ICT504

IT Netwroking and communication

1.

Solution : Client computer (source)

IP address: 192.168.1.102

TCP port number: 1161

Destination computer: gaia.cs.umass.edu

IP address: 128.119.245.12

TCP port number: 80

Port no 80
Figure 1: IP addresses and TCP port numbers of the client computer (source) and gaia.cs.umass.edu

2.
Solution: Sequence number of the TCP SYN segment is used to initiate the TCP connection between the
client computer and gaia.cs.umass.edu. The value is 0 in this trace. The SYN flag is set to 1 and it
indicates that this segment is a SYN segment.

Figure 2: Sequence number of the TCP SYN segment

3.

Solution: Sequence number of the SYNACK segment from gaia.cs.umass.edu to the client computer in
reply to the SYN has the value of 0 in this trace. The value of the ACKnowledgement field in the SYNACK
segment is 1. The value of the ACKnowledgement field in the SYNACK segment is determined by
gaia.cs.umass.edu by adding 1 to the initial sequence number of SYN segment from the client computer
(i.e. the sequence number of the SYN segment initiated by the client computer is 0.). The SYN flag and
Acknowledgement flag in the segment are set to 1 and they indicate that this segment is a SYNACK
segment.
 Figure 3: Sequence number and Acknowledgement number of the SYNACK segment

4.

Solution: No. 4 segment is the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST command. The sequence number
of this segment has the value of 1.

Figu
re 4: Sequence number of the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST command
5.

Solution: The HTTP POST segment is considered as the first segment. Segments 1 – 6 are No. 4, 5, 7, 8,
10, and 11 in this trace respectively. The ACKs of segments 1 – 6 are No. 6, 9, 12, 14, 15, and 16 in this
trace.

Segment 1 sequence number: 1

Segment 2 sequence number: 566

Segment 3 sequence number: 2026

Segment 4 sequence number: 3486

Segment 5 sequence number: 4946

Segment 6 sequence number: 6406

The sending time and the received time of ACKs are tabulated in the following table. Sent time ACK
received time RTT (seconds)

Segment 1 0.026477 0.053937 0.02746

Segment 2 0.041737 0.077294 0.035557

Segment 3 0.054026 0.124085 0.070059

Segment 4 0.054690 0.169118 0.11443

Segment 5 0.077405 0.217299 0.13989

Segment 6 0.078157 0.267802 0.18964

Estimated-RTT = 0.875 * Estimated-RTT + 0.125 * Sample-RTT

Estimated-RTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 1:

Estimated-RTT = RTT for Segment 1 = 0.02746 second

Estimated-RTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 2:

Estimated-RTT = 0.875 * 0.02746 + 0.125 * 0.035557 = 0.0285

Estimated-RTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 3:

Estimated-RTT = 0.875 * 0.0285 + 0.125 * 0.070059 = 0.0337

Estimated-RTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 4:

Estimated-RTT = 0.875 * 0.0337+ 0.125 * 0.11443 = 0.0438

Estimated-RTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 5:

Estimated-RTT = 0.875 * 0.0438 + 0.125 * 0.13989 = 0.0558

Estimated-RTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 6:

Estimated-RTT = 0.875 * 0.0558 + 0.125 * 0.18964 = 0.0725 second

Figure 5: Segments 1 – 6

Figure 6: ACKs of segments 1 - 6

 Figure 7: Round Trip Time Graph

6.

Solution: Length of the first TCP segment (containing the HTTP POST): 565 bytes Length of each of the
other five TCP segments: 1460 bytes (MSS)

Figure 8: Lengths of segments 1 - 6

7.

Solution: The minimum amount of buffer space (receiver window) advertised at gaia.cs.umass.edu for
the entire trace is 5840 bytes, which shows in the first acknowledgement from the server. This receiver
window grows steadily until a maximum receiver buffer size of 62780 bytes. The sender is never
throttled due to lacking of receiver buffer space by inspecting this trace.

Figure 9: Minimum receive window advertised at gaia.cs.umass.edu (packet No. 2)

8.

Solution: There are no retransmitted segments in the trace file. We can verify this by checking the
sequence numbers of the TCP segments in the trace file. In the Time- Sequence-Graph (Stevens) of this
trace, all sequence numbers from the source (192.168.1.102) to the destination (128.119.245.12) are
increasing monotonically with respect to time. If there is a retransmitted segment, the sequence number
of this retransmitted segment should be smaller than those of its neighboring segments.
Figure 10: Sequence numbers of the segments from the source (192.168.1.102) to the destination

(128.119.245.12)

9.

Solution: The acknowledged sequence numbers of the ACKs are listed as follows.

acknowledged sequence acknowledged data

number
ACK 1 566 566
ACK 2 2026 1460
ACK 3 3486 1460
ACK 4 4946 1460
ACK 5 6406 1460
ACK 6 7866 1460
ACK 7 9013 1147
ACK 8 10473 1460
ACK 9 11933 1460
ACK 10 13393 1460
ACK 11 14853 1460
ACK 12 16313 1460

The difference between the acknowledged sequence numbers of two consecutive ACKs indicates the
data received by the server between these two ACKs. By inspecting the amount of acknowledged data by
each ACK, there are cases where the receiver is ACK-ing every other segment. For example, segment of
No. 80 acknowledged data with 2920 bytes = 1460*2 bytes.
 Figure 8: Cumulative ACKs (No. 80, 87, 88, etc) where the receiver is ACKing every other received
segment.

10.

Solution: The computation of TCP throughput largely depends on the selection of averaging time period.
As a common throughput computation, in this question, we select the average time period as the whole
connection time. Then, the average throughput for this TCP connection is computed as the ratio
between the total amount data and the total transmission time. The total amount data transmitted can
be computed by the difference between the sequence number of the first TCP segment (i.e. 1 byte for
No. 4 segment) and the acknowledged sequence number of the last ACK (164091 bytes for No. 202
segment). Therefore, the total data are 164091 - 1 = 164090 bytes. The whole transmission time is the
difference of the time instant of the first TCP segment (i.e., 0.026477 second for No.4 segment) and the
time instant of the last ACK (i.e., 5.455830 second for No. 202 segment). Therefore, the total
transmission time is 5.455830 - 0.026477 = 5.4294 seconds. Hence, the throughput for the TCP
connection is computed as 164090/5.4294 = 30.222 K-Byte/sec.
 Figure: 9 No:202 segment

11.

Solution: TCP Slow Start begins at the start of the connection, i.e., when the HTTP POST segment is sent
out. The identification of the TCP slow start phase and congestion avoidance phase depends on the value
of the congestion window size of this TCP sender. However, the value of the congestion window size
cannot be obtained directly from the Time-Sequence-Graph (Stevens) graph. Nevertheless, we can
estimate the lower bound of the TCP window size by the amount of outstanding data because the
outstanding data is the amount of data without acknowledgement. We also know that TCP window is
constrained by the receiver window size and the receiver buffer can act as the upper bound of the TCP
window size. In this trace, the receiver buffer is not the bottleneck; therefore, this upper bound is not
quite useful to infer the TCP window size. Hence, we focus on the lower bound of the TCP window size.

From the following table, we cannot see that the amount outstanding data increases quickly at the start
of this TCP flow; however, it never exceeds 8192 Bytes. Therefore, we can ensure that the TCP window
size is larger than 8192 Bytes. Nevertheless, we cannot determine the end of the slow start phase and
the start of the congestion avoidance phase for this trace. The major reason is that this TCP sender is not
sending data aggressively enough to push to the congestion state. By inspecting the amount of
outstanding data, we can observe that the application at most sends out a data block of 8192 bytes.
Before it receives the acknowledgement for the whole block of these 8192 bytes, the application will not
send more data. It indicates before the end of the slow start phase, the application already stops
transmission temporally.
Type No. Seq. ACKed seq. Outstanding data
Data 4 1 565
Data 5 566 2025
ACK 6 566 1460
Data 7 2026 2920
Data 8 3486 4380
ACK 9 2026 2920
Data 10 4946 4380
Data 11 6406 5840
ACK 12 3486 4380
Data 13 7866 5527
ACK 14 4096 4917
ACK 15 6006 3007
ACK 16 7866 1147
ACK 17 9013 0
Data 18 9013 1460
Data 19 10473 2920
Data 20 11933 4380
Data 21 13393 5840
Data 22 14853 7300
Data 23 16313 8192
ACK 24 10473 6732
ACK 25 11933 5272
ACK 26 13393 3812
ACK 27 14853 2352
ACK 28 16313 892
ACK 29 17205 0
Data 30 17205 1460
Data 31 18665 2920
Data 32 20125 4380
Data 33 21585 5840
Data 34 23045 7300
Data 35 24505 8192
ACK 36 18665 6732
ACK 37 20125 5272
ACK 38 21585 3812
ACK 39 23045 2352
ACK 40 24505 892
ACK 41 25397 0
Data 42 25397 1460
Data 43 26857 2920
Data 44 28317 4380
Data 45 29777 5840
Data 46 31237 7300
Data 47 32697 8192
ACK 48 26857
 ACK 49 28317
ACK 50 29777
ACK 51 31237
ACK 52 33589
Data 53 33589 6732
Data 54 35049 5272
Data 55 36509 3812
Data 56 37969 2352
Data 57 39429 892
Data 58 40889 0
ACK 59 35049 6732
ACK 60 37969 3812
ACK 61 40889 892
ACK 62 41781 0
Data 63 41781 1460
Data 64 43241 2920
Data 65 44701 4380
Data 66 46161 5840
Data 67 47621 7300
Data 68 49081 8192
ACK 69 44701 5272
ACK 70 47621 2352
ACK 71 49973 0
Data 72 49973 1460
Data 73 51433 2920
Data 74 52893 4380
Data 75 54353 5840
Data 76 55813 7300
Data 77 57273 8192
ACK 78 52893 5272
ACK 79 55813 2352
ACK 80 58165 0
Data 81 58165

Note that the criteria to determine the end of slow start and the beginning of the congestion avoidance
is the way how congestion window size reacts to the arrival of ACKs. Upon an ACK arrival, if the
congestion window size increases by one MSS, TCP sender still stays in the slow start phase. In the
congestion avoidance phase, the congestion window size increases at 1/ (current congestion window
size). By inspecting the change of the congestion window upon the arrival of ACKs, we can infer the
states of the TCP sender.