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Assignment 2

This document contains 11 questions about various topics in computer networks including: 1) The difference between datagram and virtual circuit networks and whether virtual circuit networks need routing capabilities. 2) How to find two paths through a network that can survive the loss of any communication line. 3) How much bandwidth is used by a distributed routing algorithm that exchanges routing information twice per second between 50 routers. 4) How to optimize the size of routing tables in a hierarchical routing system with 4800 routers. 5) Whether it is possible to have multiple TCP connections between two ports on different hosts. 6) How long it takes for the first full window of data to be sent over a line with a 10ms round-

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Neeraj Alavelli
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305 views

Assignment 2

This document contains 11 questions about various topics in computer networks including: 1) The difference between datagram and virtual circuit networks and whether virtual circuit networks need routing capabilities. 2) How to find two paths through a network that can survive the loss of any communication line. 3) How much bandwidth is used by a distributed routing algorithm that exchanges routing information twice per second between 50 routers. 4) How to optimize the size of routing tables in a hierarchical routing system with 4800 routers. 5) Whether it is possible to have multiple TCP connections between two ports on different hosts. 6) How long it takes for the first full window of data to be sent over a line with a 10ms round-

Uploaded by

Neeraj Alavelli
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Assignment 2 : Computer Networks

 
1. Datagram networks route each packet as a separate unit, independent of all others. 
Virtual-circuit networks do not have to do this, since each data packet follows 
predetermined route. Does this observation mean that virtual-circuit networks do not need 
the capability to route isolated packets from an arbitrary source to an arbitrary 
destination? Explain your answer. 
 
2. Give a simple heuristic for finding two paths through a network from a given source to a 
given destination that can survive the loss of any communication line (assuming two such 
paths exist). The routers are considered reliable enough, so it is not necessary to worry 
about the possibility of router crashes​. 
 
3. If costs are recorded as 8-bit numbers in a 50-router network, and distance vectors are 
exchanged twice a second, how much bandwidth per (full-duplex) line is chewed up 
by the distributed routing algorithm? Assume that each router has three lines to other 
routers. 
 
4. For hierarchical routing with 4800 routers, what region and cluster sizes should be chosen 
to minimize the size of the routing table for a three-layer hierarchy? A good starting place 
is the hypothesis that a solution with k clusters of k regions of k routers is close to 
optimal, which means that k is about the cube root of 4800 (around 16). Use trial and 
error to check out combinations where all three parameters are in the general vicinity of 
16. 
 
5. A process on host 1 has been assigned port p, and a process on host 2 has been assigned 
port q. Is it possible for there to be two or more TCP connections between these two ports 
at the same time? 
 
6. Consider the effect of using slow start on a line with a 10-msec round-trip time and no 
congestion. The receive window is 24 KB and the maximum segment size is 2 KB. How 
long does it take before the first full window can be sent? 
 
7. Suppose that the TCP congestion window is set to 18 KB and a timeout occurs. How big 
will the window be if the next four transmission bursts are all successful? Assume that 
the maximum segment size is 1 KB. 
 
8. To address the limitations of IP version 4, a major effort had to be undertaken via IETF 
that resulted in the design of IP version 6 and there are still is significant reluctance in the 
adoption of this new version. However, no such major effort is needed to address the 
limitations of TCP. Explain why this is the case. 
 
9. Is it possible that when a user clicks on a link with Firefox, a particular helper is started, 
but clicking on the same link in Internet Explorer causes a completely different helper to 
be started, even though the MIME type returned in both cases is identical? Explain your 
answer. 
 
10. Sloth Bank wants to make online banking easy for its lazy customers, so after a customer 
signs up and is authenticated by a password, the bank returns a cookie containing a 
customer ID number. In this way, the customer does not have to identify himself or type a 
password on future visits to the online bank. What do you think of this idea? 
11. Will it work? Is it a good idea? 

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