  The problem of error-control in random linear network coding is considered. A
``noncoherent'' or ``channel oblivious'' model is assumed where neither
transmitter nor receiver is assumed to have knowledge of the channel transfer
characteristic. Motivated by the property that linear network coding is
vector-space preserving, information transmission is modelled as the injection
into the network of a basis for a vector space $V$ and the collection by the
receiver of a basis for a vector space $U$. A metric on the projective geometry
associated with the packet space is introduced, and it is shown that a minimum
distance decoder for this metric achieves correct decoding if the dimension of
the space $V \cap U$ is sufficiently large. If the dimension of each codeword
is restricted to a fixed integer, the code forms a subset of a finite-field
Grassmannian, or, equivalently, a subset of the vertices of the corresponding
Grassmann graph. Sphere-packing and sphere-covering bounds as well as a
generalization of the Singleton bound are provided for such codes. Finally, a
Reed-Solomon-like code construction, related to Gabidulin's construction of
maximum rank-distance codes, is described and a Sudan-style ``list-1'' minimum
distance decoding algorithm is provided.
