Subnetting Fundamentals

Basic Scenarios

A Computer Using Hotspot

Computer is initiating communication over whatever netowrk medium is connected.
The computer is tethered to a cell phone for connectivity.
The cellphone is connected to a tower nearby for upstream connectivity.
Cell phone service provider functions as an Internet Service Provider (ISP) permitting the computer to access the internet.

A Computer Using A Router

Computer is initiating communication over whatever netowrk medium is connected.
The computer has a Network Interface Card (NIC).
NIC is connected to router for upstream connectivity.
Router is connected to ISP permitting internet access.

Client Computers on a Local Network

Client computers are connected via ethernet from their NICs to the local switch.
Switch is connected to all devices on te local network. It will forward packets within the local network.
A router is connected to the local network and the internet. It will forward packets within the local network.
The router forwards packets upon request to upstream network eg ISP.

Component Definitions

Network Interface Card: Hardware available to the computer for the purpose of networking. It connects via some medium (ethernet, fiber, radio/wireless).
Switch: Can be a stand-alone device or provided by the router if it has switching functionality. The switch is a member of the LAN and permits LAN communication.
Router: Connected to the upstream network. Router device is a member of two (or more) networks and facilitates communication between networks. The router may connect to an ISP granting access to the internet. The internet itself comprises of many different, discreet networks.

Network Traffic

There are three important methods of network traffic:

Unicast (one-to-one): Traffic is sent for a single source to a single destination. This is the most common form. Examples include a connection from a client web browser to a remote web server.
Multicast (one-to-many): Traffic is sent from a single source to multiple destinations. Example client sending updates to multiple devices at the same time as a single data stream. Traditionally handled by a discreet multicast network.
Broadcast (one-to-all): Traffic is sent from a single source to all destinations. Example being the Address Resolution Protocol that uses broadcast to map MAC addresses to IP addresses.

OSI Layers in Network Traffic

Open Systems Interconnection Model.

Layer 1: Physical

Represents the bit-level transmission between network nodes over the connection medium.

Data: Bits across the wire (1s and 0s) as pulse of electricity or light.

Layer 2: Data Link

Data Link Layer handles communications between adjacents network nodes via physical addressing (MAC).

Data: Frames.

Layer 3: Network

Handles routing messages (packets) via the best route to reach its destination based on IP address.

Data: Packets.

Layer 4: Transport

Defines how data will be sent providing validation and security.

Data: Segments.

Layer 5-7: Application, Presentation, Session

Layers 5-7 are typically managed by the application itself, providing the interface for the user to communicate.

Data: Data.

Data in a TCP/IP Example

Data Link Layer (2): Frame = Frame Header + Frame Data
Network Layer (3): Packet = IP Header + IP Data
Transport Layer (4): Segment = TCP Header + Application Data
Application Layer (5-7): Data = App Header + User Data

Network Segmention

There can be multiple switches within a small corporate network that isolate different department computers and servers.

Isolation

Bad Actor: Could compromise netowrk resources it has access to.
Limiting: In a single-scroped network, bandwidth competition could lead to quality of servie issues for important services and hosts.

Scaling

The benefits of segregation in a larger network:

Improve network performance and speed
Reduce network congestion
Enhance security
Controlled expansion
Maintenance and Administraion

Addressing

IPv4

IPv4 address are 32bit with an octet each consisting of 8 bits (hence the 255.255.255.255 limit).

IPv6

Leading 0s can be compressed
Groups of zeroes can be removed (once) and represented by ::

Example of an IPv6 address: 2001:0DB8:AC10:FE01:0000:0000:0000:0000 which can be further compressed to be represented as 2001:0DB8:AC10:FE01::.

The main advantage of IPv6 over IPv4 is the larger address space.

Each segment is represented by 16 bits.

Media Access Control (MAC) Address

Within range to max address FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF.
48 bit address.
First three sections represent the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) - number deontes the manufacturer and whether this is a universal or local MAC address.
The MAC addresses are mapped to IP addresses through the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP).

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

When requestion a resolution to an address, a member of the LAN network sends out a broadcast on the network to all devices asking for a Target IP but no Target MAC address.

The device with the Target IP would then respond with a Unicast to the original device provide the Target MAC address that was requested..

Broadcast => who has IP 192.168.1.212? No Target MAC address as it is a broadcast
Unicast back => I have the IP 192.168.1.212. Has all Sender and Target addresses

Network Masks

Designates which sections of the IP address apply to the network, and which apply to the host.

Example, for 192.168.001.101 we could have Network Portion 255.255.255 and Host Portion .101. Only the 101 part of this address is the host portion, so in the above case we know the network is 192.168.001. The network mask determines the network size and range.

In this example the range is 192.168.001.0 - 192.168.001.255.

Note that in a classful network, the .0 is not a valid IP as it represents a network.

The highest IP in the range isn't used for host assignment as it is consider the broadcast IP for broadcasting a packet to an entire IPv4 subnet.

The broadcast address also cannot be an even number.

Common network masks include 255.255.255.0, 255.255.0.0 and 255.0.0.0 where the 255s represent the network portion and the 0s represent the host portion. The are also the submasks of the A, B and C networks.

The network portion means we can have many networks.

The host portion defines how many devices or how many portions you can have on your LAN. This is the only part of the address on a LAN that changes.

Calculating Subnet Hosts

Formula is 2^n - 2 where n is the number of host bits.

We subtract 2 addresses for the host ID and the broadcast.

Calculating Subnet Range

We take an IP address and the subnet mask and use an AND calculation on their respective binary representations to figure out the initial IP in the range.

192.168.100.200 => 11000000 10101000 01100100 11001000
255.255.255.224 => 11111111 11111111 11111111 11100000 (2^5 = 32)
==============================================================
11000000 10101000 01100100 11000000

192.168.100.192 32 addressess = 224

Network Address: 192.168.100.192
Broadcast Address: 192.168.100.223

Calculating Subnets

Formula is 2^b / n+2 where:

b: number of bits in the host portion
n: number of hosts per subnet

CIDR -> Classless Inter-Domain Routing

This is a replacement for classful networking.

does no use classes for network assignment or sizing
entire unicast range (0-233 in first octet) can be segmented into any sized network
subnet masks not limited to 255.255.255.0, 255.255.0.0 or 255.0.0.0

CIDR blocks are denoted with an IP address followed by a /n where n is a number between 0 and 32 that notes the side of the host portion.

Example address 192.168.100.1/24 would be a network that supports 256 host addresses (the last octet).

192.168.100.1/23 would support 512 host addresses and so on and so forth.

FLSM and VLSM

Classful networking and CIDR apply to IP assignments, FLSM and VLSM apply to how subnets are assigned within an infrastructure and if the routing protocol send the subnet mask. FLSM is uncommon and has been replaced by VLSM.

FLSM = Fixed Length Subnet Mask
VLSM = Variable Length Subnet Mask