EtherType
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EtherType is a field in the Ethernet networking standard. It is used to indicate which version of ethernet protocol is being used.
The original Xerox Version 1 Ethernet network standard had a 16-bit length field, although the maximum length of a packet was 1500 bytes. This length field was soon reused in the Version 2 Ethernet protocol as a sub-protocol label field called the EtherType, with the convention that values between 0 and 1500 indicated the use of the original Ethernet format with a length field, while values of 1536 decimal (0600 hexadecimal) and greater indicated the use of the new frame format with an EtherType sub-protocol identifier.
With the advent of the IEEE 802 suite of standards, the SNAP header is now sometimes used to transmit the EtherType of the packet for standards such as the Internet Protocol that originally used the earlier Ethernet standard. However, Ethernet Version 2 is still the most common for IP-networks.
| EtherType | Protocol |
| 0x0600 | XNS Internet Datagram Protocol (IDP) |
| 0x0800 | IP Internet Protocol (IPv4) |
| 0x0806 | Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) |
| 0x8035 | Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) |
| 0x809b | AppleTalk (Ethertalk) |
| 0x80f3 | Appletalk Address Resolution Protocol (AARP) |
| 0x8100 | (identifies IEEE 802.1Q-tagged frame) |
| 0x8137 | Novell IPX (alt) |
| 0x8138 | Novell |
| 0x86DD | Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) |
| 0x8847 | MPLS unicast |
| 0x8848 | MPLS multicast |
| 0x8863 | PPPoE Discovery Stage |
| 0x8864 | PPPoE Session Stage |
EtherType for some common protocols