EtherType

EtherType is a two-octet field in an Ethernet frame. It is used to indicate which protocol is encapsulated in the payload of an Ethernet Frame. The same field is also used to indicate the size of some Ethernet frames. EtherType was first defined by the Ethernet II framing standard, and later adapted for the IEEE 802.3 standard.

Overview

In modern implementations of Ethernet, the field within the Ethernet frame used to describe the EtherType also can be used to represent the size of the payload of the Ethernet Frame. Historically, depending on the type of Ethernet framing that was in use on an Ethernet segment, both interpretations were simultaneously valid, leading to potential ambiguity. Ethernet v2 framing considered these octets to represent EtherType while the original IEEE 802.3 framing considered these octets to represent the size of the payload in bytes.

In order to allow packets using Ethernet v2 framing and packets using the IEEE 802.3 framing to be used on the same Ethernet segment, a unifying standard (IEEE 802.3x-1997) was introduced that required that EtherType values be greater than or equal to 1536 (0x0600). That value was chosen because the maximum length (MTU) of the data field of an Ethernet 802.3 frame is 1500 bytes. Thus, values of 1500 and below for this field indicate that the field is used as the size of the payload of the Ethernet Frame while values of 1536 and above indicate that the field is used to represent EtherType. The interpretation of values 1501–1535, inclusive, is undefined.