Chapter 9

Internet Control Message

Protocol
Objectives
Upon completion you will be able to:

• Be familiar with the ICMP message format

• Know the types of error reporting messages
• Know the types of query messages
• Be able to calculate the ICMP checksum
• Know how to use the ping and traceroute commands
• Understand the modules and interactions of an ICMP package
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 Figure 9.1 Position of ICMP in the network layer

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 Figure 9.2 ICMP encapsulation

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 9.1 TYPES OF MESSAGES
ICMP messages are divided into error-reporting messages and query
messages. The error-reporting messages report problems that a router or
a host (destination) may encounter. The query messages get specific
information from a router or another host.

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 Figure 9.3 ICMP messages

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 Table 9.1 ICMP messages

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 9.2 MESSAGE FORMAT
An ICMP message has an 8-byte header and a variable-size data section.
Although the general format of the header is different for each message
type, the first 4 bytes are common to all.

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 Figure 9.4 General format of ICMP messages

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 9.3 ERROR REPORTING
IP, as an unreliable protocol, is not concerned with error checking and
error control. ICMP was designed, in part, to compensate for this
shortcoming. ICMP does not correct errors, it simply reports them.

The topics discussed in this section include:

Destination Unreachable
Source Quench
Time Exceeded
Parameter Problem
Redirection

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 Note:

ICMP always reports error messages

to the original source.

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 Figure 9.5 Error-reporting messages

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 Note:

The following are important points about ICMP

error messages:
❏ No ICMP error message will be generated in response
to a datagram carrying an ICMP error message.
❏ No ICMP error message will be generated for a
fragmented datagram that is not the first fragment.
❏ No ICMP error message will be generated for a
datagram having a multicast address.
❏ No ICMP error message will be generated for a
datagram having a special address such as 127.0.0.0 or
0.0.0.0.

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 Figure 9.6 Contents of data field for the error messages

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 Figure 9.7 Destination-unreachable format

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 Note:

Destination-unreachable messages
with codes 2 or 3 can be created only
by the destination host.
Other destination-unreachable
messages can be created only by
routers.

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 Note:

A router cannot detect all problems

that prevent the delivery of a packet.

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 Note:

There is no flow-control mechanism

in the IP protocol.

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 Figure 9.8 Source-quench format

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 Note:

A source-quench message informs the

source that a datagram has been
discarded due to congestion in a
router or the destination host.
The source must slow down the
sending of datagrams until the
congestion is relieved.
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 Note:

One source-quench message is sent

for each datagram that is discarded
due to congestion.

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 Note:

Whenever a router decrements a

datagram with a time-to-live value to
zero, it discards the datagram and
sends a time-exceeded message to the
original source.

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 Note:

When the final destination does not

receive all of the fragments in a set
time, it discards the received
fragments and sends a time-exceeded
message to the original source.

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 Note:

In a time-exceeded message, code 0 is

used only by routers to show that the
value of the time-to-live field is zero.
Code 1 is used only by the destination
host to show that not all of the
fragments have arrived within a set
time.
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 Figure 9.9 Time-exceeded message format

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 Note:

A parameter-problem message can be

created by a router or the destination
host.

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 Figure 9.10 Parameter-problem message format

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 Figure 9.11 Redirection concept

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 Note:

A host usually starts with a small

routing table that is gradually
augmented and updated. One of the
tools to accomplish this is the
redirection message.

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 Figure 9.12 Redirection message format

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 Note:

A redirection message is sent from a

router to a host on the same local
network.

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 9.4 QUERY
ICMP can also diagnose some network problems through the query
messages, a group of four different pairs of messages. In this type of
ICMP message, a node sends a message that is answered in a specific
format by the destination node.

The topics discussed in this section include:

Echo Request and Reply
Timestamp Request and Reply
Address-Mask Request and Reply
Router Solicitation and Advertisement

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 Figure 9.13 Query messages

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 Note:

An echo-request message can be sent

by a host or router. An echo-reply
message is sent by the host or router
which receives an echo-request
message.

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 Note:

Echo-request and echo-reply messages

can be used by network managers to
check the operation of the IP protocol.

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 Note:

Echo-request and echo-reply messages

can test the reachability of a host. This
is usually done by invoking the ping
command.

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 Figure 9.14 Echo-request and echo-reply messages

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 Figure 9.15 Timestamp-request and timestamp-reply message format

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 Note:

Timestamp-request and timestamp-

reply messages can be used to
calculate the round-trip time between
a source and a destination machine
even if their clocks are not
synchronized.

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 Note:

The timestamp-request and

timestamp-reply messages can be used
to synchronize two clocks in two
machines if the exact one-way time
duration is known.

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 Figure 9.16 Mask-request and mask-reply message format

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 Figure 9.17 Router-solicitation message format

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 Figure 9.18 Router-advertisement message format

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 9.5 CHECKSUM
In ICMP the checksum is calculated over the entire message (header
and data).

The topics discussed in this section include:

Checksum Calculation
Checksum Testing

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 Example 1

Figure 9.19 shows an example of checksum calculation for a

simple echo-request message (see Figure 9.14). We randomly
chose the identifier to be 1 and the sequence number to be 9.
The message is divided into 16-bit (2-byte) words. The words
are added together and the sum is complemented. Now the
sender can put this value in the checksum field.

See Next Slide

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 Figure 9.19 Example of checksum calculation

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 9.6 DEBUGGING TOOLS
We introduce two tools that use ICMP for debugging: ping and
traceroute.

The topics discussed in this section include:

Ping
Traceroute

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 Example 2

We use the ping program to test the server fhda.edu. The result
is shown below:

$ ping fhda.edu
PING fhda.edu (153.18.8.1) 56 (84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=0 ttl=62 time=1.91 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=62 time=2.04 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=62 time=1.90 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=3 ttl=62 time=1.97 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=4 ttl=62 time=1.93 ms

See Next Slide

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 Example 2 (Continued)

64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=5 ttl=62 time=2.00 ms

64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=6 ttl=62 time=1.94 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=7 ttl=62 time=1.94 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=8 ttl=62 time=1.97 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=9 ttl=62 time=1.89 ms
64 bytes from tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1): icmp_seq=10 ttl=62 time=1.98 ms

--- fhda.edu ping statistics ---

11 packets transmitted, 11 received, 0% packet loss, time 10103ms
rtt min/avg/max = 1.899/1.955/2.041 ms

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 Example 3

For the this example, we want to know if the adelphia.net mail

server is alive and running. The result is shown below:

$ ping mail.adelphia.net
PING mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=85.4 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=84.6 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=84.9 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=3 ttl=48 time=84.3 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=4 ttl=48 time=84.5 ms

See Next Slide

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 Example 3 (Continued)

64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=5 ttl=48 time=84.7 ms

64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=6 ttl=48 time=84.6 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=7 ttl=48 time=84.7 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=8 ttl=48 time=84.4 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=9 ttl=48 time=84.2 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=10 ttl=48 time=84.9 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=11 ttl=48 time=84.6 ms
64 bytes from mail.adelphia.net (68.168.78.100): icmp_seq=12 ttl=48 time=84.5 ms
--- mail.adelphia.net ping statistics ---
14 packets transmitted, 13 received, 7% packet loss, time 13129ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 84.207/84.694/85.469

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 Figure 9.20 The traceroute program operation

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 Example 4

We use the traceroute program to find the route from the

computer voyager.deanza.edu to the server fhda.edu. The
following shows the result:

$ traceroute fhda.edu
traceroute to fhda.edu (153.18.8.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 Dcore.fhda.edu (153.18.31.254) 0.995 ms 0.899 ms 0.878 ms
2 Dbackup.fhda.edu (153.18.251.4) 1.039 ms 1.064 ms 1.083 ms
3 tiptoe.fhda.edu (153.18.8.1) 1.797 ms 1.642 ms 1.757 ms

See Next Slide

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 Example 4 (Continued)

The un-numbered line after the command shows that the destination is
153.18.8.1. The TTL value is 30 hops. The packet contains 38 bytes: 20
bytes of IP header, 8 bytes of UDP header, and 10 bytes of application data.
The application data is used by traceroute to keep track of the packets.
The first line shows the first router visited. The router is named
Dcore.fhda.edu with IP address 153.18.31.254. The first round trip time was
0.995 milliseconds, the second was 0.899 milliseconds, and the third was
0.878 milliseconds.
The second line shows the second router visited. The router is named
Dbackup.fhda.edu with IP address 153.18.251.4. The three round trip times
are also shown.
The third line shows the destination host. We know that this is the
destination host because there are no more lines. The destination host is the
server fhda.edu, but it is named tiptoe. fhda.edu with the IP address
153.18.8.1. The three round trip times are also shown.
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 Example 5

In this example, we trace a longer route, the route to

xerox.com

$ traceroute xerox.com
traceroute to xerox.com (13.1.64.93), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 Dcore.fhda.edu (153.18.31.254) 0.622 ms 0.891 ms 0.875 ms
2 Ddmz.fhda.edu (153.18.251.40) 2.132 ms 2.266 ms 2.094 ms
...
18 alpha.Xerox.COM (13.1.64.93) 11.172 ms 11.048 ms 10.922 ms

Here there are 17 hops between source and destination. Note that some
round trip times look unusual. It could be that a router is too busy to
process the packet immediately.

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 Example 6

An interesting point is that a host can send a traceroute packet

to itself. This can be done by specifying the host as the
destination. The packet goes to the loopback address as we
expect.

$ traceroute voyager.deanza.edu
traceroute to voyager.deanza.edu (127.0.0.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 voyager (127.0.0.1) 0.178 ms 0.086 ms 0.055 ms

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 Example 7

Finally, we use the traceroute program to find the route

between fhda.edu and mhhe.com (McGraw-Hill server). We
notice that we cannot find the whole route. When traceroute
does not receive a response within 5 seconds, it prints an
asterisk to signify a problem, and then tries the next hop..
$ traceroute mhhe.com
traceroute to mhhe.com (198.45.24.104), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 Dcore.fhda.edu (153.18.31.254) 1.025 ms 0.892 ms 0.880 ms
2 Ddmz.fhda.edu (153.18.251.40) 2.141 ms 2.159 ms 2.103 ms
3 Cinic.fhda.edu (153.18.253.126) 2.159 ms 2.050 ms 1.992 ms
...
16 * * *
17 * * *
...............
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 9.7 ICMP PACKAGE
To give an idea of how ICMP can handle the sending and receiving of
ICMP messages, we present our version of an ICMP package made of
two modules: an input module and an output module.

The topics discussed in this section include:

Input Module
Output Module

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 Figure 9.21 ICMP package

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