Ethernet

In networking, it's very important to understand the functionalities of Ethernet, where exactly in the protocol suites it exists, and how it helps devices on a network communicate, as messages are passed from an operating system to the physical network infrastructure.

We'll take a step further into breaking down the operating of layer 2 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model and the Network Access Link Layer of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol suite.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• What is Ethernet?
• The sublayers of Ethernet
• Fields in an Ethernet frame
• Transmission types at layer 2, the Data Link Layer
• The Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table