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The packet is too large and router `R1` cannot forward it to router `R2`. It rejects the packet and sends a control packet back to the source (host `A`) to indicate that it cannot forward packets longer than 500 bytes (minus the packet header). The source could react to this control packet by retransmitting the information in smaller packets.
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The network layer is able to fragment a packet. In our example, the router could fragment the packet in two parts. The first part contains the beginning of the payload and the second the end. There are two possible ways to perform this fragmentation.
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Each of the packet fragments is a valid packet that contains a header with the source (host `A`) and destination (host `B`) addresses. When router `R2` receives a packet fragment, it treats this packet as a regular packet and forwards it to its final destination (host `B`). Host `B` reassembles the received fragments.
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These three solutions have advantages and drawbacks. With the first solution, routers remain simple and do not need to perform any fragmentation operation. This is important when routers are implemented mainly in hardware. However, hosts must be complex since they need to store the packets that they produce if they need to pass through a link that does not support large packets. This increases the buffering required on the hosts.
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Furthermore, a single large packet may potentially need to be retransmitted several times. Consider for example a network similar to the one shown above but with four routers. Assume that the link `R1->R2` supports 1000 bytes packets, link `R2->R3` 800 bytes packets and link `R3->R4` 600 bytes packets. A host attached to `R1` that sends large packet will have to first try 1000 bytes, then 800 bytes and finally 600 bytes. Fortunately, this scenario does not occur very often in practice and this is the reason why this solution is used in real networks.
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Fragmenting packets on a per-link basis, as presented for the second solution, can minimize the transmission overhead since a packet is only fragmented on the links where fragmentation is required. Large packets can continue to be used downstream of a link that only accepts small packets. However, this reduction of the overhead comes with two drawbacks. First, fragmenting packets, potentially on all links, increases the processing time and the buffer requirements on the routers. Second, this solution leads to a longer end-to-end delay since the downstream router has to reassemble all the packet fragments before forwarding the packet.
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The last solution is a compromise between the two others. Routers need to perform fragmentation but they do not need to reassemble packet fragments. Only the hosts need to have buffers to reassemble the received fragments. This solution has a lower end-to-end delay and requires fewer processing time and memory on the routers.
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The first solution to the fragmentation problem presented above suggests the utilization of control packets to inform the source about the reception of a too long packet. This is only one of the functions that are performed by the control protocol in the network layer. Other functions include :
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sending a control packet back to the source if a packet is received by a router that does not have a valid entry in its forwarding table
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sending a control packet back to the source if a router detects that a packet is looping inside the network
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verifying that packets can reach a given destination
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We will discuss these functions in more details when we will describe the protocols that are used in the network layer of the TCP/IP protocol suite.
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Virtual circuit organization
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the outgoing interface for the packet
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the label for the outgoing packet
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For example, consider the `label forwarding table` of a network node below.
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index
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outgoing interface
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label
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South
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