Solutions to in-class assignments - Chapter 1

What is the difference between a host and an end system? List several different types of end
systems. Is a Web server an end system?

There is no difference. Throughout this text, the words “host” and “end system” are used
interchangeably. End systems include PCs, workstations, Web servers, mail servers,
PDAs, Internet-connected game consoles, etc.

List six access technologies. Classify each one as home access, enterprise access, or wide-area
wireless access.

1. Dial-up modem over telephone line: home; 2. DSL over telephone line: home or small
office; 3. Cable to HFC: home; 4. 100 Mbps switched Ethernet: enterprise; 5. Wifi
(802.11): home and enterprise: 6. 3G and 4G: wide-area wireless.

List the available residential access technologies in your city. For each type of access, provide the
advertised downstream rate, upstream rate, and monthly price.

In most American cities, the current possibilities include: dial-up; DSL; cable modem;
fiber-to-the-home.

What is the transmission rate of Ethernet LANs?

Ethernet LANs have transmission rates of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps.

What are some of the physical media that Ethernet can run over?

Today, Ethernet most commonly runs over twisted-pair copper wire. It also can run over
fibers optic links.

Suppose there is exactly one packet switch between a sending host and a receiving host. The
transmission rates between the sending host and the switch and between the switch and the
receiving host are R1 and R2, respectively.
Assuming that the switch uses store-and-forward packet switching, what is the total end-to-end
delay to send a packet of length L? (Ignore queuing, propagation delay, and processing delay.)
 At time t0 the sending host begins to transmit. At time t1 = L/R1, the sending host completes
transmission and the entire packet is received at the router (no propagation delay).
Because the router has the entire packet at time t1, it can begin to transmit the packet to
the receiving host at time t1. At time t2 = t1 + L/R2, the router completes transmission and
the entire packet is received at the receiving host (again, no propagation delay). Thus, the
end-to-end delay is L/R1 + L/R2.

Consider sending a packet from a source host to a destination host over a fixed route. List the delay
components in the end-to-end delay. Which of these delays are constant and which are variable?

The delay components are processing delays, transmission delays, propagation delays,
and queuing delays. All of these delays are fixed, except for the queuing delays, which are
variable.

Suppose Host A wants to send a large file to Host B. The path from Host A to
Host B has three links, of rates R1 = 500 kbps, R2 = 2 Mbps, and R3 = 1 Mbps.
a. Assuming no other traffic in the network, what is the throughput for the file transfer?
b. Suppose the file is 4 million bytes. Dividing the file size by the throughput, roughly how long
will it take to transfer the file to Host B?
c. Repeat (a) and (b), but now with R2 reduced to 100 kbps.

a) 500 kbps
b) 64 seconds
c) 100kbps; 320 seconds

What are the five layers in the Internet protocol stack? What are the principal responsibilities of
each of these layers?

The five layers in the Internet protocol stack are – from top to bottom – the application
layer, the transport layer, the network layer, the link layer, and the physical layer. The
principal responsibilities are outlined in Section 1.5.1.

What is an application-layer message? A transport-layer segment? A network layer datagram? A

Application-layer message: data which an application wants to send and passed onto the
transport layer; transport-layer segment: generated by the transport layer and
encapsulates application-layer message with transport layer header; network-layer
datagram: encapsulates transport-layer segment with a network-layer header; link-layer
frame: encapsulates network-layer datagram with a link-layer header.

Which layers in the Internet protocol stack does a router process? Which layers does a link-layer
switch process? Which layers does a host process?
 Routers process network, link and physical layers (layers 1 through 3). (This is a little bit
of a white lie, as modern routers sometimes act as firewalls or caching components, and
process Transport layer as well.) Link layer switches process link and physical layers
(layers 1 through2). Hosts process all five layers.

What is the difference between a virus and a worm?

a) Virus
Requires some form of human interaction to spread. Classic example: E-mail
viruses.
b) Worm
No user replication needed. Worm in infected host scans IP addresses and port
numbers, looking for vulnerable processes to infect.

Suppose Alice and Bob are sending packets to each other over a computer network. Suppose Trudy
positions herself in the network so that she can capture all the packets sent by Alice and send
whatever she wants to Bob; she can also capture all the packets sent by Bob and send whatever
she wants to Alice. List some of the malicious things Trudy can do from this position.

Trudy can pretend to be Bob to Alice (and vice-versa) and partially or completely modify
the message(s) being sent from Bob to Alice. For example, she can easily change the
phrase “Alice, I owe you $1000” to “Alice, I owe you $10,000”. Furthermore, Trudy can
even drop the packets that are being sent by Bob to Alice (and vise-versa), even if the
packets from Bob to Alice are encrypted.

Suppose users share a 3 Mbps link. Also suppose each user requires
150 kbps when transmitting, but each user transmits only 10 percent of the time. (See the
discussion of packet switching versus circuit switching in
Section 1.3.)
a. When circuit switching is used, how many users can be supported?
b. For the remainder of this problem, suppose packet switching is used. Find the probability that a
given user is transmitting.

a) 20 users can be supported.