Practice Questions

1. Give three examples of protocol parameters that might be negotiated when a connection is
set up.
2. If an application layer packet size is 5 Bytes long, how big is the corresponding Ethernet
frame? Assume that the application uses TCP at Transport layer and IP v4 at Network
layer.
3. A computer on a 6-Mbps network is regulated by a token bucket. The token bucket is filled
at a rate of 1 Mbps. It is initially filled to capacity with 8 megabits. How long can the
computer, transmit at the full 6 Mbps?
4. Is TCP checksum necessary or could TCP allow IP to checksum the data.
5. Describe four different scenarios when an IP router would drop packets that arrive on one
of its interfaces.
6. Datagram subnets route each packet as a separate unit, independent of all others. Virtual-
circuit subnets do not have to do this, since each data packet follows a predetermined route.
Does this observation mean that virtual-circuit subnets do not need the capability to route
isolated packets from an arbitrary source to an arbitrary destination? Explain your answer.
7. Suppose two TCP connections are present over some bottleneck link of rate R bps. Both
connections have a huge file to send (in the same direction over the bottleneck link). The
transmissions of the files start at the same time. What is the transmission rate that the TCP
would like to give to each of the connections?
8. Consider the following design problem concerning implementation of virtual-circuit
service. If virtual circuits are used internally to the subnet, each data packet must have a 3-
byte header and each router must tie up 8 bytes of storage for circuit identification. If
datagrams are used internally, 15-byte headers are needed, but no router table space is
required. Transmission capacity costs 1 cent per 106 bytes, per hop. Very fast router
memory can be purchased for 1 cent per byte and is depreciated over two years, assuming
a 40-hour business week. The statistically average session runs for 1000 sec, in which time
200 packets are transmitted. The mean packet requires four hops. Which implementation
is cheaper, and by how much?
9. “A datagram cannot be larger than the MTU of a network over which it is sent.” Is the
statement true or false? Explain with the help of a suitable example.
10. Explain Three-Way Handshake Mechanism used by TCP to terminate a Session reliably.
11. The byte-counting variant of the leaky bucket algorithm is used in a particular system. The
rule is that one 1024-byte packet, or two 512-byte packets, etc., may be sent on each tick.
Give a serious restriction of this system that was not mentioned in the text.
12. Suppose nodes A, B, and C each attach to the same broadcast LAN (through their adapters).
If A sends thousands of frames to B with each frame addressed to the LAN address of B,
will C's adapter process these frames? If so, will C's adapter pass the IP datagram’s in these
frames to C (i.e., the adapter's parent node)? How will your answers change if A sends
frames with the LAN broadcast address?
13. A large number of consecutive IP address are available starting at 192.16.0.0. Suppose that
four organizations, A, B, C, and D, request 4000, 2000, 500, 1000 and 7000 addresses,
respectively, and in that order. For each of these, give the first IP address assigned, the last
IP address assigned, and the mask in the w.x.y.z/s notation.
14. Suppose there are three routers between a source host and destination host. Ignore
fragmentation. An IP datagram sent from the source host to the destination host will travel
 over how many interfaces? How many forwarding table will be indexed to move the
datagram from the source to destination?
15. A router has just received the following new IP addresses: 57.6.96.0/21, 57.6.104.0/21,
57.6.112.0/21, and 57.6.120.0/21. If all of them use the same outgoing line, can they be
aggregated? If so, to what? If not, why not?
16. How could you change the IP datagram format to support high-speed packet switching at
router? Considering the fact that a router must recompute a header checksum after
decrementing the time-to-live field.
17. Consider sending a 2400-byte datagram into a link that has an MTU of 700 bytes. Suppose
the original datagram is stamped with the identification number 422. How many fragments
are generated? What are the values in the various fields in the IP datagram(s) generated
related to fragmentation?
18. Most IP datagram reassembly algorithms have a timer to avoid having a lost fragment tie
up reassembly buffers forever. Suppose that a datagram is fragmented into four fragments.
The first three fragments arrive, but the last one is delayed. Eventually, the timer goes off
and the three fragments in the receiver's memory are discarded. A little later, the last
fragment stumbles in. What should be done with it?
19. What is the fastest line speed at which a host can blast out 1500-byte TCP payloads with
a 120-sec maximum packet lifetime without having the sequence numbers wrap around?
Take TCP, IP, and Ethernet overhead into consideration. Assume that Ethernet frames
may be sent continuously.
20. When the IPv6 protocol is introduced, does the ARP protocol have to be changed? If so,
are the changes conceptual or technical?
21. Suppose Host A sends two TCP segments back to back to Host B over a TCP connection.
The first segment has sequence 100; the second segment has sequence number 1025.
a. How much data is there in the first segment?
b. Suppose that the first segment is lost but the second segment arrives at B. In the
acknowledgement that Host B send to Host A, what will be the acknowledgement
number?
22. 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?
23. Explain with the help of diagram the TCP connection management and Window
management policy using proper flags.
24. Consider a TCP connection between Host A and Host B. Suppose that the TCP segments
traveling from Host A to Host B have source port number x and destination port number y.
What are the source and destination port numbers for the segments traveling from Host B
to Host A?
25. Describe why an application developer might choose to run an application over UDP
rather than TCP.
26. Why is an ARP query sent within a broadcast frame? Why is an ARP response sent within a
frame with a specific destination MAC address?
27. Suppose that N switches supporting K VLAN groups are to be connected via a trunking protocol.
How many ports are needed to connect the switches? Justify your answer.
28. Suppose the information content of a packet is the bit pattern 1110 0110 1001 1101 and an even
parity scheme is being used. What would the value of the field containing the parity bits be for the
case of a two-dimensional parity scheme? Your answer should be such that a minimum-length
checksum field is used.
29. Consider the 7-bit generator, G=10011, and suppose that D has the value 1010101010. What is
the value of R?
30. Suppose nodes A and B are on the same 10 Mbps broadcast channel, and the propagation delay
between the two nodes is 325 bit times. Suppose CSMA/CD and Ethernet packets are used for this
broadcast channel. Suppose node A begins transmitting a frame and, before it finishes, node B
begins transmitting a frame. Can A finish transmitting before it detects that B has transmitted? Why
or why not? If the answer is yes, then A incorrectly believes that its frame was successfully
transmitted without a collision. Hint: Suppose at time t = 0 bits, A begins transmitting a frame. In
the worst case, A transmits a minimum-sized frame of 512 + 64 bit times. So A would finish
transmitting the frame at t = 512 + 64 bit times. Thus, the answer is no, if B’s signal reaches Abefore
bit time t = 512 + 64 bits. In the worst case, when does B’s signal reach A?
31. Recall that with the CSMA/CD protocol, the adapter waits K _ 512 bit times after a collision, where
K is drawn randomly. For K = 100, how long does the adapter wait until returning to Step 2 for a
10 Mbps broadcast channel? For a 100 Mbps broadcast channel?
32. In an infinite-population slotted ALOHA system, the mean number of slots a station waits between
a collision and its retransmission is 4. Plot the delay versus throughput curve for this system.
33. How long does a station, s, have to wait in the worst case before it can start transmitting its frame
over a LAN that uses the basic bit-map protocol?
34. A LAN uses Mok and Ward's version of binary countdown. At a certain instant, the ten stations
have the virtual station numbers 8, 2, 4, 5, 1, 7, 3, 6, 9, and 0. The next three stations to send are 4,
3, and 9, in that order. What are the new virtual station numbers after all three have finished their
transmissions?
35. Sixteen stations, numbered 1 through 16, are contending for the use of a shared channel by using
the adaptive tree walk protocol. If all the stations whose addresses are prime numbers suddenly
become ready at once, how many bit slots are needed to resolve the contention?
36. A collection of 2n stations uses the adaptive tree walk protocol to arbitrate access to a shared cable.
At a certain instant, two of them become ready. What are the minimum, maximum, and mean
number of slots to walk the tree if 2n -1?
37. The wireless LANs that we studied used protocols such as MACA instead of using CSMA/CD.
Under what conditions, if any, would it be possible to use CSMA/CD instead?
38. For this problem, use a formula from this chapter, but first state the formula. Frames arrive
randomly at a 100-Mbps channel for transmission. If the channel is busy when a frame arrives, it
waits its turn in a queue. Frame length is exponentially distributed with a mean of 10,000
bits/frame. For each of the following frame arrival rates, give the delay experienced by the
average frame, including both queueing time and transmission time.
1. 90 frames/sec.
2. 900 frames/sec.
3. 9000 frames/sec.
39. A group of N stations share a 56-kbps pure ALOHA channel. Each station outputs a 1000-bit
frame on an average of once every 100 sec, even if the previous one has not yet been sent (e.g.,
the stations can buffer outgoing frames). What is the maximum value of N?
40. Consider the delay of pure ALOHA versus slotted ALOHA at low load. Which one is less?
Explain your answer.
41. Ten thousand airline reservation stations are competing for the use of a single slotted ALOHA
channel. The average station makes 18 requests/hour. A slot is 125 µsec. What is the approximate
total channel load?
42. A large population of ALOHA users manages to generate 50 requests/sec, including both
originals and retransmissions. Time is slotted in units of 40 msec.
1. What is the chance of success on the first attempt?
2. What is the probability of exactly k collisions and then a success?
3. What is the expected number of transmission attempts needed?
43. Measurements of a slotted ALOHA channel with an infinite number of users show that 10 percent
of the slots are idle.
1. What is the channel load, G?
2. What is the throughput?
 3. Is the channel underloaded or overloaded?
44. In an infinite-population slotted ALOHA system, the mean number of slots a station waits between
a collision and its retransmission is 4. Plot the delay versus throughput curve for this system.
45. How long does a station, s, have to wait in the worst case before it can start transmitting its frame
over a LAN that uses the basic bit-map protocol?
46. A LAN uses Mok and Ward's version of binary countdown. At a certain instant, the ten stations
have the virtual station numbers 8, 2, 4, 5, 1, 7, 3, 6, 9, and 0. The next three stations to send are 4,
3, and 9, in that order. What are the new virtual station numbers after all three have finished their
transmissions?
47. Suppose there are three routers between a source host and destination host. Ignore
fragmentation. An IP datagram sent from the source host to the destination host will travel
over how many interfaces? How many forwarding table will be indexed to move the
datagram from the source to destination?
48. Consider transferring an enormous file of L bytes from Host A to Host B. Assume an MSS of
836 bytes.
a. What is the maximum value of L such that TCP sequence numbers are not
exhausted? Recall that the TCP sequence number field has 4 bytes.
b. For the L you obtain in (a), find how long it takes to transmit the file. Assume that
a total of 66 bytes of transport, network, and data-link header are added to each
segment before the resulting packet is sent out over a 155 Mbps link. Ignore flow
control and congestion control so A can pump out the segments back to back and
continuously.