Lesson plan

IP header

An IP header is header information at the beginning of an Internet Protocol (IP) packet. An IP packet is the smallest message entity exchanged via the Internet Protocol across an IP network. IP packets consist of a header for addressing and routing and a payload for user data. The header contains information about IP version, source IP address, destination IP address, time-to-live, etc. The payload of an IP packet is typically a datagram or segment of the higher-level transport layer protocol, but may be data for an internet layer (e.g., ICMP or ICMPv6) or link layer (e.g., OSPF) instead. Two different versions of IP are used in practice today: IPv4 and IPv6. The IPv6 header uses IPv6 addresses and thus offers a much bigger address space but is not backward compatible with IPv4.

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Article summary

An IP header is header information at the beginning of an Internet Protocol (IP) packet. An IP packet is the smallest message entity exchanged via the Internet Protocol across an IP network. IP packets consist of a header for addressing and routing and a payload for user data. The header contains information about IP version, source IP address, destination IP address, time-to-live, etc. The payload of an IP packet is typically a datagram or segment of the higher-level transport layer protocol, but may be data for an internet layer (e.g., ICMP or ICMPv6) or link layer (e.g., OSPF) instead. Two different versions of IP are used in practice today: IPv4 and IPv6. The IPv6 header uses IPv6 addresses and thus offers a much bigger address space but is not backward compatible with IPv4.

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.