Presentation Layer Protocols
Presentation Layer Protocols
Presentation layer
responsible for the delivery and formatting of
information to the application layer for further
processing or display
is the lowest layer at which application programmers
consider data structure and presentation, instead of
simply sending data in the form of datagrams or
packets between hosts
An example of a presentation service would be the
conversion of anEBCDIC-coded textcomputer fileto an
ASCII-coded file.
In many widely used applications and protocols, no distinction is made between the presentation and application layers.
Example:
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), generally regarded as an application-layer protocol, has presentation-layer aspects such as the ability to identify character encoding for proper conversion, which is then
done in the application layer.
Using SMTPS, the client side of the application passes the text to
the presentation layer services and requests encryption.
A Transport Layer Security (TLS) component at the presentation
layer receives the unencrypted message and proceeds to encrypt
the message using standard TLS processes.
The encrypted message flows down through the remaining OSI
layers, over the physical network to the server.
At the server, the message is sent up through all of the layers
until it arrives at the presentation layer.
Now, the servers TLS processes will take over and decrypt the
message so that it is clearly readable.
The clear text message is then delivered to the SMTP application
layer protocol for processing.
In this case, the next step would be to deliver the message to the
recipients mailbox.
Protocols
Other protocols sometimes considered at this level (though perhaps not strictly adhering to the
OSI model) include:
Independent Computing
Architecture
Telnet
Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or
local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive
text-oriented communication facility using a virtual
terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band
with Telnet control information in an 8-bit byte oriented
data connection over the Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP).
Tox (software)
Tox is a free and open-source, peer-to-peer, encrypted
instant messaging and video calling software. The
stated goal of the project is to provide secure yet easily
accessible communication for everyone.[1]
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet
switched wide area network (WAN) communication. An
X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange (PSE)
nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines,
plain old telephone service connections or ISDN
connections as physical links.
Presentation
(Layer 6)
QUESTIONS
1.) Describe the presentation layer protocols of the OSI
protocol suite.
2.) Describe the EBCDIC to ASCII Conversion Chart
3.) Describe External Data Representation.
4.) Describe Tox protocol.
ANSWERS
1. The presentation layer implementation of the OSI protocol suite consists
of a presentation protocol and a presentation service. The presentation
protocol enables presentation-service users (PS-users) to communicate
with the presentation service.
2. EBCDIC is an 8-bit coding scheme. Valid hex values for an EBCDIC
character are 00 to FF..The 16 rows in the chart below correspond to the
first hex digit of an EBCDIC character (0 to F). The contents of the cells
shows the ASCII value (in hex) that corresponds to that EBCDIC character.
3. External Data Representation (XDR) is a standard data serialization
format, for uses such as computer network protocols. It allows data to be
transferred between different kinds of computer systems.
4. The core of Tox is an implementation of the Tox protocol, an example of
the application layer of the OSI model and arguably the presentation layer.
Implementations of the Tox protocol not done by the project exist, an
example of one being Xot.