 bits

  • A router will drop a packet with a TTL of -
  • Used to prevent infinite loops
  • Originlly designed to indicte the packet's maximum lifetime in second
  • In practice, indicates a 'Hop count': each time the packet arrives at a router, the router decreases the TTL by 1 Recommended default TTL is 64

Protocol field

Length: 8 bits

  • Indicates the protocol of the encapsulated L4PDU
  • Value of 6: TCP
  • Value of 17: UDP
  • Value of 1: ICMP
  • Value of 89 : OSPF dynamic routing protocol

Header Checksum field

Lenght 16bits

  • A calculaed checksum used to check for errors in the IPv4 header.
  • When a router receives a packet, it calculates the checksum of the header and compares it to the one in this field of the header
  • if they do not match the router drops the packet
  • Used to check for errors only in the IPV4 header.
  • IP relies on the encapsulated protocol to detect errors in the encapsulated data
  • Both TCP and UDP have their own checksum fields to detect errors in the encapsulated data

Source/Destination IP address fields

Length 32 bits(each)

  • Source IP Address = IPv4 address of the sender of the packet
  • Destination IP Address = IPv4 address of the intended receiver of the packet

Options fields

Length: 0 - 320 bits

  • Rarely used.
  • If the IHL field is greater than 5, it means that Options are present

Review

  • IPv4 Packet structure
  • Fields of the IPv4 header