06/02/2003 ICT Center

How The Internet Works

ICT Center
University of Nairobi
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Key Objectives
Gain a general understanding of the
technical aspects of the Internet
Know how it works
Get definitions of some of the primary
terms
Know what you can do with it
Know what you cant/shouldnt do with it
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
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What is the Internet?
An enormous global network connecting
millions of computers.
Computers connected to the Internet can talk to
each other and access vast information resources.
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What is the Internet?
Is based on technology from the 1970s
Was conceived through one of DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency) projects -ARPANet
Project motivated by:
Cold War
Need for network resilient to damage
Became commercial in the 1980s
Nowadays its used to transport data in vast
quantities; Quite resilient to failure

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What makes up the Internet?
Technologies
TCP/IP, FTP, HTTP, UDP etc
Hardware
Computers
Network cards/Modems
Routers
Telephony/Communications equipment
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Networks
There two types of networks:
Local Area Network A network usually within a
building, department, or campus
Wide Area Network A network linking several
distributed LANs

The Internet is a global connection of such networks
an Inter-network
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The Internet - common terms
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Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Internet Infrastructure
User PC - A Multi-Media PC equipped to send and
receive all variety of digital data, including audio and
video.
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Internet Infrastructure:
Users Communication Equipment
These are the communication equipment attached at
the User's PC to connect the PC to the Internet
User connection can probably be one these two
types:
A direct connection to the Internet, through a Local
Area Network (LAN), using a network card
A dial-up connection, where a Modem is used to call a
network connected to Internet using a telephone wire
Network
Card
Modem
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Internet Infrastructure: Local
Loop Carrier
LLC Connects the User location to the Internet Service
Provider's Point of Presence . Include Telephone
Communication lines, Satellites, Cable TV, or Wireless

POTS,
Telephone
and Leased
Lines
Cable
TV
Satellite
Wireless
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Internet Infrastructure: ISP POP
This is the edge of the Internet Service Provider's
network. Connections from the user are accepted and
authenticated here before access to the Internet is
granted.

User
ISP
ISP Point of Presence
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Internet Infrastructure: ISP
Backbone
The ISP backbone interconnects the ISP's POPs,
AND interconnects the ISP to Other ISP's and online
content.

ISP #2 ISP #1
NetWork Access
Point:Large capacity
exchange point
Large capacity
routers/Switches
Large capacity Circuits
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Internet Infrastructure: Online
Content
These are the host sites that provide
information. Have servers that user
interacts with.

These servers
require fast
interfaces and
large/fast storage.

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Internet: Origins of online content
The "real-world" sources for the online
information include:

Legacy Systems
Books
Recordings
Video/Movies
Scanners
Phone
Financial Markets
Embedded Chips
Et cetera
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Internet: Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can
travel a communications path in a given time, usually
measured in Bits Per Seconds.
Measures the speed of your connection to the
Internet the higher the better.
Think of the communications path as a pipe, then
bandwidth represents the width of the pipe that
determines how much data can flow through it all at
once

Big Pipe
High flow
Small Pipe
Low flow
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Internet Protocols
Protocols are rules that govern the exchange
of information between computer networks.
Two basic Internet protocols are:
Internet Protocol (IP)
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
These two protocols are often referred to
together as TCP/IP.
TCP/IP is used by other Internet Protocols
such as FTP, Telnet, HTTP, SMTP to
communicate its the lingua franca
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP)
This protocol provides a reliable flow of data
Using this protocol transmission of Data
though the net Operates as follows
Files and messages are divided into packets
Each packet is stamped with source & destination
address
Each packet is Routed or switched independently
through the Internet to destination (IP protocol)
Destination sends acknowledge message on
receiving packets
At destination packets are reassembled according
to original order

06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
IP and Internet Addressing
Internet Protocol (IP) controls how machines
are addressed and how data is transferred
Every interface on an internet needs to have
a unique address
This is called an Internet Address or an IP
Address
The standard way to show these is in
dotted-decimal notation, which consist of
four numbers separated by dots.
Example:
192.145.11.31
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Internet Addressing
All the computers on the Internet have a
unique IP address and are able to be
accessed using it
But there is a limited number of real
Internet addresses
There is NAT and Proxies which allow the
fan out of addresses
(Allow several PCs to share one real
Internet IP)

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DNS (Domain Name System)
Remembering 192.115.123.2 instead of
www.uonbi.ac.ke is a little tricky for
humans
DNS is an application that maps a
hostname to an IP address
An application needs to convert the host
name of a Server to an IP Address before
it can communicate with the server

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DNS (Domain Name System)
gov edu com int mil net org za au tz be ke
.ac co org
The DNS Name Space is hierarchical
Generic Domains Country Domains
yahoo cisco
uonbi
*. yahoo.com
*.uonbi.ac.ke
Unnamed root
google
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DNS (Domain Name System)
So what actually happens when your
application asks DNS for an IP address?
Local DNS
Server
Your PC
What is the IP
Address for
www.yahoo.com?
ISPs DNS
Server
.COM DNS
Server
Yahoos
DNS
Server
www.yahoo.com
IP: 64.58.76.225

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Routing What is it?
The process of moving a packet of
data from source to destination.
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Routing What is it?
Usually performed by a dedicated device
called a router
A key feature of the Internet because it
enables messages to pass from one computer
to another, possibly through many networks,
and eventually reach the target machine
Connecting networks allows for
internetworking and this is how the word
Internet came about
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Routing Why do it?
Physical network distance limitations
10Base-2 Ethernet for instance has a
physical limit of 185 meters
Physical network incompatibilities
Network Performance
Security
Breaking a network in two, so machines on
one side cannot see what is happening on
the other
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
You type in http://www.yahoo.com in
A web browser address line
and press [Enter] at the PC
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The web browser asks Windows for
the address of www.yahoo.com
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
Windows asks DNS to find the
IP Address for www.yahoo.com
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The DNS client on the PC knows that the
Primary DNS server is at IP Address
213.120.62.103 and sends a request
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The PC knows to send the packet to the
router at 213.123.155.254 by using the
default gateway setting.
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
This router knows that 213.120.62.103 is
on its second network cards network and
pushes the packet out that connection
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The Primary DNS server is working and
has www.yahoo.coms address in
its cache, so it sends it back
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The web browser now knows to connect
the machine at 64.58.76.225
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The packet, containing the HTTP request
information, is sent out to the Internet
via the 2 routers
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The packet traverses the Internet and
magically appears at the server
www.yahoo.com
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Putting it all together

PC
213.123.155.248
Router
213.123.155.254
www.yahoo.com
64.58.76.225
Internet
213.120.62.254
Primary DNS
213.120.62.103
Secondary DNS
213.120.62.104
Router
.COM DNS
183.12.99.102
131.23.7.84
213.120.62.253
The packet is processed and the two
machines have a conversation, resulting
in a web page appearing on the PC!
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Other Internet Protocols
Common Internet Protocols
HTTP : HyperText Transfer Protocol
FTP : File Transfer Protocol
POP3 : Post Office Protocol
SMTP : Simple Mail Transport Protocol
Telnet : Terminal Emulation for Networks
All defined by RFCs (Request for
Comment)
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The HyperText Transfer Protocol is the de-
facto standard for transferring World Wide
Web documents, although it is designed to be
extensible to almost any document format.
Connected: An Internet Encyclopaedia
A web browser requests a web page from a
web server using HTTP, the response may
be an HTML document, it could also be an
image, sound file or a PDF file
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Uniform Resource Locator
(URL)
Every resource on the World Wide Web
has a unique address called a URL or
Uniform Resource Locator
URLs that point to Web pages all begin
with http:// because they are
transmitted according to HTTP.
URLs that reference FTP resources
begin with ftp://.

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Surfing: The Basic Process
User enters a URL (Universal Resource
Locator) example: http://www.yahoo.com/
Internet interprets the URL and finds the
appropriate web server DNS Resolution
Web server delivers the file (HTML text with
embedded objects)
Browser interprets the HTML text and
displays the information on your computer
screen

06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Internet Administration
Internet has decentralized, yet
hierarchical administration
No president, CEO, BOD
Instead: domain administrators
But some functions are centralized
InterNIC assigns DNS names
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Issues Requests for Comment (RFC)
The nice thing about standards is that there are so
many to choose from.
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center

Issues in Internet Growth
Bandwidth
How much is needed? Affordable?
The problem of the last mile
How to address latency, etc?
Addresses
DNS: how to resolve naming conflicts?
Limited number of IP addresses, go to IPv6?
Security
Viable for business?
Viable for health care?



06/02/2003 ICT Center
Outline
What is the Internet?
Internet Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Internet Protocols
Internet Addressing, DNS and Routing
Putting it all together
URL and Web Surfing
Internet Administration
Issues in Internet Growth
What it is good for/it isnt good for
06/02/2003 ICT Center
So What is it good for?
Email
Web Browsing
Research
Collaboration
Cheap Communications
VoIP (Voice over IP)
Customer Service
E-Commerce
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So What isnt it good for?
Applications relying on Real-Time
information
VoIP (Voice over IP)
Applications needing huge bandwidth
Live movies
Guaranteed connections/bandwidth
Still better to use Leased Lines
IPv6 is a possible panacea
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Further Reading
Google the net Search
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Questions
06/02/2003 ICT Center
Thank you
for your
time.