CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material – Chapter 5: Ethernet

Chapter 5 – Sections & Objectives

  • 5.1 Ethernet Protocol
    • Explain how the Ethernet sublayers are related to the frame fields.
    • Describe the Ethernet MAC address.
  • 5.2 LAN Switches
    • Explain how a switch operates.
    • Explain how a switch builds its MAC address table and forwards frames.
    • Describe switch forwarding methods.
    • Describe the types of port settings available for Layer 2 switches.
  • 5.3 Address Resolution Protocol
    • Compare the roles of the MAC address and the IP address.
    • Describe the purpose of ARP.
    • Explain how ARP requests impact network and host performance.

5.1 Ethernet Protocol

Ethernet Frame

  • Ethernet Encapsulation
    • Ethernet operates in the data link layer and the physical layer.
    • Ethernet supports data bandwidths from 10Mbps through 100Gbps.
    • Ethernet standards define both the Layer 2 protocols and the Layer 1 technologies.
  • MAC Sublayer
    • MAC constitutes the lower sublayer of the data link layer.
    • Responsible for Data encapsulation and Media access control.
  • Ethernet Evolution
    • Ethernet has been evolving since its creation in 1973.
    • The Ethernet frame structure adds headers and trailers around the Layer 3 PDU to encapsulate the message being sent.
  • Ethernet Frame Fields
    • The minimum Ethernet frame size is 64 bytes and the maximum is 1518 bytes.
    • Frame smaller than the minimum or greater than the maximum are dropped.
    • Dropped frames are likely to be the result of collisions or other unwanted signals and are therefore considered invalid.

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 9

Ethernet MAC Addresses

    • MAC Addresses and Hexadecimal

– MAC address is 48-bit long and expressed as 12 hexadecimal digits.

  • MAC Addresses: Ethernet Identity
    – IEEE requires a vendor to follow two simple rules:

    1. Must use that vendor’s assigned OUI as the first three bytes.
    2. All MAC addresses with the same OUI must be assigned a unique value in the last three bytes.
  • Frame Processing
    • The NIC compares the destination MAC address in the frame with the device’s physical MAC address stored in RAM.
    • If there is a match, the framed is passed up the OSI layers.
    • If there is no match, the device discards the frame.
  • MAC Address Representations
    • MAC addresses can be represented with colons, dashes or dots and are case-insensitive.
    • 00-60-2F-3A-07-BC, 00:60:2F:3A:07:BC, 0060.2F3A.07BC and 00-60-2f-3a-07-bc are all valid representations of the same MAC address.
  • Unicast MAC Address
    • Unique address used when a frame is sent from a single transmitting device to a single destination device.
    • The source MAC address must always be a unicast.
  • Broadcast MAC Address
    • Used to address all nodes in the segment.
    • The destination MAC address is the address of FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF in hexadecimal (48 ones in binary).
  • Multicast MAC Address
    • Used to address a group of nodes in the segment.
    • The multicast MAC address is a special value that begins with 01-00-5E in hexadecimal.
    • The remaining portion of the multicast MAC address is created by converting the lower 23 bits of the IP multicast group address into 6 hexadecimal characters.

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 10

5.2 LAN Switches

The MAC Address Table

  • Switch Fundamentals
    • An Ethernet Switch is a Layer 2 device.
    • It uses MAC addresses to make forwarding decisions.
    • The MAC address table is sometimes referred to as a content addressable memory (CAM) table.
  • Learning MAC Addresses
    • Switches dynamically build the CAM by monitoring source MACs.
    • Every frame that enters a switch is checked for new addresses.
    • The frame is forwarded based on the CAM.
  • Filtering Frames
    • Since the switch knows where to find a specific MAC address, it can filter the frames to that port only.
    • Filtering is not done is the destination MAC is not present in the CAM.

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 11

Switch Forwarding Methods

  • Frame Forwarding Methods on Cisco Switches
    • Store-And-Forward
    • Cut-Through
  • Cut-Through Switching
    • Fast-forward switching
    • Lowest level of latency immediately forwards a packet after reading the destination address.
    • Typical cut-through method of switching.
    • Fragment-free switching
    • Switch stores the first 64 bytes of the frame before forwarding.
    • Most network errors and collisions occur during the first 64 bytes.
  • Memory Buffering on Switches
    • Port-based memory
    • Share memory

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 12

Switch Port Settings

  • Duplex and Speed Settings
    • Full-duplex – Both ends of the connection can send and receive simultaneously.
    • Half-duplex – Only one end of the connection can send at a time.
    • A common cause of performance issues on Ethernet links is when one port on the link operates at half-duplex and the other on full-duplex.
  • Auto-MDX
    • Detects the type of connection required and configures the interface accordingly.
    • Helps reducing configuration errors.

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 13

5.3 Address Resolution Protocol

MAC and IP

  • The combination of MAC and IP facilitate the End-to-End communication.
  • Layer 2 addresses are used to move the frame within the local network
  • Layer 3 addresses are used to move the packets through remote networks.
  • Destination on Same Network
    – Physical address (MAC address) is used for Ethernet NIC to Ethernet NIC communications on the same network.
  • Destination on Remote Network
    – Logical address (IP address) is used to send the packet from the original source to the final destination.

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 14

ARP

  • Introduction to ARP
    • ARP allows the source to request the MAC address of the destination.
    • The request is based upon the layer 3 address of the destination (known by the source).
  • ARP Functions
    • Resolving IPv4 addresses to MAC addresses
    • Maintaining a table of mappings
    • ARP uses ARP Request and ARP Reply to perform its functions.
  • Removing Entries from an ARP Table
    • Entries are removed from the device’s ARP table when its cache timer expires.
    • Cache timers are OS dependent.
    • ARP entries can be manually removed via commands.
  • ARP Tables
    • On IOS: show ip arp
    • On Windows PCs: arp -a

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 15

ARP Issues

  • ARP Broadcasts
    – ARP requests can flood the local segment.
  • ARP Spoofing
    – Attackers can respond to requests and pretend to be providers of services. Example: default gateway

CCNA 1 v6.0 Study Material - Chapter 5: Ethernet 16

5.4 Chapter Summary

Chapter Summary Summary

  • Explain the operation of Ethernet.
  • Explain how a switch operates.
  • Explain how the address resolution protocol enables communication on a network.

Section 5.1 New Terms and Commands

  • IEEE 802.2
  • IEEE 802.3
  • LLC Sublayer
  • MAC Sublayer
  • Data Encapsulation
  • Frame Delimiting
  • Cyclic Redundancy Check
  • Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA)
  • Ethernet II
  • Frame Check Sequence (FCS)
  • Preamble
  • EtherType

  • Runt
  • Collision Fragment
  • Jumbo
  • Baby Giant Frame
  • Hexadecimal
  • Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI)

Section 5.2 New Terms and Commands

  • burned-in address (BIA)
  • ipconfig /all command
  • ifconfig command
  • Unicast MAC Address
  • Broadcast MAC Address
  • Multicast MAC Address
  • Content Addressable Memory (CAM)
  • Store-and-forward
  • Cut-through
  • Fast-forward switching
  • Fragment-free switching
  • Port-based Memory Buffering
  • Shared Memory Buffering

  • Half-duplex
  • Full-duplex
  • Auto-MDIX
  • Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

Section 5.3 New Terms and Commands

  • ARP Table
  • ARP Cache
  • ARP Request
  • ARP Reply
  • show ip arp, arp –a
  • ARP spoofing

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