Application Layer

Application Layer
• The application layer provides services to the user.
• Communication is provided using a logical connection, which means
that the two application layers assume that there is an imaginary direct
connection through which they can send and receive messages.
• The application layer in the OSI model is the closest layer to the end user
which means that the application layer and end user can interact
directly with the software application. The application layer programs
are based on client and servers.
Services of Application Layers
• Network Virtual terminal: An application layer allows a user to log on to a
remote host.
• File Transfer, Access, and Management (FTAM): An application allows a user
to access files in a remote computer, to retrieve files from a computer and to
manage files in a remote computer.
• Addressing: To obtain communication between client and server, there is a
need for addressing. DNS is used.
• Mail Services: An application layer provides Email forwarding and storage.
• Directory Services: An application contains a distributed database that
provides access for global information about various objects and services.
• Authentication: It authenticates the sender or receiver's message or both.
 Domain Name System(DNS)
• It is a directory service that provides a mapping between the name of a host
on the network and its numerical address.
• DNS is required for the functioning of the internet.
• Each node in a tree has a domain name, and a full domain name is a sequence
of symbols specified by dots.
• DNS is a service that translates the domain name into IP addresses. This
allows the users of networks to utilize user-friendly names when looking for
other hosts instead of remembering the IP addresses.
• For example, suppose the FTP site at EduSoft had an IP address of
132.147.165.50, most people would reach this site by specifying
ftp.EduSoft.com. Therefore, the domain name is more reliable than IP
address.
Example of using the DNS service

the binding between the names and IP addresses.

Name Space
• A name space that maps each address to a unique name
• A name in this space is a sequence of characters without structure
• It can be organized in two ways: flat name space or hierarchical name space .
• Flat : a name is assigned to an address. A name in this space is a Sequence of
characters without structure.
• hierarchical name space : each name is made of several parts.
1. The first part can define the nature of the organization
2. the second part can define the name of an organization
3. the third part can define departments in the organization
Domain Name Space
• DNS is broken up into domains, a logical organization of computers
that exist in a larger network.
• To have a hierarchical name space, a domain name space was
designed.
• In this design the names are defined in an inverted-tree structure
with the root at the top. The tree can have only 128 levels: level 0
(root) to level 127.
• The domain name space is divided into three different sections:
generic domains, country domains, and inverse domain.
Domain name space

Each node in the tree has a label, which is a string with a

maximum of 63 characters.
The root label is a null string (empty string).
Label
• Each node in the tree has a label, which is a string with a maximum of
63 characters.
• The root label is a null string (empty string). DNS requires that
children of a node
• (nodes that branch from the same node) have different labels, which
guarantees the uniqueness of the domain names.
 Domain Name
• Each node in the tree has a domain name.
• A full domain name is a sequence of labels separated by dots (.).
• The domain names are always read from the node up to the root.
• The last label is the label of the root (null).
• If a label is terminated by a null string, it is called a fully qualified domain name
(FQDN). The name must end with a null label, but because null means nothing, the
label ends with a dot.
• If a label is not terminated by a null string, it is called a partially qualified domain
name (PQDN).
• A PQDN starts from a node, but it does not reach the root. It is used when the name
to be resolved belongs to the same site as the client.
• Here the resolver can supply the missing part, called the suffix, to create an FQDN.
 DISTRIBUTION OF NAME SPACE

The information contained in the domain name space must be stored. However,
it is very inefficient and also unreliable to have just one computer store such a
huge amount of information.

Topics discussed in this section:

Hierarchy of Name Servers

Zone
Root Server
Primary and Secondary Servers
Figure 25.6 Hierarchy of name servers
hierarchical name space
• In hierarchical name space, each name consists of several parts.
• First part defines the nature of the organization, second part defines
the name of an organization, third part defines department of the
organization, and so on.
• In hierarchical name space, the authority to assign and control the
name spaces can be decentralized.
• Authority for names in each partition is passed to each designated
agent.
Zone
• the complete domain name hierarchy cannot be stored on a single
server, it is divided among many servers. What a server is responsible
for or has authority over is called a zone.
Root Server
• A root server usually does not store any information about domains
but delegates its authority to other servers, keeping references to
those servers.
• There are several root servers, each covering the whole domain name
space. The root servers are distributed all around the world.
 DNS defines two types of servers
1. primary server and
2. Secondary server.
A primary server is a server that stores a file about the zone for which it is an
authority. It is responsible for creating, maintaining, and updating the zone file.
It stores the zone file on a local disk.
A secondary server is a server that transfers the complete information about
a zone from another server (primary or secondary) and stores the file on its
local disk.
The secondary server neither creates nor updates the zone files. If updating is
required, it must be done by the primary server, which sends the updated
version to the secondary.
DNS IN THE INTERNET
• DNS is a protocol that can be used in different platforms.
• In the Internet, the domain name space (tree) is divided into three
different sections: generic domains, country domains, and the
inverse domain.
Generic Domains
Country Domains
Inverse Domain
Generic Domains
• It defines the registered hosts according to their generic behavior.
• Each node in a tree defines the domain name, which is an index to the
DNS database.
• It uses three-character labels, and these labels describe the organization
type. Label Description
aero Airlines and aerospace companies
biz Businesses or firms
com Commercial Organizations
coop Cooperative business Organizations
edu Educational institutions
gov Government institutions
info Information service providers
int International Organizations
mil Military groups
museum Museum & other nonprofit organizations
name Personal names
net Network Support centers
org Nonprofit Organizations
pro Professional individual Organizations
Country Domain
• The format of country domain is same as a generic domain, but it uses two-
character country abbreviations (e.g., us for the United States) in place of
three character organizational abbreviations.
 Inverse Domain
• The inverse domain is used for mapping an address to a name. When the
server has received a request from the client, and the server contains the files
of only authorized clients.
• To determine whether the client is on the authorized list or not, it sends a
query to the DNS server and ask for mapping an address to the name.
RESOLUTION
Mapping a name to an address or an address to a name is called
name-address resolution.

Resolver
Mapping Names to Addresses
Mapping Addresses to Names
Recursive Resolution
Caching
Resolution
• A host that needs to map an address to a name or a name to an address calls a
DNS client called a resolver
• Recursive Resolution
Recursive resolution
Iterative Resolution
• In iterative resolution, each server that does not know the mapping
sends the IP address of the next server back to the one that
requested it.
Iterative resolution
 Caching
• Each time a server receives a query for a name that is not in its domain, it
needs to search its database for a server IP address.
• Reduction of this search time would increase efficiency. DNS handles this with
a mechanism called caching.
• First, the authoritative server always adds information to the mapping called
time to live (TTL). It defines the time in seconds that the receiving server can
cache the information.
• Second, DNS requires that each server keep a TTL counter for each mapping it
caches.
 Resource Records
• The zone information associated with a server is implemented as a set of
resource records.
• In other words, a name server stores a database of resource records.
• A resource record is a 5-tuple structure
(Domain Name, Type, Class, TTL, Value)
• The domain name field is what identifies the resource record.
• The value defines the information kept about the domain name.
• The TTL defines the number of Iterative resolution seconds for which the
information is valid.