Connectionless Network Protocol
Connectionless Network Protocol ( CLNP ) is a network protocol and is specified in RFC 994 and ISO 8473. It works on the network layer of the OSI model and basically offers the same services as the Internet Protocol (IP).
However, it is designed for use in administered networks and is now mainly used in large telecommunications networks. In contrast to IP, not only the destination is specified, but the complete route including the source and destination addresses. The address format is not fixed so that different networks can be connected. In RFC 1069 describes how IP addresses are used.
CLNP is a connectionless protocol. It is the interface between the CLNS (Connectionsless Network Service) and the upper layers of the OSI model. The source router can use a flag to set whether it would like to be notified of transmission errors. Otherwise, the header contains information similar to that of an IP header :
- Datagram size
- Fragmentation
- Header checksum
- Time-to-Live (TTL)
- Options