IHL and Words

life24

Senior member
Mar 25, 2014
283
0
76
Hello,
In Header length of IPv4 we have 4 bit and each bit is 32 bit words.
What means words here?
That means each bit point to 32 bit?
1111 * 32 bit = 480 bit

Thanks
 

Gryz

Golden Member
Aug 28, 2010
1,551
204
106
The header length is in units of 4.
So when the header length is 15 (1111 in binary) then the actual length of the header = 15 * 4 = 60 bytes. Normal header (without options) is 20 bytes, so you will normally see 20/4 = 5 in that field. 99.9999% of all IP packets start with 0x45 (mean IP version 4, headerlength 5x4=20).

Google for a program called Wireshark.
It's free. Download and install it.
With WireShark you can actual look at real packets, being sent from and to your own PC.
Very interesting and educational.