Delivery and

Forwarding of
IP Packets

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OBJECTIVES:
 To discuss the delivery of packets in the network layer and
distinguish between direct and indirect delivery.
 To discuss the forwarding of packets in the network layer and
distinguish between destination-address–based forwarding and
label-based forwarding.
 To discuss different forwarding techniques, including next-hop,
network-specific, host-specific, and default.
 To discuss the contents of routing tables in classful and classless
addressing and some algorithms used to search the tables.
 To introduce MPLS technology and show how it can achieve
label based forwarding.
 To list the components of a router and explain the purpose of
each component and their relations to other components.

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DELIVERY

The network layer supervises the

handling of the packets by the
underlying physical networks. We define
this handling as the delivery of a packet.
The delivery of a packet to its final
destination is accomplished using two
different methods of delivery: direct and
indirect.

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Topics Discussed in the Section
Direct Delivery
Indirect Delivery

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Direct delivery

Direct delivery

Direct delivery

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 Indirect delivery

A B

Link Link Link

Indirect delivery Indirect delivery Direct delivery

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FORWARDING

Forwarding means to place the packet in

its route to its destination. Since the
Internet today is made of a combination
of links (networks), forwarding means to
deliver the packet to the next hop (which
can be the final destination or the
intermediate connecting device).
Although the IP protocol was originally
designed as a connectionless protocol,
today the tendency is to use IP as a
connection-oriented protocol.
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Topics Discussed in the Section
Forwarding Based on Destination Address
Forwarding Based on Label

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Next-hop method

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 Network-specific method

Network-specific
routing table for host S
Destination Next Hop
Host-specific
routing table for host S N2 R1

Destination Next Hop

A R1
B R1
C R1
D R1

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Host-specific routing

Routing table for host A

Host A
Destination Next Hop
Host B R3
N2 R1
N3 R3
...... ......

N1

R1 R3

Host B

N2 R2 N3

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 Default routing

Routing table for host A N1 N2

Host A
Destination Next Hop
N2 R1 R1
...... ......
Default R2

Default
R2
router

Rest of the Internet

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Simplified forwarding module in classful address without subnetting

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Example
Figure shows an imaginary part of the Internet.
Show the routing tables for router R1.

Solution
Figure shows the three tables used by router R1.
Note that some entries in the next-hop address
column are empty because in these cases, the
destination is in the same network to which the
router is connected (direct delivery).

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Configuration for routing, Example

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Figure Tables for Example

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Example
Router R1 in Figure receives a packet with
destination address 192.16.7.14. Show how the
packet is forwarded.

Solution
The destination address is
11000000 00010000 000001110 0001110.
A copy of the address is shifted 28 bits to the
right. The result is
00000000 00000000 00000000 00001100 or 12.
The destination network is class C. The network
address is extracted by masking off the leftmost
24 bits of the destination address; the result is
192.16.7.0. The table for Class C is searched. The
network address is found in the first row. The
next-hop address 111.15.17.32. and the interface 17
Example
Router R1 in Figure 6.8 receives a packet with
destination address 167.24.160.5. Show how the
packet is forwarded.

Solution
The destination address in binary is
10100111 00011000 10100000 00000101.
A copy of the address is shifted 28 bits to the
right. The result is
00000000 00000000 00000000 00001010 or 10.
The class is B. The network address can be found
by masking off 16 bits of the destination address,
the result is 167.24.0.0. The table for Class B is
searched. No matching network address is found.
The packet needs to be forwarded to the default
router (the network is somewhere else in the
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Internet). The next-hop address 111.30.31.18 and
Figure Simplified forwarding module in classful address with subnetting

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Example
Figure shows a router connected to four subnets.
Note several points. First, the site address is
145.14.0.0/16 (a class B address). Every packet
with destination address in the range 145.14.0.0
to 145.14.255.255 is delivered to the interface
m4 and distributed to the final destination subnet
by the router. Second, we have used the address
x.y.z.t/n for the interface m4 because we do not
know to which network this router is connected.
Third, the table has a default entry for packets
that are to be sent out of the site. The router is
configured to apply the subnet mask /18 to any
destination address.

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 Figure Configuration for Example 6.4

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Example 6.5
The router in Figure 6.11 receives a packet with
destination address 145.14.32.78. Show how the
packet is forwarded.

Solution
The mask is /18. After applying the mask, the
subnet address is 145.14.0.0. The packet is
delivered to ARP (see Chapter 8) with the next-
hop address 145.14.32.78 and the outgoing
interface m0.

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Example 6.6
A host in network 145.14.0.0 in Figure 6.11 has a
packet to send to the host with address
7.22.67.91. Show how the packet
is routed.

Solution
The router receives the packet and applies the
mask (/18). The network address is 7.22.64.0. The
table is searched and the address is not found.
The router uses the address of the default router
(not shown in figure) and sends the packet to
that router.

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 Note

In classful addressing we can have a

routing table with three columns;
in classless addressing,
we need at least four columns.

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 Figure 6.12 Simplified forwarding module in classless address

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Example 6.7
Make a routing table for router R1 using the
configuration in Figure 6.13.

Solution
Table 6.1 shows the corresponding table

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 Figure 6.13 Configuration for Example 6.7

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TCP/IP Protocol Suite 28
Example 6.8
Show the forwarding process if a packet arrives
at R1 in Figure 6.13 with the destination address
180.70.65.140.

Solution
The router performs the following steps:
1. The first mask (/26) is applied to the
destination address. The result is
180.70.65.128, which does not match the
corresponding network address.
2. The second mask (/25) is applied to the
destination address. The result is
180.70.65.128, which matches the
corresponding network address. The next-hop
address (the destination address of the packet
in this case) and
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the interface number m0 are 29
Example 6.9
Show the forwarding process if a packet arrives
at R1 in Figure 6.13 with the destination address
201.4.22.35.

Solution
The router performs the following steps:
1. The first mask (/26) is applied to the
destination address. The result is 201.4.22.0,
which does not match the corresponding
network address (row 1).
2. The second mask (/25) is applied to the
destination address. The result is 201.4.22.0,
which does not match the corresponding
network address (row 2).
3. The third mask (/24) is applied to the
destination
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address. The result is 201.4.22.0,
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Example 6.10
Show the forwarding process if a packet arrives
at R1 in Figure 6.13 with the destination address
18.24.32.78.

Solution
This time all masks are applied to the destination
address, but no matching network address is
found. When it reaches the end of the table, the
module gives the next-hop address 180.70.65.200
and interface number m2 to ARP (see Chapter 8).
This is probably an outgoing package that needs
to be sent, via the default router, to someplace
else in the Internet.

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Example 6.11
Now let us give a different type of example. Can
we find the configuration of a router if we know
only its routing table? The routing table for
router R1 is given in Table 6.2. Can we draw its
topology?
Solution
We know some facts but we don’t have all for a
definite topology. We know that router R1 has
three interfaces: m0, m1, and m2. We know that
there are three networks directly connected to
router R1. We know that there are two networks
indirectly connected to R1. There must be at
least three other routers involved (see next-hop
column). We do not know if network 140.6.12.64
is connected to router R3 directly or through a
point-to-point
TCP/IP Protocol Suite network (WAN) and another router.
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TCP/IP Protocol Suite 33
 Figure 6.14 Guessed topology for Example 6.11

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 Figure 6.15 Address aggregation

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 Figure 6.16 Longest mask matching

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Example 6.12
As an example of hierarchical routing, let us
consider Figure 6.17. A regional ISP is granted
16,384 addresses starting from 120.14.64.0. The
regional ISP has decided to divide this block into
4 subblocks, each with 4096 addresses. Three of
these subblocks are assigned to three local ISPs,
the second subblock is reserved for future use.
Note that the mask for each block is /20 because
the original block with mask /18 is divided into 4
blocks.

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 Figure 6.17 Hierarchical routing with ISPs

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Example 6.13
Figure 6.18 shows a simple example of searching
in a routing table using the longest match
algorithm. Although there are some more
efficient algorithms today, the principle is the
same. When the forwarding algorithm gets the
destination address of the packet, it needs to
delve into the mask column. For each entry, it
needs to apply the mask to find the destination
network address. It then needs to check the
network addresses in the table until it finds the
match. The router then extracts the next hop
address and the interface number to be delivered
to the ARP protocol for delivery of the packet to
the next hop.

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 Figure 6.18 Example 6.13: Forwarding based on destination address

Routing Table
Mask Network Next-hop Interface
(/n) address address
Legend
32 NF
32 NF
31 NF : Compare
31 NF NF:Not found
31 NF F :Found
31 NF
31 NF
Destination
30 F y 2
address 29 interface and
next-hop address

1
x
y
2
x

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Example 6.14
Figure 6.19 shows a simple example of using a
label to access a switching table. Since the labels
are used as the index to the table, finding the
information in the table is immediate.

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 Figure 6.19 Example 6.14: Forwarding based on label

Label used Switching Table

as index Interface Next label
0000
0001
0002
0003
0004 2 0012
0005
0006
Label
interface and
1000 label address
0

Switch 1
0004

2
0012

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 Figure 6.20 MPLS header added to an IP packet

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 Figure 6.21 MPLS header made of stack of labels

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6-3 STRUCTURE OF A ROUTER

In our discussion of forwarding and

routing, we represented a router as a
black box that accepts incoming packets
from one of the input ports (interfaces),
uses a routing table to find the output
port from which the packet departs, and
sends the packet from this output port.
In this section we open the black box and
look inside. However, our discussion
won’t be very detailed; entire books
have been written about routers. We just
give
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Suite overview to the reader. 45
 Topics Discussed in the Section
Components

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 Figure 6.22 Router components

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 Figure 6.23 Input port

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 Figure 6.24 Output port

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 Figure 6.25 Crossbar switch

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 Figure 6.26 A banyan switch

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 Figure 6.27 Examples of routing in a banyan switch

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 Figure 6.28 Batcher-banyan switch

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