Lab 04

Transport Control Protocol (TCP) using Wireshark

Objective:
Students will gain better understanding of the TCP protocol.
• Analyze a trace of the TCP segments sent and received in transferring a 150KB file from
your computer to a remote server.
• Study TCP’s use of sequence and acknowledgement numbers for providing reliable data transfer
• Study TCP’s congestion control algorithm – slow start and congestion avoidance – in action;
and we’ll look at TCP’s receiver-advertised flow control mechanism.
• Study TCP connection setup and investigate the performance (throughput and round-trip
time) of the TCP connection between student’s computer and the server.

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Useful Concepts
In this lab, we’ll investigate the behavior of the celebrated TCP protocol in detail. We’ll do so by
analyzing a trace of the TCP segments sent and received in transferring a 150KB file (containing
the text of Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) from your computer to a remote
server. We’ll study TCP’s use of sequence and acknowledgement numbers for providing reliable
data transfer; we’ll see TCP’s congestion control algorithm – slow start and congestion
avoidance – in action; and we’ll look at TCP’s receiver-advertised flow control mechanism.
We’ll also briefly consider TCP connection setup and we’ll investigate the performance
(throughput and round-trip time) of the TCP connection between your computer and the server.
For more details, please check the below reference.

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Activity 1:
• Start up your web browser. Go the http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/alice.txt and retrieve
an ASCII copy of Alice in Wonderland. Store this file somewhere on your computer.
• Next go to http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/TCP-wireshark-file1.html.
• You should see a screen that looks like:

• Use the Browse button in this form to enter the name of the file (full path name) on your
computer containing Alice in Wonderland (or do so manually).Don’t yet press the “Upload
alice.txt file” button.
• Now start up Wireshark and begin packet capture (Capture->Start) and then press OK on the
Wireshark Packet Capture Options screen (we’ll not need to select any options here).

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• Returning to your browser, press the “Upload alice.txt file” button to upload the file to the
gaia.cs.umass.edu server. Once the file has been uploaded, a short congratulations message will
be displayed in your browser window.
• Stop Wireshark packet capture. Your Wireshark window should look similar to the window
shown below.

If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can download a packet
trace file that was captured while following the steps above on one of the author’s computers8.
You may well find it valuable to download this trace even if you’ve captured your own trace and
use it, as well as your own trace, when you explore the questions below.
A first look at the captured trace
Before analyzing the behavior of the TCP connection in detail, let’s take a high level view of the
trace.

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• First, filter the packets displayed in the Wireshark window by entering “tcp” (lowercase, no
quotes, and don’t forget to press return after entering!) into the display filter specification
window towards the top of the Wireshark window.
What you should see is series of TCP and HTTP messages between your computer and
gaia.cs.umass.edu. You should see the initial three-way handshake containing a SYN message.
You should see an HTTP POST message. Depending on the version of Wireshark you are using,
you might see a series of “HTTP Continuation” messages being sent from your computer to
gaia.cs.umass.edu. Recall from our discussion in the earlier HTTP Wireshark lab, that is no such
thing as an HTTP Continuation message – this is Wireshark’s way of indicating that there are
multiple TCP segments being used to carry a single HTTP message. In more recent versions of
Wireshark, you’ll see “[TCP
Download the zip file http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark-traces.zip and extract
the file tcp- ethereal-trace-1. The traces in this zip file were collected by Wireshark running on
one of the author’s computers, while performing the steps indicated in the Wireshark lab. Once
you have downloaded the trace, you can load it into Wireshark and view the trace using the File
pull down menu, choosing Open, and then selecting the tcp-ethereal-trace-1 trace file.
segment of a reassembled PDU]” in the Info column of the Wireshark display to indicate that
this TCP segment contained data that belonged to an upper layer protocol message (in our case
here, HTTP). You should also see TCP ACK segments being returned from gaia.cs.umass.edu to
your computer.
Answer the following questions, by opening the Wireshark captured packet file tcp-ethereal-
trace- 1 in http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark-traces.zip (that is download the
trace and open that trace in Wireshark; see footnote 2). Whenever possible, when answering a
question you should hand in a printout of the packet(s) within the trace that you used to answer
the question asked. Annotate the printout9 to explain your answer. To print a packet, use File-
>Print, choose Selected packet only, choose Packet summary line, and select the minimum
amount of packet detail that you need to answer the question.
1. What is the IP address and TCP port number used by the client computer (source) that is
transferring the file to gaia.cs.umass.edu? To answer this question, it’s probably easiest to select
an HTTP message and explore the details of the TCP packet used to carry this HTTP message,

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using the “details of the selected packet header window” (refer to Figure 2 in the “Getting
Started with Wireshark” Lab if you’re uncertain about the Wireshark windows.
2. What is the IP address of gaia.cs.umass.edu? On what port number is it sending and receiving
TCP segments for this connection?
If you have been able to create your own trace, answer the following question:
3. What is the IP address and TCP port number used by your client computer (source) to transfer
the file to gaia.cs.umass.edu?
4. Since this lab is about TCP rather than HTTP, let’s change Wireshark’s “listing of captured
packets” window so that it shows information about the TCP segments containing the HTTP
messages, rather than about the HTTP messages. To have Wireshark do this, select Analyze-
>Enabled Protocols. Then uncheck the HTTP box and select OK. You should now see a
Wireshark window that looks like:

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What do we mean by “annotate”? If you hand in a paper copy, please highlight where in the
printout you’ve found the answer and add some text (preferably with a colored pen) noting what
you found in what you ‘ve highlight. If you hand in an electronic copy, it would be great if you
could also highlight and annotate.
This is what we’re looking for - a series of TCP segments sent between your computer and
gaia.cs.umass.edu. We will use the packet trace that you have captured (and/or the packet trace
tcp-ethereal-trace-1 in http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark-traces.zip; see earlier
footnote) to study TCP behavior in the rest of this lab.

Solution:
Ans1: Client computer (source) IP address: 192.168.1.102 TCP port number: 1161
Ans2: Destination computer: gaia.cs.umass.edu IP address: 128.119.245.12 TCP port number: 80
Ans3: If you did this problem on your own computer, you’ll have your own solution

Activity 2:
TCP Basics
Answer the following questions for the TCP segments:
1. What is the sequence number of the TCP SYN segment that is used to initiate the TCP
connection between the client computer and gaia.cs.umass.edu? What is it in the segment that
identifies the segment as a SYN segment?
2. What is the sequence number of the SYNACK segment sent by gaia.cs.umass.edu to the client
computer in reply to the SYN? What is the value of the Acknowledgement field in the SYNACK
segment? How did gaia.cs.umass.edu determine that value? What is it in the segment that
identifies the segment as a SYNACK segment?

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3. What is the sequence number of the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST command?
Note that in order to find the POST command, you’ll need to dig into the packet content field at
the bottom of the Wireshark window, looking for a segment with a “POST” within its DATA
field.
4. Consider the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST as the first segment in the TCP
connection. What are the sequence numbers of the first six segments in the TCP connection
(including the segment containing the HTTP POST)? At what time was each segment sent?
When was the ACK for each segment received? Given the difference between when each
TCP segment was sent, and when its acknowledgement was received, what is the RTT value for
each of the six segments? What is the EstimatedRTT value (see Section 3.5.3, page 239 in text)
after the receipt of each ACK? Assume that the value of the EstimatedRTT is equal to the
measured RTT for the first segment, and then is computed using the EstimatedRTT equation on
page 239 for all subsequent segments.
Note: Wireshark has a nice feature that allows you to plot the RTT for each of the TCP segments
sent. Select a TCP segment in the “listing of captured packets” window that is being sent from
the client to the gaia.cs.umass.edu server. Then select: Statistics->TCP Stream Graph->Round
Trip Time Graph.
5. What is the length of each of the first six TCP segments?10
6. What is the minimum amount of available buffer space advertised at the received for the entire
trace? Does the lack of receiver buffer space ever throttle the sender?
7. Are there any retransmitted segments in the trace file? What did you check for (in the trace) in
order to answer this question?
8. What is the throughput (bytes transferred per unit time) for the TCP connection? Explain how
you calculated this value.

Solution:
Ans1: 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.

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Ans2: 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
Ans3: No. 4 segment is the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST command. The sequence
number of this segment has the value of 1.
Ans4: 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
EstimatedRTT = 0.875 * EstimatedRTT + 0.125 * SampleRTT
EstimatedRTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 1 EstimatedRTT = RTT for Segment 1 =
0.02746 second EstimatedRTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 2: EstimatedRTT =
0.875
* 0.02746 + 0.125 * 0.035557 = 0.0285
EstimatedRTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 3: EstimatedRTT = 0.875 * 0.0285 +
0.125
* 0.070059 = 0.0337
EstimatedRTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 4:

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EstimatedRTT = 0.875 * 0.0337+ 0.125 * 0.11443 = 0.0438
EstimatedRTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 5:
EstimatedRTT = 0.875 * 0.0438 + 0.125 * 0.13989 = 0.0558
EstimatedRTT after the receipt of the ACK of segment 6:

EstimatedRTT = 0.875 * 0.0558 + 0.125 * 0.18964 = 0.0725

Ans5: Length of the first TCP segment (containing the HTTP POST): 565 bytes Length of each
of the other five TCP segments: 1460 bytes (MSS)
Ans6: 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.
Ans7: 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 TimeSequence-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.
Ans8: 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
KByte/sec.

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3. Graded Lab Tasks
TCP congestion control in action
Let’s now examine the amount of data sent per unit time from the client to the server. Rather than
(tediously!) calculating this from the raw data in the Wireshark window, we’ll use one of Wireshark’s
TCP graphing utilities - Time-Sequence-Graph(Stevens) - to plot out data.
• Select a TCP segment in the Wireshark’s “listing of captured-packets” window. Then select the menu
:Statistics->TCP Stream Graph-> Time-Sequence-Graph(Stevens). You should see a plot that looks similar
to the following plot, which was created from the captured packets in the packet trace tcp-ethereal-
trace- 1 in http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark- traces.zip (see earlier footnote ):

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 Lab Exercise and Summary
Summary should cover Introduction, Procedure, Data Analysis and Evaluation.
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Student’s Signature: _______________ Date: ____________

LABORATORY SKILLS ASSESSMENT (Psychomotor)

Criteria (Max Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 90%≤ Score
 Marks) 0% ≤ S < 50% 50% ≤ S< 70% 70% ≤ S< 90% S ≤100% (S)

Selects Selects and Selects and Selects and

inappropriate applies applies the applies
skills and/or appropriate skills appropriate appropriate
Procedural
strategies and/or strategies strategies and/or strategies and/or
Awareness (30)
Required by the required by the task skills specific to the skills specific to the
task. with major task without task without
errors. significant errors. any error.

Makes major Makes numerous Makes some non- Applies the

critical errors in critical errors in critical errors in procedural
applying applying applying knowledge in
procedural procedural procedural optimized ways
Practical
knowledge knowledge knowledge related to TCP.
Implementation
(30) related to TCP. related to TCP. related to TCP.

Uses tools, Uses tools, Uses tools, Uses tools,

Use of
equipment and equipment and equipment and equipment and

Tool/Equipment materials with materials with materials with materials with a

(30) limited some competence. considerable high degree of
competence. competence. competence.
Requires constant Requires some Follows safety Routinely follows
reminders to follow reminders to follow procedures with safety procedures.
Safety (10)
safety procedures. safety procedures. only minimal
reminders.

Marks Obtained

Total Marks:100

Instructor Name: Sign:_________________

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 LABORATORY SKILLS ASSESSMENT (Affective)
Total Marks: 40

Criteria Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

(Max. Marks) 0% ≤ S < 50% 50% ≤ S < 70% 70% ≤ S < 90% 90% ≤ S ≤ 100% Score
Introduction (5) Very little Introduction is brief Introduction is Introduction
background with some minor nearly complete, complete and well-
information mistakes missing some written; provides
provided or minor points all necessary
information is background
incorrect principles for the
experiment
Procedure (5) Many stages of Many stages of the The procedure The procedure is
the procedure are procedure are could be more well designed and
not entered on the entered on the lab efficiently designed all stages of the
lab report. report. but most stages procedure are
of the entered on the lab
procedure are report.
entered on the lab
report.
Data Record Data is brief and Data provides Data is almost Data is complete
(10) missing some complete and
significant pieces significant but has some relevant. Tables
of information. information minor with
and has few mistakes. units are provided.
critical Graphs are
mistakes. labeled.
All questions are
answered
correctly.
Data Analysis Data is Data is presented Data is presented Data is presented in
(10) presented in in ways that best
in very unclear ways that are not ways that can be facilitate
manner. clear enough. understood and understanding and
interpreted. interpretation.

Report Quality Report contains Report is Report is well Report is well

(10) many errors. somewhat organized and organized and
organized with cohesive but cohesive and
some spelling or contains some contains no
grammatical errors. grammatical errors. grammatical errors.
Presentation seems
polished.

Marks Obtained
LABORATORY SKILLS ASSESSMENT (Cognitive) 16

(If any)

Marks Obtained
Total Marks: 10

Instructor’s Signature: Date: _____________

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