How Many Layers Are Present In The Internet Protocol Stack ?

What Is Internet Protocol ?

Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol or set of rules for routing and addressing data packets so that they can travel across networks and reach their desired destination. Data passing through the Internet is divided into smaller parts called packets.

IP information is attached to every packet and this information helps routers send packets to the right place. Every device or domain connected to the Internet is assigned an IP address, and because packets are directed to their associated IP address, data goes where it’s needed.

Once packets reach their destination, they are handled differently depending on which transport protocol is used in conjunction with IP. The most common transport protocols are TCP and UDP.

Layers Present In The Internet Protocol Stack

TCP/IP is a complex protocol. To make its implementation modular and easier to understand, it has been divided into several layers responsible for different functions.

People in the IT industry refer to this representation as to the protocol stack. The TCP/IP protocol stack consists of 5 layers arranged like a vertical queue.

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Layers on top:

  • Application Layer
  • Transport Layer (Host-to-Host)
  • Internet Layer (Internetwork)
  • Network Interface Layer (Data-link/Link)
  • Physical Layer

The application layer interacts with the application program, which is the highest layer of the OSI model. The application layer is the OSI layer closest to the end-user. This means that the OSI application layer allows users to interact with another software application.

The application layer interacts with software applications to implement the communication component. An application program’s interpretation of data is always outside the scope of the OSI model.

An example of an application layer is an application such as file transfer, email, remote login, etc.

  • The application layer helps you identify communication partners, determine resource availability, and synchronize communication.
  • This allows users to login to a remote host
  • This layer provides various email services.
  • This application offers distributed database sources and access to global information about various objects and services.

The transport layer is built on the network layer to enable the transfer of data from a process on the source system’s computer to a process on the destination system.

It is hosted using one or more networks and also supports QoS features.

It determines how much data should be sent, where and at what speed. This layer is based on the message received from the application layer.

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This helps ensure that blocks of data are delivered without error and in sequence.

The transport layer helps you control link reliability through flow control, error control, and segmentation or desegmentation.

The transport layer also offers an acknowledgment of a successful data transfer and sends the next data if there are no errors. TCP is the most famous example of a transport layer.

  • It divides the message received from the session layer into segments and numbers them to create a sequence.
  • The transport layer ensures that the message is delivered to the correct process on the target computer.
  • It also ensures that the entire message is received without errors, otherwise, it must be retransmitted.

The Internet layer is the second layer of the TCP/IP layers of the TCP/IP model. It is also known as the network layer. The main job of this layer is to send packets from any network, and any computer will still reach its destination regardless of the route they take.

The Internet layer offers a functional and procedural method for transferring data sequences of variable length from one node to another using various networks.

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Message delivery at the network layer does not provide any guaranteed reliable network-layer protocols.

Layer control protocols belonging to the network layer:

Routing Protocols

Multicast group management

Assigning network layer addresses.

The network interface layer is the layer of the four-layer TCP/IP model. This layer is also called the network access layer. This will help you determine the details of how data should be sent using the network.

It also includes how the bits should be optically signaled by hardware devices that interface directly with the network medium, such as coaxial, optical, coaxial, fiber optic, or twisted-pair cables.

The network layer is a combination of a data link and is defined in the OSI reference model article. This layer defines how data should be physically transferred over the network.

This layer is responsible for transferring data between two devices on the same network.

The physical layer is vital to the transfer of bits from one device to another. The physical layer is not concerned with the representation of bits, but it manages the physical relationship with structure, communication, and signal reception.

The physical layer is used to define the physical and electrical details, including what will determine 1 or 0, how many attachments the network will have, how we will synchronize data, and when a network relation can or cannot send data.