As per Relevance of the word hardware, we have this rfc below:
Network Working Group Jeffrey
Request for Comments: 919 Computer Science
Stanford
October 1984
BROADCASTING INTERNET
Status of this
We propose simple rules for broadcasting Internet datagrams on
networks that support broadcast, for addressing broadcasts, and
how gateways should handle them
This RFC suggests a proposed protocol for the ARPA-
community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements
Distribution of this memo is unlimited
This proposal is the result of discussion with several other people
especially J. Noel Chiappa and Christopher A. Kent, both of whom
pointed me at important references
1.
The use of broadcasts, especially on high-speed local area networks
is a good base for many applications. Since broadcasting is
covered in the basic IP specification [13], there is no agreed-
way to do it, and so protocol designers have not made use of it. (
issue has been touched upon before, e.g. [6], but has not been
subject of a standard.)
We consider here only the case of unreliable, unsequenced,
duplicated datagram broadcasts (for a discussion of TCP broadcasting
see [11].) Even though unreliable and limited in length,
broadcasts are quite useful [1].
We assume that the data link layer of the local network
efficient broadcasting. Most common local area networks do
broadcast; for example, Ethernet [7, 5], ChaosNet [10], token
networks [2], etc
We do not assume, however, that broadcasts are reliably delivered
(One might consider providing a reliable broadcast protocol as
layer above IP.) It is quite expensive to guarantee delivery
broadcasts; instead, what we assume is that a host will receive
of the broadcasts that are sent. This is important to
excessive use of broadcasts; since every host on the network
at least some effort to every broadcast, they are costly
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Broadcasting Internet
When a datagram is broadcast, it imposes a cost on every host
hears it. Therefore, broadcasting should not be
indiscriminately, but rather only when it is the best solution to
problem
Note: some organizations have divided their IP networks into subnets
for which a standard [8] has been proposed. This RFC does not
the numerous complications arising from the interactions
subnets and broadcasting; see [9] for a complete discussion
2.
Because broadcasting depends on the specific data link layer in
on a local network, we must discuss it with reference to
physical networks and logical networks
The terms we will use in referring to physical networks are, from
point of view of the host sending or forwarding a broadcast
Local Hardware
The physical link to which the host is attached
Remote Hardware
A physical network which is separated from the host by at
one gateway
Collection of Hardware
A set of hardware networks (transitively) connected by gateways
The IP world includes several kinds of logical network. To
ambiguity, we will use the following terms
The DARPA Internet collection of IP networks
IP
One or a collection of several hardware networks that have
specific IP network number
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3. Why Broadcast
Broadcasts are useful when a host needs to find information
knowing exactly what other host can supply it, or when a host
to provide information to a large set of hosts in a timely manner
When a host needs information that one or more of its neighbors
have, it could have a list of neighbors to ask, or it could poll
of its possible neighbors until one responds. Use of a wired-in
creates obvious network management problems (early binding
inflexible). On the other hand, asking all of one's neighbors
slow if one must generate plausible host addresses, and try
until one works. On the ARPANET, for example, there are roughly 65
thousand plausible host numbers. Most IP implementations have
wired-in lists (for example, addresses of "Prime" gateways.)
Fortunately, broadcasting provides a fast and simple way for a
to reach all of its neighbors
A host might also use a broadcast to provide all of its
with some information; for example, a gateway might announce
presence to other gateways
One way to view broadcasting is as an imperfect substitute
multicasting, the sending of messages to a subset of the hosts on
network. In practice, broadcasts are usually used where
are what is wanted; packets are broadcast at the hardware level,
filtering software in the receiving hosts gives the effect
multicasting
For more examples of broadcast applications, see [1, 3].
4. Broadcast
There are several classes of IP broadcasting
- Single-destination datagram broadcast on the local IP net:
datagrams is destined for a specific IP host, but the
host broadcasts it at the data link layer, perhaps to
having to do routing. Since this is not an IP broadcast, the
layer is not involved, except that a host should
datagrams not meant for it without becoming flustered (i.e.,
printing an error message).
- Broadcast to all hosts on the local IP net: A
value for the host-number part of the IP address
broadcast instead of a specific host. The receiving IP
must be able to recognize this address as well as its own
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However, it might still be useful to distinguish at
levels between broadcasts and non-broadcasts, especially
gateways. This is the most useful case of broadcast; it allows
host to discover gateways without wired-in tables, it is
basis for address resolution protocols, and it is also
for accessing such utilities as name servers, time servers
etc., without requiring wired-in addresses
- Broadcast to all hosts on a remote IP network: It
occasionally useful to send a broadcast to all hosts on
non-local network; for example, to find the latest version of
hostname database, to bootload a host on an IP network without
bootserver, or to monitor the timeservers on the IP network
This case is the same as local-network broadcasts; the
is routed by normal mechanisms until it reaches a
attached to the destination IP network, at which point it
broadcast. This class of broadcasting is also known as "
broadcasting", or quaintly as sending a "letter bomb" [1].
- Broadcast to the entire Internet: This is probably not useful
and almost certainly not desirable
For reasons of performance or security, a gateway may choose not
forward broadcasts; especially, it may be a good idea to
broadcasts into or out of an autonomous group of networks
5. Broadcast
A host's IP receiving layer must be modified to support broadcasting
In the absence of broadcasting, a host determines if it is
recipient of a datagram by matching the destination address
all of its IP addresses. With broadcasting, a host must compare
destination address not only against the host's addresses, but
against the possible broadcast addresses for that host
The problem of how best to send a broadcast has been
discussed [1, 3, 4, 14, 15]. Since we assume that the problem
already been solved at the data link layer, an IP host wishing
send either a local broadcast or a directed broadcast need
specify the appropriate destination address and send the datagram
usual. Any sophisticated algorithms need only reside in gateways
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6. Gateways and
Most of the complexity in supporting broadcasts lies in gateways.
a gateway receives a directed broadcast for a network to which it
not connected, it simply forwards it using the usual mechanism
Otherwise, it must do some additional work
When a gateway receives a local broadcast datagram, there are
things it might have to do with it. The situation is unambiguous
but without due care it is possible to create infinite loops
The appropriate action to take on receipt of a broadcast
depends on several things: the subnet it was received on,
destination network, and the addresses of the gateway
- The primary rule for avoiding loops is "never broadcast
datagram on the hardware network it was received on". It is
sufficient simply to avoid repeating datagrams that a
has heard from itself; this still allows loops if there
several gateways on a hardware network
- If the datagram is received on the hardware network to which
is addressed, then it should not be forwarded. However,
gateway should consider itself to be a destination of
datagram (for example, it might be a routing table update.)
- Otherwise, if the datagram is addressed to a hardware network
which the gateway is connected, it should be sent as a (
link layer) broadcast on that network. Again, the
should consider itself a destination of the datagram
- Otherwise, the gateway should use its normal routing
to choose a subsequent gateway, and send the datagram along
it
7. Broadcast IP Addressing - Proposed
If different IP implementations are to be compatible, there must be
distinguished number to denote "all hosts".
Since the local network layer can always map an IP address into
link layer address, the choice of an IP "broadcast host number"
somewhat arbitrary. For simplicity, it should be one not likely
be assigned to a real host. The number whose bits are all ones
this property; this assignment was first proposed in [6]. In the
cases where a host has been assigned an address with a host-
part of all ones, it does not seem onerous to require renumbering
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The address 255.255.255.255 denotes a broadcast on a local
network, which must not be forwarded. This address may be used,
example, by hosts that do not know their network number and
asking some server for it
Thus, a host on net 36, for example, may
- broadcast to all of its immediate neighbors by
255.255.255.255
- broadcast to all of net 36 by using 36.255.255.255
(Note that unless the network has been broken up into subnets,
two methods have identical effects.)
If the use of "all ones" in a field of an IP address
"broadcast", using "all zeros" could be viewed as
"unspecified". There is probably no reason for such addresses
appear anywhere but as the source address of an ICMP
Request datagram. However, as a notational convention, we refer
networks (as opposed to hosts) by using addresses with zero fields
For example, 36.0.0.0 means "network number 36" while 36.255.255.255
means "all hosts on network number 36".
7.1. ARP Servers and
The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) described in [12] can,
incorrectly implemented, cause problems when broadcasts are
on a network where not all hosts share an understanding of what
broadcast address is. The temptation exists to modify the
server so that it provides the mapping between an IP
address and the hardware broadcast address
This temptation must be resisted. An ARP server should
respond to a request whose target is a broadcast address. Such
request can only come from a host that does not recognize
broadcast address as such, and so honoring it would
certainly lead to a forwarding loop. If there are N such hosts
the physical network that do not recognize this address as
broadcast, then a datagram sent with a Time-To-Live of T
potentially give rise to T**N spurious re-broadcasts
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8.
1. David Reeves Boggs. Internet Broadcasting. Ph.D. Th.,
University, January 1982.
2. D.D. Clark, K.T. Pogran, and D.P. Reed. "An Introduction
Local Area Networks". Proc. IEEE 66, 11, pp1497-1516, 1978.
3. Yogan Kantilal Dalal. Broadcast Protocols in Packet
Computer Networks. Ph.D. Th., Stanford University, April 1977.
4. Yogan K. Dalal and Robert M. Metcalfe. "Reverse Path
of Broadcast Packets". Comm. ACM 21, 12, pp1040-1048,
1978.
5. The Ethernet, A Local Area Network: Data Link Layer and
Layer Specifications. Version 1.0, Digital
Corporation, Intel, Xerox, September 1980.
6. Robert Gurwitz and Robert Hinden. IP - Local Area
Addressing Issues. IEN-212, Bolt Beranek and Newman,
1982.
7. R.M. Metcalfe and D.R. Boggs. "Ethernet: Distributed
Switching for Local Computer Networks". Comm. ACM 19, 7,
pp395-404, July 1976. Also CSL-75-7, Xerox Palo Alto
Center, reprinted in CSL-80-2.
8. Jeffrey Mogul. Internet Subnets. RFC-917, Stanford University
October 1984.
9. Jeffrey Mogul. Broadcasting Internet Packets in the Presence
Subnets. RFC-922, Stanford University, October 1984.
10. David A. Moon. Chaosnet. A.I. Memo 628,
Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,
1981.
11. William W. Plummer. Internet Broadcast Protocols. IEN-10,
Beranek and Newman, March 1977.
12. David Plummer. An Ethernet Address Resolution Protocol
RFC-826, Symbolics, September 1982.
13. Jon Postel. Internet Protocol. RFC 791, ISI, September 1981.
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14. David W. Wall. Mechanisms for Broadcast and
Broadcast. Ph.D. Th., Stanford University, June 1980.
15. David W. Wall and Susan S. Owicki. Center-based Broadcasting
Computer Systems Lab Technical Report TR189,
University, June 1980.
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