EtherType

Last updated

EtherType is a two-octet field in an Ethernet frame. It is used to indicate which protocol is encapsulated in the payload of the frame and is used at the receiving end by the data link layer to determine how the payload is processed. The same field is also used to indicate the size of some Ethernet frames.

Contents

EtherType is also used as the basis of 802.1Q VLAN tagging, encapsulating packets from VLANs for transmission multiplexed with other VLAN traffic over an Ethernet trunk.

EtherType was first defined by the Ethernet II framing standard and later adapted for the IEEE 802.3 standard. EtherType values are assigned by the IEEE Registration Authority.

Overview

An Ethernet frame including the EtherType field. Each lower slot designates an octet; the EtherType is two octets long. EthernetFrame.jpg
An Ethernet frame including the EtherType field. Each lower slot designates an octet; the EtherType is two octets long.

In modern implementations of Ethernet, the field within the Ethernet frame used to describe the EtherType can also be used to represent the size of the payload of the Ethernet Frame. Historically, depending on the type of Ethernet framing that was in use on an Ethernet segment, both interpretations were simultaneously valid, leading to potential ambiguity. Ethernet II framing considered these octets to represent EtherType while the original IEEE 802.3 framing considered these octets to represent the size of the payload in bytes.

In order to allow Ethernet II and IEEE 802.3 framing to be used on the same Ethernet segment, a unifying standard, IEEE 802.3x-1997, was introduced that required that EtherType values be greater than or equal to 1536. That value was chosen because the maximum length (MTU) of the data field of an Ethernet 802.3 frame is 1500 bytes and 1536 is equivalent to the number 600 in the hexadecimal numeral system. Thus, values of 1500 and below for this field indicate that the field is used as the size of the payload of the Ethernet frame while values of 1536 and above indicate that the field is used to represent an EtherType. The interpretation of values 1501–1535, inclusive, is undefined. [1]

The end of a frame is signaled by a valid frame check sequence followed by loss of carrier or by a special symbol or sequence in the line coding scheme for a particular Ethernet physical layer, so the length of the frame does not always need to be encoded as a value in the Ethernet frame. However, as the minimum payload of an Ethernet frame is 46 bytes, a protocol that uses EtherType must include its own length field if that is necessary for the recipient of the frame to determine the length of short packets (if allowed) for that protocol.

VLAN tagging

Insertion of the 802.1Q VLAN tag (four octets) into an Ethernet-II frame, with a typical VLAN arrangement of a tag protocol identifier (TPID) EtherType value of 0x8100. A QinQ arrangement would add another four-octet tag containing a two-octet TPID using various EtherType values. Ethernet 802.1Q Insert.svg
Insertion of the 802.1Q VLAN tag (four octets) into an Ethernet-II frame, with a typical VLAN arrangement of a tag protocol identifier (TPID) EtherType value of 0x8100. A QinQ arrangement would add another four-octet tag containing a two-octet TPID using various EtherType values.

802.1Q VLAN tagging uses an 0x8100 EtherType value. The payload following includes a 16-bit tag control identifier (TCI) followed by an Ethernet frame beginning with a second (original) EtherType field for consumption by end stations. IEEE 802.1ad extends this tagging with further nested EtherType and TCI pairs.

Jumbo frames

The size of the payload of non-standard jumbo frames, typically ~9000 Bytes long, collides with the range used by EtherType, and cannot be used for indicating the length of such a frame. The proposition to resolve this conflict was to substitute the special EtherType value 0x8870 when a length would otherwise be used. [2] However, the proposition (its use case was bigger packets for IS-IS) was not accepted and it is defunct. The chair of IEEE 802.3 at the time, Geoff Thompson, responded to the draft outlining IEEE 802.3's official position and the reasons behind the position. The draft authors also responded to the chair's letter, but no subsequent answer from the IEEE 802.3 has been recorded. [3]

While defunct, this draft was implemented and is used in Cisco routers in their IS-IS implementation (for IIH Hello packets padding). [4]

Use beyond Ethernet

With the advent of the IEEE 802 suite of standards, a Subnetwork Access Protocol (SNAP) header combined with an IEEE 802.2 LLC header is used to transmit the EtherType of a payload for IEEE 802 networks other than Ethernet, as well as for non-IEEE networks that use the IEEE 802.2 LLC header, such as FDDI. However, for Ethernet, Ethernet II framing is still used.

Registration

EtherTypes are assigned by the IEEE Registration Authority, [5] which publishes them in list format. [6] The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has a separate list of some EtherType registrations, compiled from several sources, including the IEEE Registration Authority's list and some other lists. [7]

Values

EtherType values for some notable protocols [7]
EtherType
(hexadecimal)
Protocol
0x0800 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4)
0x0806 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
0x0842 Wake-on-LAN [8]
0x2000 Cisco Discovery Protocol [ citation needed ]
0x22EA Stream Reservation Protocol
0x22F0 Audio Video Transport Protocol (AVTP)
0x22F3 IETF TRILL Protocol
0x6002 DEC MOP RC
0x6003 DECnet Phase IV, DNA Routing
0x6004 DEC LAT
0x8035 Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP)
0x809B AppleTalk (EtherTalk)
0x80D5 LLC PDU (in particular, IBM SNA), preceded by 2 bytes length and 1 byte padding [9]
0x80F3 AppleTalk Address Resolution Protocol (AARP)
0x8100VLAN-tagged frame (IEEE 802.1Q) and Shortest Path Bridging IEEE 802.1aq with NNI compatibility [10]
0x8102 Simple Loop Prevention Protocol (SLPP)
0x8103 Virtual Link Aggregation Control Protocol (VLACP)
0x8137 IPX
0x8204 QNX Qnet
0x86DD Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
0x8808 Ethernet flow control
0x8809Ethernet Slow Protocols [11] such as the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
0x8819 CobraNet
0x8847 MPLS unicast
0x8848 MPLS multicast
0x8863 PPPoE Discovery Stage
0x8864 PPPoE Session Stage
0x887B HomePlug 1.0 MME
0x888EEAP over LAN (IEEE 802.1X)
0x8892 PROFINET Protocol
0x889A HyperSCSI (SCSI over Ethernet)
0x88A2 ATA over Ethernet
0x88A4 EtherCAT Protocol
0x88A8 Service VLAN tag identifier (S-Tag) on Q-in-Q tunnel
0x88AB Ethernet Powerlink [ citation needed ]
0x88B8 GOOSE (Generic Object Oriented Substation event)
0x88B9GSE (Generic Substation Events) Management Services
0x88BA SV (Sampled Value Transmission)
0x88BF MikroTik RoMON (unofficial)
0x88CC Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)
0x88CD SERCOS III
0x88E1 HomePlug Green PHY
0x88E3 Media Redundancy Protocol (IEC62439-2)
0x88E5 IEEE 802.1AE MAC security (MACsec)
0x88E7Provider Backbone Bridges (PBB) (IEEE 802.1ah)
0x88F7 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) over IEEE 802.3 Ethernet
0x88F8 NC-SI
0x88FB Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP)
0x8902 IEEE 802.1ag Connectivity Fault Management (CFM) Protocol / ITU-T Recommendation Y.1731 (OAM)
0x8906 Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
0x8914 FCoE Initialization Protocol
0x8915 RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE)
0x891D TTEthernet Protocol Control Frame (TTE)
0x893a 1905.1 IEEE Protocol
0x892F High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR)
0x9000 Ethernet Configuration Testing Protocol [12]
0xF1C1Redundancy Tag (IEEE 802.1CB Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability)

See also

Related Research Articles

Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is the network-layer protocol in the IPX/SPX protocol suite. IPX is derived from Xerox Network Systems' IDP. It also has the ability to act as a transport layer protocol.

IEEE 802.2 is the original name of the ISO/IEC 8802-2 standard which defines logical link control (LLC) as the upper portion of the data link layer of the OSI Model. The original standard developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in collaboration with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) was adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1998, but it remains an integral part of the family of IEEE 802 standards for local and metropolitan networks.

A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, MAC addresses are used in the medium access control protocol sublayer of the data link layer. As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens, colons, or without a separator.

In computer networking, the maximum transmission unit (MTU) is the size of the largest protocol data unit (PDU) that can be communicated in a single network layer transaction. The MTU relates to, but is not identical to the maximum frame size that can be transported on the data link layer, e.g., Ethernet frame.

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a communication protocol used for discovering the link layer address, such as a MAC address, associated with a given internet layer address, typically an IPv4 address. This mapping is a critical function in the Internet protocol suite. ARP was defined in 1982 by RFC 826, which is Internet Standard STD 37.

The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a network protocol that builds a loop-free logical topology for Ethernet networks. The basic function of STP is to prevent bridge loops and the broadcast radiation that results from them. Spanning tree also allows a network design to include backup links providing fault tolerance if an active link fails.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VLAN</span> Network communications domain that is isolated at the data link layer

A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer. In this context, virtual refers to a physical object recreated and altered by additional logic, within the local area network. Basically, a VLAN behaves like a virtual switch or network link that can share the same physical structure with other VLANs while staying logically separate from them. Between network devices, VLANs work by applying tags to network frames and handling these tags in networking systems –creating the appearance and functionality of network traffic that is physically on a single network but acts as if it were split between separate networks. In this way, VLANs can keep network applications separate despite being connected to the same physical network, and without requiring multiple sets of cabling and networking devices to be deployed.

The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packets over the DSL connection to the ISP's IP network, and from there to the rest of the Internet. A 2005 networking book noted that "Most DSL providers use PPPoE, which provides authentication, encryption, and compression." Typical use of PPPoE involves leveraging the PPP facilities for authenticating the user with a username and password, via the PAP protocol or via CHAP. PAP was dominant in 2007 but service providers have been transitioning to the more secure CHAP, because PAP is a plain-text protocol. Around 2000, PPPoE was also starting to become a replacement method for talking to a modem connected to a computer or router over an Ethernet LAN displacing the older method, which had been USB. This use-case, connecting routers to modems over Ethernet is still extremely common today.

IEEE 802.1Q, often referred to as Dot1q, is the networking standard that supports virtual local area networking (VLANs) on an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet network. The standard defines a system of VLAN tagging for Ethernet frames and the accompanying procedures to be used by bridges and switches in handling such frames. The standard also contains provisions for a quality-of-service prioritization scheme commonly known as IEEE 802.1p and defines the Generic Attribute Registration Protocol.

The Subnetwork Access Protocol (SNAP) is a mechanism for multiplexing, on networks using IEEE 802.2 LLC, more protocols than can be distinguished by the eight-bit 802.2 Service Access Point (SAP) fields. SNAP supports identifying protocols by EtherType field values; it also supports vendor-private protocol identifier spaces. It is used with IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.4, IEEE 802.5, IEEE 802.11 and other IEEE 802 physical network layers, as well as with non-IEEE 802 physical network layers such as FDDI that use 802.2 LLC.

Cisco Inter-Switch Link (ISL) is a Cisco proprietary link layer protocol that maintains VLAN information in Ethernet frames as traffic flows between switches and routers, or switches and switches. ISL is Cisco's VLAN encapsulation protocol and is supported only on some Cisco equipment over the Fast and Gigabit Ethernet links. It is offered as an alternative to the IEEE 802.1Q standard, a widely used VLAN tagging protocol, although the use of ISL for new sites is deprecated by Cisco.

In computer networking, jumbo frames are Ethernet frames with more than 1500 bytes of payload, the limit set by the IEEE 802.3 standard. The payload limit for jumbo frames is variable: while 9000 bytes is the most commonly used limit, smaller and larger limits exist. Many Gigabit Ethernet switches and Gigabit Ethernet network interface controllers and some Fast Ethernet switches and Fast Ethernet network interface cards can support jumbo frames.

The Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) is a vendor-neutral link layer protocol used by network devices for advertising their identity, capabilities, and neighbors on a local area network based on IEEE 802 technology, principally wired Ethernet. The protocol is formally referred to by the IEEE as Station and Media Access Control Connectivity Discovery specified in IEEE 802.1AB with additional support in IEEE 802.3 section 6 clause 79.

IEEE P802.1p was a task group active from 1995 to 1998, responsible for adding traffic class expediting and dynamic multicast filtering to the IEEE 802.1D standard. The task group developed a mechanism for implementing quality of service (QoS) at the media access control (MAC) level. Although this technique is commonly referred to as IEEE 802.1p, the group's work with the new priority classes and Generic Attribute Registration Protocol (GARP) was not published separately but was incorporated into a major revision of the standard, IEEE 802.1D-1998, which subsequently was incorporated into IEEE 802.1Q-2014 standard. The work also required a short amendment extending the frame size of the Ethernet standard by four bytes which was published as IEEE 802.3ac in 1998.

IEEE 802.1ah is an amendment to the IEEE 802.1Q networking standard which adds support for Provider Backbone Bridges. It includes an architecture and a set of protocols for routing over a provider's network, allowing interconnection of multiple provider bridge networks without losing each customer's individually defined VLANs. It was initially created by Nortel before being submitted to the IEEE 802.1 committee for standardization. The final version was approved by the IEEE in June 2008 and has been integrated into IEEE 802.1Q-2011.

IEEE 802.1AE is a network security standard that operates at the medium access control layer and defines connectionless data confidentiality and integrity for media access independent protocols. It is standardized by the IEEE 802.1 working group.

In computer networking, an Ethernet frame is a data link layer protocol data unit and uses the underlying Ethernet physical layer transport mechanisms. In other words, a data unit on an Ethernet link transports an Ethernet frame as its payload.

IEEE 802.1ad is an amendment to the IEEE 802.1Q-1998 networking standard which adds support for provider bridges. It was incorporated into the base 802.1Q standard in 2011. The technique specified by the standard is known informally as stacked VLANs or QinQ.

An IPv6 packet is the smallest message entity exchanged using Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Packets consist of control information for addressing and routing and a payload of user data. The control information in IPv6 packets is subdivided into a mandatory fixed header and optional extension headers. The payload of an IPv6 packet is typically a datagram or segment of the higher-level transport layer protocol, but may be data for an internet layer or link layer instead.

Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is a set of standards under development by the Time-Sensitive Networking task group of the IEEE 802.1 working group. The TSN task group was formed in November 2012 by renaming the existing Audio Video Bridging Task Group and continuing its work. The name changed as a result of the extension of the working area of the standardization group. The standards define mechanisms for the time-sensitive transmission of data over deterministic Ethernet networks.

References

  1. IEEE Std 802.3-2005, 3.2.6
  2. Extended Ethernet Frame Size Support. November 2001. I-D draft-ietf-isis-ext-eth-01.
  3. Kaplan; et al. (2000-05-26). "Extended Ethernet Frame Size Support". Ietf Datatracker. Internet Engineering Task Force.
  4. Patzlaff, Marcel (2015-04-08). "Fwd: Re: ISIS in SCAPY and Jumbo frames". scapy-ml (Mailing list). Archived from the original on 2018-03-31. Retrieved 2017-05-09.
  5. Use of the IEEE Assigned Ethertype with IEEE Std 802.3 Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (PDF), retrieved 2022-02-03
  6. "Public EtherType list". IEEE . Retrieved 2018-09-08.
  7. 1 2 "IEEE 802 Numbers". Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. 2015-10-06. Retrieved 2016-09-23.
  8. "WakeOnLAN". Wireshark Wiki. Retrieved 2018-10-16.
  9. IBM (May 1996). "LAN Technical Reference: IEEE 802.2 and NetBIOS Application Program Interfaces. IBM Document Number SC30-3587-01" (BOO (IBM Book Manager)) (2nd ed.). sections 1.16-1.16.1.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. "Configuration - Shortest Path Bridging MAC (SPBM)". Avaya. June 2012. p. 35. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  11. "Annex 57A". IEEE Std 802.3-2018. August 31, 2018. doi:10.1109/IEEESTD.2018.8457469. ISBN   978-1-5044-5090-4.
  12. "8. Ethernet Configuration Testing Protocol". The Ethernet, A Local Area Network Data Link and Physical Layer Specification Version 2.0 (PDF). November 1982.