Absolute OpenBSD, 2nd Edition

The Life and Times of a Network Request

So how do all these layers fit together in the real world? Let’s have a look at a hypothetical network request, and walk through how data traverses the layers and the network.

Note

Some of this discussion touches on topics covered later this chapter, so you might want to reread this section after finishing the chapter. Purists will notice that I skip a lot of parts of the process, but I’m trying to relay the basics of how TCP/IP works in practice, not model every painful detail of a real network transaction.

Suppose a user connected to your network wants to look at a very important work-related website, such as Scott Meyer’s Basic Instructions (http://www.basicinstructions.net/). The user opens his browser, ...