Easy To Read Drawings of IP, TCP and UDP Packet Headers

 Originally published on August 23, 2006 by Dirk Paessler
Last updated on March 03, 2022 • 2 minute read

This is some quite technical information, but it may help you to understand the foundations of everyday networking. Matt Baxter has some drawings that will show you how the structure of the headers for IP, TCP, UDP and ICMP looks byte-by-byte. It is just the normal information from the RFCs presented in an easy to read format. ipheader.jpg

RFCs are "Request for Comments", papers that are published to become Internet Standards. For example the RFC for the Internet Protocol IP is RFC 791. The information is more or less and text-only and it is kind of hard to read.