The following processes take place when R1 receives the Ethernet frame from PC1:
1. R1 examines the destination MAC address, which matches the MAC address of the receiving interface, FastEthernet 0/0. R1, therefore, copies the frame into its buffer.
2. R1 identifies the Ethernet Type field as 0x800, which means that the Ethernet frame contains an IPv4 packet in the data portion of the frame.
3. R1 de-encapsulates the Ethernet frame.
4. Because the destination IPv4 address of the packet does not match any of the directly connected networks of R1, R1 consults its routing table to route this packet. R1 searches the routing table for a network address that would include the destination IPv4 address of the packet as a host address within that network. In this example, the routing table has a route for the 192.168.4.0/24 network. The destination IPv4 address of the packet is 192.168.4.10, which is a host IPv4 address on that network.
The route that R1 finds to the 192.168.4.0/24 network has a next-hop IPv4 address of 192.168.2.2 and an exit interface of FastEthernet 0/1. This means that the IPv4 packet is encapsulated in a new Ethernet frame with the destination MAC address of the IPv4 address of the next-hop router.
Because the exit interface is on an Ethernet network, R1 must resolve the next-hop IPv4 address with a destination MAC address using ARP:
1. R1 looks up the next-hop IPv4 address of 192.168.2.2 in its ARP cache. If the entry is not in the ARP cache, R1 would send an ARP request out of its FastEthernet 0/1 interface and R2 would send back an ARP reply. R1 would then update its ARP cache with an entry for 192.168.2.2 and the associated MAC address.
2. The IPv4 packet is now encapsulated into a new Ethernet frame and forwarded out the FastEthernet 0/1 interface of R1.
The animation in the figure illustrates how R1 forwards the packet to R2.