Internet Control Message Protocol
Sign in to savecore protocol of the Internet Protocol suite, mainly used on IPv4 networks to indicate error messages in network operations
Key facts
- Purpose
- Auxiliary protocol for IPv4
- Developer s
- DARPA
- Introduction
- 1981 ; 45 years ago ( 1981 )
- Osi layer
- Network layer
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is a supporting protocol in the Internet protocol suite. It is used by network devices, including routers, to send error messages and operational information indicating success or failure when communicating with another IP address. For example, an error is indicated when a requested service is not available or that a host or router could not be reached. ICMP differs from transport protocols such as TCP and UDP in that it is not typically used to exchange data between systems, nor is it regularly employed by end-user network applications (with the exception of some diagnostic tools like ping and traceroute).
A separate Internet Control Message Protocol (called ICMPv6) is used with IPv6.