TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the communications protocol used on the Internet. The units of data transmitted through a TCP/IP network are called packets. Packets are typically too small to contain all the data that is sent at any one time, so multiple packets are required, each containing a portion of the overall data. When data is sent by TCP/IP, the packets are constructed such that a layer for each protocol is wrapped around each packet.
Typically, TCP/IP packets have the following layers:
At the application layer, the packet consists simply of the data to be transferred. As the packet moves through the layers, each layer adds a header to the packet, preserving the data from the previous level. These headers are used to determine the packet's destination and to ensure that it arrives intact. When the packet reaches its destination, the process is reversed: the layers are sequentially removed until the transferred data is available to the destination application.
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