Local Area Networks: Ethernet Tn Chapter 1, we learned that a local area network (LAN) is a computer network that is designed fora ‘geographic arca such as a building or a campus. Although a LAN can be used as an isolated network to connect computers in an organization for the sole ‘purpose of sharing resources, most LANs today are also links in a wide area rictwork OWAN) oF the Internet, ‘The LAN market has seen several technologies, but the most dominant today is Ethernet. In this chapter. we concentrate on Ethemet; in Chaplet 1S we discuss wire- less LANS. Figure 14.1 compares three generations of Ethemet. Figure 14.1 Three generations of Ethernet PUY: Papel Laer Em PLS: Physica! Layer Signaling 1S: Resasason Signing pan ‘Traditonal Eaheroet Fase Ethermet Gigabit Exbermet 10 Mis 100 Mbps 1000 Mbps ‘The original Ethernct was created in 1976 at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Since then, it has evolved. We designate the original, with a data rate of 10 Mbps, as traditional Ethernet, Fast Ethernet operates at 100 Mbps; Gigabit Ethemet at Gbps. A computer connected via a LAN to the Internet needs all five layers of the Inter= ‘net model. The three upper layers (network, transport, and application) are common to all LANS. The data link layer is divided into the logical link control (LLC) sublayer and the medium access control (MAC) sublayer. The LLC sublayer way-originally designed to be the same for all LANs for interoperability, but it is not used often today. Instead, the interoperability is provided by a common network layer protocol, as we will see in a future chapter. This means that local area networks differ only in their MAC sublay- ‘ers and in their physical layers. While the MAC sublayer is slightly different for each Ethemet version, the physical layer is quite different,TRADITIONAL ETHERNET ‘Traditional Ethemet was designed to operate at 10 Mbps, Access to the network by a device is through a contention method (CSMA/CD), The media are shared between all stations. MAC Sublayer ‘The MAC sublayer governs the operation of the access method, It also frames data received from the upper layer and passes them to the PLS sublayer for encoding, Access Method: CSMA/CD ‘Traditional Ethernet uses J-persistent CSMA/CD as the access method. Access meth ‘ods are discussed in Chapter 13. Frame ‘The Ethermet framé contains seven fields: preamble, SFD, DA, SA, length/type of pro- tocol data unit (PDU), upper layer data, and the CRC. Ethernet does not provide any mechanism for acknowledging received frames. making it what is known as an unteli- able medium, Acknowledgments must be implemented at the higher layers. The format of the MAC frame is shown in Figure 14.2. Figure 14.2 802.3 MAC frame Teng PDL Destination acres Soares acidress Preamble, The first ficid of the 802.3 frame contains 7 bytes (56 bits) of alternat- ing Os and Is that alert the receiving system to the coming frame and enable it to synchronize its input timing. The pattern provides only an alert and a timing pulse. ‘The 56-bit pattern allows the stations to miss some bits at the beginning of the frame, The preamble is actually added at the physical layer and is not (formally) part of the frame Start frame delimiter (SFD). The sccond field (1 byte: 10101011) sigmals the beginning of the frame, The SFD tells the stations that they have a last chance for synchronization. The last 2 bits are 1 and alert the receiver that the next field is the destination address. Destination address (DA). ‘The DA field is 6 bytes and contains the physical address of the destination station or stations to receive the packet. We will discuss tthe destination address in greater detail later Source address (SA). The SA field is also 6 bytes and contains the physical address of the sender of the packet. We will discuss the source address in greater detail later. ‘B Length/type. This field is defined as a length or type field. If the value of the field is less than 1518, it is a length field and defines the length of the data field that follows. On the other hand, if the value of this field is greater than 1536, it defines the type of the PDU packet that is encapsulated in the frame,Data, This field carries data encapsulated ftom the upper-layer protocols. It is & minimum of 46 and @ maximum of 1500 byies, as we will sec later. CRC. The last field contains the error detection information, CRC-32, {his case a Frame Length Ethernet has imposed restrictions on both the minimum and maximum Jength of a frame, as shown in Figure 14.3. Figure 14.3 Minimum and mectimum engoh ‘Minin payload lempth: 46 bytex Masismum pay length: 100 bytes ———EeENua‘g) “Minimum frame Sength: S12 bits or 64 bytes ‘Mlaximam fre length: 12.144 bits or 1518 bytes ‘The minimum length restriction is required for the correct operation of CSMA/CD. Ifthere is collision before the physical layer sends a frame out of a station, it must be heard by all stations, If the entire frame is seat out befare a collision is detected, it is tao late. The MAC layer has already discarded the frame, thinking that the frame has reached the destination. This situation is aggravated as the frame length diminishes in size since smaller frames are sent out faster. The standard has therefore defined the smallest frame length for every 10-Mbps Ethemet LAN as 512 bits or 64 bytes ¢with- oul the preamble ar SFD field). ‘An Ethernet frame must therefore have # minimum length of $12 bits or 64 bytes, Part of this length is the header and the trailer. If we count 18 bytes of header and trailer (6 bytes source address, 6 bytes destination address, 2 bytes length/type, and 4 bytes CRC), then the minimum length of data from the upper layer is 64 — 18 = 46 bytes. If the upper-layer packet is less than 46 bytes, padding is added to make up the difference. The standard defines the maximum length of a frame (without pream- ble and SFD field) as 151% bytes. If we subtract the 18 bytes of header and trailer, the maximum length of the payload is 1500 bytes. The maximum length restriction is only historical, ‘Addressing Each station on an Ethemet network (such as 4 PC, workstation, or printer) has its own network interface card (NIC). The NIC fits inside the station and provides the station with a 6-byte physical address. The Ethernet address is 6 bytes (48 bits) that is nor- mally written in hexadecimal notation using a hyphen to separate bytes from each other, as shown in Figure 14.4 Figure 14.4 Ethernet addresses in hesadeciinal notation 06-01-02-01-2C-4B