How Wireless Frames are delivered?
A frame is the unit of communication in the data link layer. The data the frame carries is the IP Packet which hosts the TCP or UDP segment which in turn hosts the application data. In the data link layer, IP addresses are not visible, only the destination and source MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. The MAC address defines where the frame is going, and where is it coming from, in case we need to send replies. Of course the frame has more metadata as well.
Technically speaking IP Addresses are in the payload of the frame. However parsing it in Layer 2 has a cost. Most layer 3 switches do parse and dig for the IP Addresses, this all depends on their parse graph. This is where Intel DDP technology comes in too.
Wired
Sending the frame in a wired network is simple to understand. You have two computers connected via a switch, there should be a router in the mix to assign IPs but let's simplify the drawing.
Computer A sends a frame to Computer B.
A —- → S — — >B
How the frame is created is not the focus of this article, but for the sake of completeness here it is. Computer A sends a GET request to computer B the HTTP server on port 80. A knows B’s IP address, puts the GET request in a TCP segment with port 80, and a random source port, this goes into an…
