COMP247 Practical 2B: IP and ICMP Message Analysis - Section 4, 2012

This assignment involves a comprehensive analysis of ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) messages and their interaction with IP (Internet Protocol) within a data communications context. The practical utilizes Wireshark to capture and examine ICMP messages generated by ping and tracert commands. Task 1 focuses on mapping ICMP fields to their IP counterparts, analyzing ping request and reply messages, calculating round-trip times, and examining the delivered data. Task 2 delves into the IP addresses from tracert output and ICMP messages, exploring the type field of ICMP messages, and comparing the data in ping and tracert messages. It also investigates the differences between ICMP Echo request messages and the encapsulation of messages. Task 3 examines the number of computers pinged, their IP addresses and names, and determines whether fragmentation occurs. The payload size of IP datagrams is calculated, and the methods by which a receiver reassembles fragments are explained. The assignment concludes with an examination of the values within the IP datagrams generated by the pings, including patterns in how fields change or remain constant.

COMP247 Practical Practical 2B
COMP247 Data Communications Laboratory
Practical 2B IP
Your Name:
Your Student ID:
Documentation Task 1.
1. Examine one of the ICMP messages. For its IP part match the fields to those
listed in the IP lecture. Some fields have different labels. List the
correspondence between these.
Field Size (bits) Wireshark Terminology
Version Number 4 Same
Header Length 4
Type of Service 8
Total Length 16
Idenfifiers 16
Flags 3
Packet Offset 13
Hop Limit 8
Protocol 8
CRC 16
Source Address 32
Destination Address 32
Options 32
2.
2. List the details from the ICMP messages of your ping attempt:
IP source address:
IP destination address:
TTL field:
Protocol field:
Type field of the ping (echo) request:
Type field of the ping (echo) response:

COMP247 Practical Section 4 - 2012
3. What differences are there between the equivalent messages in the four pairs
of ping request and reply pairs?
4. From the information in the time columns of the Wireshark display calculate
the time that elapses between the sending of each Echo request and the receipt
of the corresponding Echo reply. Compare the maximum, average, and
minimum of the delays with those provided by the PING command.
5. What is the delivered ‘data’ (see the field labelled ‘data’) in the ICMP
messages? Hint: you will see the data in hexadecimal and ASCII form in the
bottom panel.
Documentation Task 2.
1. List the IP addresses from the tracert output and the ICMP messages in the
Wireshark capture. Do they match?
2. Do all the ICMP Echo (ping) request messages have the same destination IP
address? What is it?
3. Is the type field in the ICMP section of all the ICMP time-to-live exceeded
messages the same? What is it?
4. Is the delivered data in the ICMP messages for tracert the same as for the ping
messages in task 1?
5. Find the difference between the ICMP Echo (ping) request messages in your
capture. What is it and what purpose does it serve? (hint, it’s in the IP section)
6. The time-to-live exceeded message in the ICMP reply appears to be
encapsulating the immediately previously sent ICMP echo (ping) request
message. Is the encapsulated message exactly the same? If not, where does it
differ and why do you think this is so?
7. Is there anything else worth noting about these messages, especially when
compared to the similar messages generated for Ping?
8. ICMP is encapsulated within IP – does this make it a transport layer protocol?
Explain your answer.
Documentation Task 3.
Examine the capture and answer the following questions
1. How many different computers were pinged?
2. List the IP addresses of the source computer, the computers pinged and the
intervening nodes?
3. List the names of the computers pinged? Hint: you will find these in DNS
messages, so make sure you have cleared any filtering you might have set for
ICMP messages.

COMP247 Practical Practical 2B
4. For each system pinged, did the ping request need to be fragmented and if so
into how many pieces? Explain how you determined whether or not the
datagram has been fragmented.
5. For each of the three sets of ping request messages, how many bytes are there
(total, not fragmented) in the payload of the IP datagram? Explain how you
determined the number of payload bytes.
6. How do you think a receiver of these fragments knows what order to put them
together in? Specifically, what field is most important for this?
7. Examine the fields in the IP datagrams generated by these pings. What can you
tell us about the values in them? We are especially interested in any patterns
you can see in how the ways the fields in the fields change or how they stay
constant