Model Question Paper

Course Code: CST 303

Course Name : Computer Networks
PART A
1. What does “negotiation" mean when discussing network protocols in alayered architecture?
Give an example.
Negotiation in terms of network protocols can be done on established connection. the sender
and receiver will make some negotiations on parameters which are used to transfer the data
between both of them. Parameters are like QOS, which authentication, encryption technique
will use, Maximum size of message etc.

2. Define simplex, half-duplex, and full-duplex transmission modes. Give one

example for each.

3. Data link protocols almost always put the CRC in a trailer rather than in a header.
Why?

The CRC is computed during transmission and appended to the output stream as soon
as the last bit goes out onto the wire. If the CRC were in the header, it would be
necessary to make a pass over the frame to compute the CRC before transmitting.
This would require each byte to be handled twice— once for checksumming and once
for transmitting. Using the trailer cuts the work in half.

4. An 8-bit byte with binary value 10101111 is to be encoded using an even-parity

Hamming code. What is the binary value after encoding?

The procedure used by the sender to encode the message encompasses the following steps
−

Step 1 − Calculation of the number of redundant bits.

Step 2 − Positioning the redundant bits.

Step 3 − Calculating the values of each redundant bit.

 Refer step by step example here: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/hamming-code-in-
computer-network/

Solution to the given problem is :

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

5. Illustrate the Count to Infinity problem in routing.

Distance vector routing reacts rapidly to good news, but leisurely to bad news. Consider a
router whose best route to destination X is long. If, on the next exchange, neighbor A suddenly
reports a short delay to X, the router just switches over to using the line to A to send traffic to
X. In one vector exchange, the good news is processed. (Figure on left side)

A goes down or the link between A and B is cut (which is effectively the same thing from B’s
point of view). At the first packet exchange, B does not hear anything from A. Fortunately, C
says ‘‘Do not worry; I have a path to A of length 2.’’ Little does B suspect that C’s path runs
through B itself. For all B knows, C might have ten links all with separate paths to A of length
2. As a result, B thinks it can reach A via C, with a path length of 3. D and E do not update
their entries for A on the first exchange. On the second exchange, C notices that each of its
neighbors claims to have a path to A of length 3. It picks one of them at random and makes its
new distance to A 4, as shown in the third row of Fig. fig(b). Subsequent exchanges produce
the history shown in the rest of Fig(b). From this figure, it should be clear why bad news travels
slowly.
6. Describe two major differences between the warning bit method and the
Random Early Detection (RED) method.

These are two congestion control mechanisms.

Warning bit/DECBit method - the idea here is to more evenly split the responsibility
for congestion control between the routers and the end nodes. Each router monitors
the load it is experiencing and explicitly notifies the end nodes when congestion is
about to occur. This notification is implemented by setting a binary congestion bit in
the packets that flow through the router, hence the name DECbit. The destination host
then copies this congestion bit into the ACK it sends back to the source. Finally, the
source adjusts its sending rate so as to avoid congestion.
RED - similar to the DECbit scheme in that each router is programmed to monitor its
own queue length and, when it detects that congestion is imminent, to notify the
source to adjust its congestion window.
2 Differences:

• The first is that rather than explicitly sending a congestion notification

message to the source, RED is most commonly implemented such that
it implicitly notifies the source of congestion by dropping one of its packets.
The source is, therefore, effectively notified by the subsequent timeout or
duplicate ACK.
• The second difference between RED and DECbit is in the details of how RED
decides when to drop a packet and what packet it decides to drop. To
understand the basic idea, consider a simple FIFO queue. Rather than wait for
the queue to become completely full and then be forced to drop each arriving
packet (the tail drop policy), we could decide to drop each arriving packet with
some drop probability whenever the queue length exceeds some drop level.
This idea is called early random drop.

7. The Protocol field used in the IPv4 header is not present in the fixed IPv6 header.
Why?

<Draw IPv4 and IPv6 header structure>

The Protocol field tells the destination host which protocol handler to give the IP packet to.
Intermediate routers do not need this information, so it is not needed in the main header.
Actually, it is there, but disguised. The Next header field of the last (extension) header is used
for this purpose.

8. How many octets does the smallest possible IPv6 (IP version 6) datagram contain?

1,280 octets
9. Can Transmission Control Protocol(TCP) be used directly over a network
(e. g. an Ethernet) without using IP? Justify your answer.

Explain the need of network layer / IP – host-to-host delivery. The layer above it,
transport layer is implemented with the help of services provided by network layer.
Ethernet – Data Link Layer
IP – Network Layer
TCP – Transport Layer
TCP depends on IP to deliver the data, even to another machine on the same network.
The IP header contains the IP address to which the data is sent. Finally, there is a
configured IP packet type code for the Ethernet header, but no TCP type code, so
there is no way to put TCP directly on top of the Ethernet header.

10. When Web pages are sent out, they are prefixed by MIME headers. Why?

The question is regarding sending e-mails containing web pages.

• Initially email consisted messages containing simple text written in English and
expressed in ASCII. It cannot be used for languages other than English (such as
French, German, Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese). Also, it cannot be used to
send binary files or video or audio data.
• The basic idea of MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is to add structure
to the message body and define encoding rule for non- ASCII messages. MIME
transforms non-ASCII data to ASCII data and vice-versa.
• MIME defines five headers that can be added to the original e-mail header section to
define the transformation parameters:

PART B

11. A) With a neat diagram, explain Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference
Model.
The main functions of each of the layers are as follows −

• Physical Layer − Its function is to transmit individual bits from one node to another
over a physical medium.
• Data Link Layer − It is responsible for the reliable transfer of data frames from one
node to another connected by the physical layer.
• Network Layer − It manages the delivery of individual data packets from source to
destination through appropriate addressing and routing.
• Transport Layer −It is responsible for delivery of the entire message from the source
host to destination host.
 • Session Layer − It establishes sessions between users and offers services like dialog
control and synchronization.
• Presentation Layer − It monitors syntax and semantics of transmitted information
through translation, compression, and encryption.
• Application Layer − It provides high-level APIs (application program interface) to
the users.

<More explanation required for high mark question. Refer text book. One quick ref link
which provides explanation is https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/definition/OSI

11. B) Compare Twisted Pair, Coaxial Cable and Optical Fibre guided transmission media.
 12. A) Consider two networks providing reliable connection-oriented service. One of
them offers a reliable byte stream and the other offers a reliable message stream. Are
they identical? Justify your answer.

Reliable connection-oriented service has two minor variations: message sequences and byte
streams. In the former variant, the message boundaries are preserved. When two 1024-byte
messages are sent, they arrive as two distinct 1024- byte messages, never as one 2048-byte
message. In the latter, the connection is simply a stream of bytes, with no message
boundaries. When 2048 bytes arrive at the receiver, there is no way to tell if they were sent
as one 2048-byte message, two 1024-byte messages, or 2048 1-byte messages. If the pages
of a book are sent over a network to a phototypesetter as separate messages, it might be
important to preserve the message boundaries. On the other hand, to download a DVD
movie, a byte stream from the server to the user’s computer is all that is needed. Message
boundaries within the movie are not relevant.

So the output of given scenario will be:

Message stream – receive 1024 byes only at one time

Byte stream – full 2048 bytes as a whole.

12. B) Sketch the waveform in Manchester and Differential Manchester Encoding for the
bitstream 11000110010.

Important points to note: State your initial signal level assumption for differential Manchester

Both are biphase schemes – your waves should cross the horizontal line through ‘0’.

First write the rules for both and then draw the waveform.
Manchester Encoding

• has transition in middle of each bit period

• low to high ( i.e negative to positive voltage) represents one

• high to low (positive to negative) represents zero

Differential Manchester Encoding

• If bit is 0,there is transition

• If bit is 1,there is no transition

13. A) A bit stream 10011101 is transmitted using the standard CRC method. The generator
polynomial is 𝑥3 + 1. Show the actual bit string transmitted. Suppose the third bit from
the left is inverted during transmission. Show that this error is detected at the receiver's
end.

Start your answer with a short notes on CRC.

13. B) Explain the working of High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) protocol.

<Refer page numbers 340 -346 of the text – Data communication and networking 4th edition
– uploaded to CN drive>

Or

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/high-level-data-link-control-
hdlc#:~:text=High%2Dlevel%20Data%20Link%20Control%20(HDLC)%20is%20a%20gro
up,that%20verifies%20its%20successful%20arrival.

14. A) Explain the working of IEEE 802.11 MAC sublayer.

<Refer page numbers 423 of the text – Data communication and networking 4th edition –
uploaded to CN drive>

Or

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/the-802-11-mac-sublayer-
protocol#:~:text=The%20802.11%20MAC%20sublayer%20provides,frames%20and%20de
scribing%20frame%20formats.

14. B) Distinguish between Bridges and Switches

 15. A) Illustrate Distance Vector Routing algorithm with an example.

<Refer slide of Module 3 – uploaded to CN drive>

15. B) Explain the characteristics of Routing Information Protocol (RIP).

<Refer page numbers 384 of the text – Computer Networking: a Top Down Approach –
uploaded to CN drive>

16. A) 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?

<Write about token bucket algorithm with figure>

New tokens are added at the rate of r bits/sec which is

1Mbps in the given question.

Capacity of the token bucket (b) = 8 Mbits

Maximum possible transmission rate (M) = 6Mbps

So the maximum burst time = b/(M-r) = 8/(6-1) = 1.6 seconds

16. B) Explain how routing is performed for mobile hosts.

<Refer page numbers 410 of the text – Computer Networks by Andrew S Tannenbeum –
uploaded to CN drive>

17. A) Explain the address resolution problem using Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
and Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP)with an example network.
 ARP – Page 612, Data communication and networking 4th edition

RARP – Page 618, Data communication and networking 4th edition

17. B) A network on the Internet has a subnet mask of 255.255.240.0. What is the
maximum number of hosts it can handle?

An IP address has 2 parts – Network Id and Host Id

Number hosts in a network = 2^no.of bits used for host id part – 2(reserved)

Here First 20 bits are network id and remaining (32-20=12bits) are host id.

Total hosts = 212 - 2 = 4096 - 2 = 4094

18. A) How do you subnet the Class C IP address 195.1.1.0 so as to have 10 subnets
with a maximum of 12 hosts in each subnet.

<For studying Subnetting, I have uploaded one more pdf in the drive titled “IP
Addressing Detailed” >

Current mask= 255.255.255.0

Bits needs for 10 subnets =4 =24 =16 possible subnets

Bits needs for 12 hosts = 4 = 24 = 16-2=14 possible hosts.

So our mask in binary =11110000= 240 decimal

Final Mask =255.255.255.240

18. B) Draw IPv6 Datagram format and explain its features.

IPv6 Packet Format

IPv6 datagram is a packet composed of the base header(40 bytes) and payload(up
to 65,536 bytes) Payload has extension header (optional) and data packet.

The base header consists of the following fields:

• Version: It defines the version number of IP which is 6 here. Its length is 4 bits.
• Priority: It defines the priority of the packet. Its length is 4 bits.
• Flow label: It helps in controlling the flow of data. The source device labels to the
data packets so that the router route the packet in sequence efficiently. Its length is
24 bits.
• Payload length: It tells the entire length of the IP datagram except for the base
header. Its length is 16 bits.
• Next header: It denotes the presence of any extension headers or if is not present
then it denotes the protocol such as TCP or UDP.
• Hop limit: This works similarly as TTL as in IPv4. This is used to prohibit the data
to go in an infinite loop in the system. At each hop, the value of TTL is decreased
by 1 and when it reaches 0, the packet is abandoned. Its length is 8 bits.
• Source address: It has the IP address of the source. The length is 128 bits.
• Destination address: It has the IP address of the destination. The length is 128 bits.
 19. A) Distinguish the header formats of Transmission Control protocol (TCP) and User
Datagram Protocol (UDP).

<Explain the fields also.>

19. B) Explain the principal Domain Name System (DNS) resource record types for IPv4
 https://www.cloudflare.com/en-in/learning/dns/dns-
records/#:~:text=DNS%20records%20(aka%20zone%20files,handle%20requests%20for%20
that%20domain.

20. A) What is the role of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) in E- mail?

<Refer page numbers 623 of the text – Computer Networks by Andrew S Tannenbeum –
uploaded to CN drive>

20. B) With the help of a basic model, explain the working of World Wide Web (WWW).

<Refer page numbers 646 of the text – Computer Networks by Andrew S Tannenbeum –
uploaded to CN drive>