USER DATAGRAM PROTOCOL (UDP)
User Datagram Protocol is utilized to send data that doesn't necessarily need to be very reliable.
The UDP packet is encapsulated in an IP packet which in turn is encapsulated in a PPP packet.
Both UDP and IP have checksums octets and the PPP packet has its FCS octets however this
can only guarantee that the data and the destination are correct. However, there is a possibility
that this data does not belong to an expected message sequence but is rather part of another
message that just happened to have the same destination. This issue is addressed by the TCP
protocol.
UDP is a simple to implement protocol because it does not require to keep track of every
packet sent or received and it does not need to initiate or end a transmission. Because of this it is
mainly designed for communications where you either don't care what the response will be or
you pretty much know it. UDP messages are generally faster than TCP provided that the
communication link functions properly. UDP is widely utilized to send DNS (Domain Name
Search) requests, to exchange chat messages, or to access telephone numbers via Internet.
UDP HEADER FORMAT
OCTET 1,2Source Port
OCTET 3,4Destination Port
OCTET 5,6Length
OCTET 7,8 Checksum
OCTET 9,10
..Data
UDP PACKET (Example)
04 89 00 35 00 2C AB B4 00 01 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 70 6F 70 64 02 69 78
06 6E 65 74 63 6F 6D 03 63 6F 6D 00 00 01 00 01
UDP Header 04 89 00 35 00 2C AB B4
Data 00 01 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 70 6F 70 64 02 69 78 06 6E 65 74 63 6F 6D
03 63 6F 6D 00 00 01 00 01
Source Port 04 89
Destination Port 00 35
Length 00 2C
Checksum AB B4
Data DNS Message
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