Internet (TCP/IP) protocol family

The TCP/IP family of protocols is widely used today.

Specifications of all of these protocols can be found in the RFC documents.

A simplified overview of the core TCP/IP protocols could look like this:

Protocols

The TCP/IP family consists of (at least) the following protocols:

Link layer:

• ARP: Address Resolution Protocol: Map IP to hardware (e.g. Ethernet) addresses

• RARP: Reverse ARP: Map hardware (e.g. Ethernet) to IP addresses

Link layer (serial line):

• CSLIP: Compressed Serial Line IP: Compressing TCP/IP Headers for Low-Speed Serial Links (RFC 1144), obsolete

• PPP: The Point-to-Point Protocol

• PPP-MP: The Point-to-Point Multilink Protocol

• SLIP: Serial Line IP: Transmission of IP datagrams over serial lines (RFC 1055), obsolete

Network layer:

• IP: Internet Protocol (version 4): transfer IP packets from one host to another. One of the most common protocols today. This is what the Internet is built around.

• IPv6: Internet Protocol (version 6): transfer IP packets from one host to another

• ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol (version 4): This is a protocol to report common errors and events in the IP, TCP and UDP protocols.

• ICMPv6: Internet Control Message Protocol (version 6): This is a protocol to report common errors and events in the IPv6, TCP and UDP protocols.

• IGMP: IP multicasting

Network layer (routing):

• BGP: Border Gateway Protocol

• EGP: Exterior Gateway Protocol

• GGP: Gateway to Gateway Protocol

• IGRP: Interior Gateway Routing Protocol

• ND: Neighbor Discovery

• OSPF: Open Shortest Path First

• RIP: Routing Information Protocol

• RIPng: Routing Information Protocol next generation

• DSR: Dynamic Source Routing (Ad-hoc protocol)

Network Layer (IPsec Internet Protocol Security):

• AH: Authentication Header

• ESP: Encapsulating Security Payload

Transport layer:

• These protocols run atop IP:

• DCCP: Datagram Congestion Control Protocol: stream based, reliable, connection oriented transfer of data

• SCTP: datagram (packet) based, reliable, connection oriented transfer of data

• UDP: User Datagram Protocol: datagram (packet) based, unreliable, connectionless transfer of data

• UDP-Lite: Lightweight User Datagram Protocol: datagram (packet) based, unreliable, connectionless transfer of data

• TCP: Transmission Control Protocol: stream based, reliable, connection oriented transfer of data

• PortReference: TCP/UDP port numbers ThTextese protocols run atop UDP, and provide additional transport-layer services:

• RTP: datagram (packet) based, unreliable, connection oriented transfer of time sensitive data

• RTCP: RTP's control protocol

Session layer:

• NetBIOS: an API and several protocols providing various networking services.

• NetDump: a simple protocol for capturing crashed operating system memory cores over a network

• ONC-RPC: Remote procedure calls using Sun's RPC mechanism

• DCE/RPC: Remote procedure calls using the OSF's RPC mechanism

• HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol: (and other files as well). Probably the best known protocol as it is used to allow users surfing on the Internet.

• SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol: send mails to a mail server

Presentation layer:

• MIME: content encoding (for HTTP, SMTP, ...) (RFC 2045-2049)

Application layer:

• ANCP: Access Node Control Protocol: TCP based L2 control protocol used in service provider DSL and PON Networks.

• BOOTP: BOOT Protocol: antecessor of DHCP, see bellow

• DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol: distribute IP, Gateway and DNS server addresses and alike

• DNS: Domain Name System: translate human readable addresses (e.g. wiki.wireshark.org) into IP addresses

• FTP: File Transfer Protocol: file transfer (unsecure)

• IMAP: retrieve mails from a mail server

• iWARP-DDP: Direct Data Placement (part of the iWARP protocol stack)

• iWARP-MPA: Marker PDU Aligned Framing: adaptation layer between TCP and DDP (part of the iWARP protocol stack)

• iWARP-RDMAP: Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol (part of the iWARP protocol stack)

• NNTP: Network News Transfer Protocol: news transfer

• NTP: Network Time Protocol: sychronize time between hosts

• PANA: Protocol for Carrying Authentication for Network Access: user authentication for network access

• POP: Post Office Protocol: receive mails from a mail server

• RADIUS: remote user authentication and accounting

• RLogin: remote login: remote shell access (unsecure)

• RSH: Remote SHell: remote shell access (unsecure)

• RSIP: Realm Specific IP (RFC 3102-3104)

• SSH: Secure SHell: encrypted remote shell access

• SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol: network management (RFC 1157,1901-10,2271-75)

• Telnet: remote shell access (unsecure) (RFC 854,855,1700)

• TFTP: Trivial File Transfer

• SASP: Server/Application State Protocol (RFC 4678)

Unsorted:

• URN: Uniform Resource Names (RFC 1737)

• URL: Uniform Resource Locators (RFC 1738)

History

XXX - add a brief description of TCP/IP history?

Readings

• "Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume 1: Principles Protocols, and Architecture" from Douglas Comer (5th edition, 2006. ISBN 0-13-187671-6)
• "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols" from W. Richard Stevens (Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-63346-9.)

External links

• http://www.tcpipguide.com "The TCP/IP Guide" from Charles M. Kozierok, printed book (1600 pages!), also available for online reading

Discussion

• contrary to common belief: HTTP is not an application protocol, is a session (L5) protocol, uses MIME for presentation (L6), and, the application (L7) in this case is a wiki! (another example is HTTP/XML/SOAP). (On the other hand, if you click on a download link, you're using HTTP for file transfer, so, in that case, it's an application-layer protocol. Protocols can't necessarily always be assigned to one and only one layer of the 7-layer model. -Guy Harris)

• Does DCE/RPC and/or ONC/RPC really belong to the Internet Protocol Family? I wouldn't search at least DCE/RPC here. - Ulf Lamping ONC RPC was, at least at one time, supported on the OSI transport protocols as well (Connectathon included ONC RPC-over-OSI testing), so if this page is to hold protocols that only run atop Internet transport protocols, neither of them would belong here. There are a lot of protocols that run directly or indirectly atop the Internet transport protocols, so the question is which of them should be listed here? -Guy Harris Difficult, but we shouldn't put all protocols at this page which runs on top of IP/TCP/UDP, that would just be too much. I would think of this family as the protocols "when I hear the abbreviation, I would immediately think of looking at the RFC's" - simply speaking. But that will be a step-by-step decision. For the DCE/RPC I would think of a whole new family, namely the protocol itself plus all the interfaces "MS protocols" using it. Don't know ONC RPC well enough if it's the case there too. - UlfLamping