1.

HTTP Wireshark Lab

1. The Basic HTTP GET/response interaction

Let’s begin our exploration of HTTP by downloading a very simple HTML file - one that
is very short, and contains no embedded objects. Do the following:
1. Start up your web browser.
2. Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer, as described in the introductory lab (but
don’t yet begin packet capture). Enter “http” (just the letters, not the quotation
marks) in the display-filter-specification window, so that only captured HTTP
messages will be displayed later in the packet-listing window. (We’re only
interested in the HTTP protocol here, and don’t want to see the clutter of all
captured packets).
3. Wait a bit more than one minute (we’ll see why shortly), and then begin
Wireshark packet capture.
4. Enter the following to your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file1.html
Your browser should display the very simple, one-line HTML file.
5. Stop Wireshark packet capture.

Your Wireshark window should look similar to the window shown in Figure 1. If you
are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can download a packet
trace that was created when the steps above were followed.1

1
Download the zip file http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark-traces.zip and extract the file
http-ethereal-trace-1. The traces in this zip file were collected by Wireshark running on one of the author’s
 Figure 1: Wireshark Display after http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/ HTTP-
wireshark-file1.html has been retrieved by your browser

The example in Figure 1 shows in the packet-listing window that two HTTP messages
were captured: the GET message (from your browser to the gaia.cs.umass.edu web
server) and the response message from the server to your browser. The packet-contents
window shows details of the selected message (in this case the HTTP GET message,
which is highlighted in the packet- listing window). Recall that since the HTTP message
was carried inside a TCP segment, which was carried inside an IP datagram, which was
carried within an Ethernet frame, Wireshark displays the Frame, Ethernet, IP, and TCP
packet information as well. We want to minimize the amount of non-HTTP data

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 http-ethereal-trace-1 trace file. The resulting display should look just like Figure 1.
displayed (we’re interested in HTTP here, and will be investigating these other protocols
is later labs), so make sure the boxes at the far left of the Frame, Ethernet, IP and TCP
information have a plus sign (which means there is hidden, undisplayed information),
and the HTTP line has a minus sign (which means that all information about the HTTP
message is displayed).
(Note: You should ignore any HTTP GET and response for favicon.ico. If you see a reference to
this file, it is your browser automatically asking the server if it (the server) has a small icon file
that should be displayed next to the displayed URL in your browser. We’ll ignore references to
this pesky file in this lab.).

By looking at the information in the HTTP GET and response messages, answer the
following questions. When answering the following questions, you should print out the
GET and response messages (see the introductory Wireshark lab for an explanation of
how to do this) and indicate where in the message you’ve found the information that
answers the following questions.
7. Is your browser running HTTP version 1.0 or 1.1? What version of HTTP is the
server running?
8. What languages (if any) does your browser indicate that it can accept to
the server?
9. What is the IP address of your computer? Of the gaia.cs.umass.edu server?
10. What is the status code returned from the server to your browser?
11. When was the HTML file that you are retrieving last modified at the server?
12. How many bytes of content are being returned to your browser?
13. By inspecting the raw data in the packet content window, do you see any headers
within the data that are not displayed in the packet-listing window? If so, name
one. Answer: no, I don’t see any in the HTTP Message below

In your answer to question 5 above, you might have been surprised to find that the document
you just retrieved was last modified within a minute before you downloaded the document.
That’s because (for this particular file), the gaia.cs.umass.edu server is setting the file’s last-
modified time to be the current time, and is doing so once per minute. Thus, if you wait a
minute between accesses, the file will appear to have been recently modified, and hence your
browser will download a “new” copy of the document.
 Client IP address Gaia server ip address

Client running http 1.1

Languages accepted

Return status
Server running http

Document last
modified
content
2. The HTTP CONDITIONAL GET/response interaction
Recall from Section 2.2.6 of the text, that most web browsers perform object caching and
thus perform a conditional GET when retrieving an HTTP object. Before performing the
steps below, make sure your browser’s cache is empty. (To do this under Netscape 7.0,
select Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Cache and clear the memory and disk cache.
For Firefox, select Tools->Clear Private Data, or for Internet Explorer, select
Tools->Internet Options->Delete File; these actions will remove cached files from
your browser’s cache.) Now do the following:
 Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as
discussed above.
 Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
 Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file2.html
Your browser should display a very simple five-line HTML file.
 Quickly enter the same URL into your browser again (or simply select the
refresh button on your browser)
 Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification
window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed later in the
packet-listing window.
 (Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can
use the http-ethereal-trace-2 packet trace to answer the questions below)

Answer the following questions:

8. Inspect the contents of the first HTTP GET request from your browser to
the server. Do you see an “IF-MODIFIED-SINCE” line in the HTTP GET?
9. Inspect the contents of the server response. Did the server explicitly return the
contents of the file? How can you tell?
10. Now inspect the contents of the second HTTP GET request from your browser
to the server. Do you see an “IF-MODIFIED-SINCE:” line in the HTTP GET? If
so, what information follows the “IF-MODIFIED-SINCE:” header?
11. What is the HTTP status code and phrase returned from the server in response to
this second HTTP GET? Did the server explicitly return the contents of the file?
Explain.
 First GET, then a
reply, then another identical
GET,
then a reply (304 not
modified)

There is no IF-MODIFIED-SINCE in the first GET

 text returned in response to first GET

2nd GET has IF-MODIFED-SINCE

The file has not been

modified! So the text of
the file is NOT returned
in the HTTP message
3. Retrieving Long Documents
In our examples thus far, the documents retrieved have been simple and short HTML
files. Let’s next see what happens when we download a long HTML file. Do the
following:
 Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as
discussed above.
 Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
 Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file3.html
Your browser should display the rather lengthy US Bill of Rights.
 Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification
window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed.
 (Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can
use the http-ethereal-trace-3 packet trace to answer the questions below;)

In the packet-listing window, you should see your HTTP GET message, followed by a
multiple-packet response to your HTTP GET request. This multiple-packet response
deserves a bit of explanation. Recall from Section 2.2 (see Figure 2.9 in the text) that the
HTTP response message consists of a status line, followed by header lines, followed by a
blank line, followed by the entity body. In the case of our HTTP GET, the entity body in
the response is the entire requested HTML file. In our case here, the HTML file is rather
long, and at 4500 bytes is too large to fit in one TCP packet. The single HTTP response
message is thus broken into several pieces by TCP, with each piece being contained
within a separate TCP segment (see Figure 1.20 in the text). Each TCP segment is
recorded as a separate packet by Wireshark, and the fact that the single HTTP response
was fragmented across multiple TCP packets is indicated by the “Continuation” phrase
displayed by Wireshark. We stress here that there is no “Continuation” message in
HTTP!
 In our answer below, we use the http-ethereal-trace-3 packet trace file. The
HTTP GET for the long document is packet 8 in the trace (at t=4.623732); the
HTTP OK reply is packet 14 (at t=6.680432).

The HTTP repl7 carrying the text of the Bill of Rights is packets 10, 11, and 13. If
you look into the ASCII content of packet 10, you can see the beginning of the text
of the Bill or Rights. Note that packet 12 is a client-to-server TCP ACK.

Answer the following questions:

12. How many HTTP GET request messages did your browser send? Answer: 1.

Which packet number in the trace contains the GET message for the Bill or
Rights? Answer: 8.

13. Which packet number in the trace contains the status code and phrase
associated with the response to the HTTP GET request? Answer: packet
10.

14. What is the status code and Phrase in the response? Answer: 200 (OK)

15 .How many data-containing TCP segments were needed to carry the single HTTP
response and the text of the Bill of Rights? Answer: three packets (10, 11, 13 in the trace)

4. HTML Documents with Embedded Objects

Now that we’ve seen how Wireshark displays the captured packet traffic for large HTML
files, we can look at what happens when your browser downloads a file with embedded
objects, i.e., a file that includes other objects (in the example below, image files) that are
stored on another server(s).

Do the following:
 Start up your web browser, and make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as
discussed above.
 Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
 Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/HTTP-wireshark-file4.html
Your browser should display a short HTML file with two images. These two
images are referenced in the base HTML file. That is, the images themselves are
not contained in the HTML; instead the URLs for the images are contained in the
downloaded HTML file. As discussed in the textbook, your browser will have to
retrieve these logos from the indicated web sites. Our publisher’s logo is
retrieved from the www.aw-bc.com web site. The image of our book’s cover is
stored at the manic.cs.umass.edu server.
 Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-specification
window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed.
(Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can
use the http-ethereal-trace-4 packet trace to answer the questions below; )

Answer the following questions:

16. How many HTTP GET request messages were sent by your browser? To which
Internet addresses were these GET requests sent? Answer: there were three
HTTP GET messages sent: packet 10 in the trace (to get the base file),
packet 17 (to get the Pearson logo) and packet 20 (to get the 5th edition
textbook cover). To which Internet addresses were these GET requests
sent? Each of these three GET messages were sent to different IP
addresses! Packet 10 was sent to 128.119.245.12, packet 17 to
165.193.123.218, and packet 20 to 134.241.6.82.

17. Can you tell whether your browser downloaded the two images serially, or
whether they were downloaded from the two web sites in parallel? Explain.
The downloads occurred in parallel. Note that the two GET
messages for the images are in packets 17 and 20. The 200OK reply
containing the images sow up as packets 25, and 54. Thus the
request for the second image file (packet 20) was made BEFORE
packet 25, the first image file was received

5 HTTP Authentication
Finally, let’s try visiting a web site that is password-protected and examine the sequence
of HTTP message exchanged for such a site. The URL
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/protected_pages/HTTP-wireshark-file5.html is
password protected. The username is “wireshark-students” (without the quotes), and the
password is “network” (again, without the quotes). So let’s access this “secure”
password-protected site. Do the following:
 Make sure your browser’s cache is cleared, as discussed above, and close down
your browser. Then, start up your browser
 Start up the Wireshark packet sniffer
Enter the following URL into your browser
http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/protected_pages/HTTP-wireshark-
file5.html
Type the requested user name and password into the pop up box.
 Stop Wireshark packet capture, and enter “http” in the display-filter-
specification window, so that only captured HTTP messages will be displayed
later in the packet-listing window.
 (Note: If you are unable to run Wireshark on a live network connection, you can
use the http-ethereal-trace-5 packet trace to answer the questions below; see
footnote 1. This trace file was gathered while performing the steps above on one
of the author’s computers.)

Now let’s examine the Wireshark output. You might want to first read up on HTTP
authentication by reviewing the easy-to-read material on “HTTP Access
Authentication Framework” at http://frontier.userland.com/stories/storyReader$2159

Answer the following questions:

18. What is the server’s response (status code and phrase) in response to the initial
HTTP GET message from your browser? Answer: Packet 6 in the trace
contains the first GET and packet 9 contains the REPLY. The server’s in
packet 9 is: 401 Authorization Required

19. When your browser’s sends the HTTP GET message for the second time, what
new field is included in the HTTP GET message? Answer: The HTTP GET
includes the Authorization: Basic: field

The username (wireshark -students) and password (network) that you entered are
encoded in the string of characters (d2lyZXNoYXJrLXN0dWRlbnRzOm5ldHdvcms=)
following the “Authorization: Basic” header in the client’s HTTP GET
message. While it may appear that your username and password are encrypted, they are
simply encoded in a format known as Base64 format. The username and password are
not encrypted! To see this, go to http://www.securitystats.com/tools/base64.php and
enter the base64-encoded string d2lyZXNoYXJrLXN0dWRlbnRz and press decode.
Voila! You have translated from Base64 encoding to ASCII encoding, and thus should
see your username! To view the password, enter the remainder of the string
Om5ldHdvcms= and press decode. Since anyone can download a tool like Wireshark
and sniff packets (not just their own) passing by their network adaptor, and anyone can
translate from Base64 to ASCII (you just did it!), it should be clear to you that simple
passwords on WWW sites are not secure unless additional measures are taken.
 2. UDP Wireshark Lab
Start capturing packets in Wireshark and then do something that will cause your host to
send and receive several UDP packets. (One way to do this would be to use the nslookup
command, as we saw in the DNS Wireshark lab. 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 first two steps of the nslookup section of the Wireshark DNS lab on one of
the author’s computers)

1. Select one UDP packet from your trace. From this packet, determine how many
fields there are in the UDP header. (You shouldn’t look in the textbook! Answer
these questions directly from what you observe in the packet trace.) Name these
fields.

Answer: There are four fields in the header: source port, destination port,
Length, and checksum.

2. By consulting the displayed information in Wireshark’s packet content field for

this packet, determine the length (in bytes) of each of the UDP header fields.

Answer: by clicking on the source port field (top red circle in the figure below),
we see the value corresponding to that port number value in the packet content
window at the bottom of the Wireshark display. The port number is shown as a
hexadecimal number (small lower left red circle) and in ASCII format (small
lower right red circle), and is two bytes long.
3. The value in the Length field is the length of what? (You can consult the text for this
answer). Verify your claim with your captured UDP packet.

Answer: The UDP length field is the length of the header and data fields of the UDP
segment, measured in bytes).” The displayed packet has a length field of 58 bytes. We
know there are 8 byres of header. If we look at the packet content field, we also find 50
bytes of hexadecimal or ASCII-encoded data which corresponds to the payload of this
UDP segment.

4. What is the maximum number of bytes that can be included in a UDP payload?
(Hint: the answer to this question can be determined by your answer to 2. above).

Answer: Since there are only 16 bits, the maximum length of a UDP segment
(including header) is 2**16 -1 or 65535 bytes.

5. What is the largest possible source port number? (Hint: see the hint in 4.)

Answer:
Since there are only 16 bits, the maximum source port number is 2**16 -1 or
65535 bytes.

6. What is the protocol number for UDP? Give your answer in both hexadecimal and
decimal notation. To answer this question, you’ll need to look into the Protocol field of
the IP datagram containing this UDP segment (see Figure 4.13 in the text, and the
discussion of IP header fields).

Answer: UDP has a protocol number of 17 (this number is displayed in Wireshark as the
value of the “protocol:” field in the IPV4 datagram.

7. Examine a pair of UDP packets in which the first packet is sent by your host and the
second packet is a reply to the first packet. Describe the relationship between the port
numbers in the two packets.

Answer: Let’s look at packets 1 and 2 in the trace. These packets carry SNMP
application-level messages encapsulated inside of UDP. (Got that? If not, re-read section
1.5 and Figure 1.24 in the text, in particular) The IP address of the sender of packet 1 is
the IP address of the destination of packet 2, and the IP address of the destination of
packet 1 is the IP
 3. TCP Wireshark Lab
In this lab, we’ll investigate the behavior of TCP 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.

1. Capturing a bulk TCP transfer from your computer to a remote

Server

Before beginning our exploration of TCP, we’ll need to use Wireshark to obtain a packet
trace of the TCP transfer of a file from your computer to a remote server. You’ll do so by
accessing a Web page that will allow you to enter the name of a file stored on your
computer (which contains the ASCII text of Alice in Wonderland), and then transfer the
file to a Web server using the HTTP POST method (see section 2.2.3 in the text). We’re
using the POST method rather than the GET method as we’d like to transfer a large
amount of data from your computer to another computer. Of course, we’ll be running
Wireshark during this time to obtain the trace of the TCP segments sent and received
from your computer.

Do the following:

• Start up your web browser. Go the http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wiresharklabs/

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->Options) and then
press OK on the Wireshark Packet Capture Options screen (we’ll not need to
select any options here).

• 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
computers. 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.

Download the zip file http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark-traces.zip and

extract the file tcpethereal-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.
2. 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.

• 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 and 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. 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
tcpethereal-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 printout 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.

Answer the following questions for the TCP segments:

1. What is the IP address and TCP port number used by your client computer
(source) to transfer the file to gaia.cs.umass.edu?

2. What is the IP address and port number used by gaia.cs.umass.edu to receive the file.

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

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?

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 an Wireshark window that looks like:

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/wiresharktraces.zip;) to study TCP behavior in the rest of this lab.
3. TCP Basics

Answer the following questions for the TCP segments:

4. 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?

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.

5. 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?

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.

6. 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.

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

7. 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 page 237 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 237 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.

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

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:
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
Second
 14. What is the length of each of the first six TCP segments?

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)

9. 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?

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.
10. Are there any retransmitted segments in the trace file? What did you check for (in
the trace) in order to answer this question?

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.
11. How much data does the receiver typically acknowledge in an ACK? Can you
identify cases where the receiver is ACKing every other received segment (see
Table 3.2 on page 247 in the text).

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 10472 1460

 ACK 9 11933 1460

ACK 10 13393 1460

ACK 11 14852 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
ACKing every other segment. For example, segment of No. 80 acknowledged data with
2920 bytes = 1460*2 bytes.

12. What is the throughput (bytes transferred per unit time) for the TCP connection?
Explain how you calculated this value.
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 KByte/sec.
 4. DNS Wireshark Lab
As described in Section 2.5 of the textbook, the Domain Name System (DNS) translates
hostnames to IP addresses, fulfilling a critical role in the Internet infrastructure. In this
lab, we’ll take a closer look at the client side of DNS. Recall that the client’s role in the
DNS is relatively simple – a client sends a query to its local DNS server, and receives a
response back. As shown in Figures 2.21 and 2.22 in the textbook, much can go on
“under the covers,” invisible to the DNS clients, as the hierarchical DNS servers
communicate with each other to either recursively or iteratively resolve the client’s DNS
query. From the DNS client’s standpoint, however, the protocol is quite simple – a query
is formulated to the local DNS server and a response is received from that server.
Before beginning this lab, you’ll probably want to review DNS by reading Section 2.5 of
the text. In particular, you may want to review the material on local DNS servers, DNS
caching, DNS records and messages, and the TYPE field in the DNS record.

1. nslookup
In this lab, we’ll make extensive use of the nslookup tool, which is available in most
Linux/Unix and Microsoft platforms today. To run nslookup in Linux/Unix, you just type
the nslookup command on the command line. To run it in Windows, open the Command
Prompt and run nslookup on the command line.

In it is most basic operation, nslookup tool allows the host running the tool to query any
specified DNS server for a DNS record. The queried DNS server can be a root DNS
server, a top-level-domain DNS server, an authoritative DNS server, or an intermediate
DNS server (see the textbook for definitions of these terms). To accomplish this task,
nslookup sends a DNS query to the specified DNS server, receives a DNS reply from that
same DNS server, and displays the result.
The above screenshot shows the results of three independent nslookup commands
(displayed in the Windows Command Prompt). In this example, the client host is located
on the campus of Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, where the default local DNS server
is dns-prime.poly.edu. When running nslookup, if no DNS server is specified, then
nslookup sends the query to the default DNS server, which in this case is dnsprime.
poly.edu.

Consider the first command:

nslookup www.mit.edu

In words, this command is saying “Please send me the IP address for the host
www.mit.edu.” As shown in the screenshot, the response from this command provides
two pieces of information: (1) the name and IP address of the DNS server that provides
the answer; and (2) the answer itself, which is the host name and IP address of
www.mit.edu. Although the response came from the local DNS server at Polytechnic
University, it is quite possible that this local DNS server iteratively contacted several
other DNS servers to get the answer, as described in Section 2.5 of the textbook.

Now consider the second command:

nslookup –type=NS mit.edu

In this example, we have provided the option “-type=NS” and the domain “mit.edu”.
This causes nslookup to send a query for a type-NS record to the default local DNS
server. In words, the query is saying, “Please send me the host names of the authoritative
DNS formit.edu.” (When the –type option is not used, nslookup uses the default, which is
to query for type A records; see Section 2.5.3 in the text.) The answer, displayed in the
above screenshot, first indicates the DNS server that is providing the answer (which is
the default local DNS server) along with three MIT name servers. Each of these servers is
indeed an authoritative DNS server for the hosts on the MIT campus. However, nslookup
also indicates that the answer is “non-authoritative,” meaning that this answer came from
the cache of some server rather than from an authoritative MIT DNS server. Finally, the
answer also includes the IP addresses of the authoritative DNS servers at MIT. (Even
though the type-NS query generated by nslookup did not explicitly ask for the IP
addresses, the local DNS server returned these “for free” and nslookup displays the
result.)

Now finally consider the third command:

nslookup www.aiit.or.kr bitsy.mit.edu

In this example, we indicate that we want to the query sent to the DNS server
bitsy.mit.edu rather than to the default DNS server (dns-prime.poly.edu). Thus, the query
and reply transaction takes place directly between our querying host and bitsy.mit.edu. In
this example, the DNS server bitsy.mit.edu provides the IP address of the host
www.aiit.or.kr, which is a web server at the Advanced Institute of Information
Technology (in Korea).

Now that we have gone through a few illustrative examples, you are perhaps wondering
about the general syntax of nslookup commands.

The syntax is:

nslookup –option1 –option2 host-to-find dns-server

In general, nslookup can be run with zero, one, two or more options. And as we have
seen in the above examples, the dns-server is optional as well; if it is not supplied, the
query is sent to the default local DNS server.

Now that we have provided an overview of nslookup, it is time for you to test drive it
yourself. Do the following (and write down the results):

1. Run nslookup to obtain the IP address of a Web server in Asia. What is its IP address?

ANSWER: I performed nslookup for www.rediff.com. Its IP address is 208.184.138.70

2. Run nslookup to determine the authoritative DNS servers for a university in Europe.
What is its IP address.

ANSWER: I performed nslookup for a European University in Ioannina Greece. Its IP

address is 128.238.29.22

3. Run nslookup so that one of the DNS servers obtained in Question 2 is queried for
the mail servers for Yahoo! mail.

ANSWER: the IP address of the mail server(s) is 18.72.0.3.

 Screenshot for DNS query

Screenshot for DNS response

2. ipconfig
ipconfig (for Windows) and ifconfig (for Linux/Unix) are among the most useful little
utilities in your host, especially for debugging network issues. Here we’ll only describe
ipconfig, although the Linux/Unix ifconfig is very similar. ipconfig can be used to show
your current TCP/IP information, including your address, DNS server addresses, adapter
type and so on. For example, if you want to see all this information about your host,
simply enter:

ipconfig \all

into the Command Prompt, as shown in the following screenshot.

ipconfig is also very useful for managing the DNS information stored in your host. In
Section 2.5 we learned that a host can cache DNS records it recently obtained. To see
these cached records, after the prompt C:\> provide the following command:
ipconfig /displaydns

Each entry shows the remaining Time to Live (TTL) in seconds. To clear the cache, enter
ipconfig /flushdns

Flushing the DNS cache clears all entries and reloads the entries from the hosts file.
3. Tracing DNS with Wireshark
Now that we are familiar with nslookup and ipconfig, we’re ready to get down to some
serious business. Let’s first capture the DNS packets that are generated by ordinary
Websurfing activity.

• Use ipconfig to empty the DNS cache in your host.

• Open your browser and empty your browser cache. (With Internet Explorer,
go to Tools menu and select Internet Options; then in the General tab select
Delete Files.)
• Open Wireshark and enter “ip.addr == your_IP_address” into the filter, where
you obtain your_IP_address (the IP address for the computer on which you are
running Wireshark) with ipconfig. This filter removes all packets that neither
originate nor are destined to your host.
• Start packet capture in Wireshark.
• With your browser, visit the Web page: http://www.ietf.org
• Stop packet capture.

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
computers. Answer the following questions:

4. Locate the DNS query and response messages. Are then sent over UDP or TCP?

ANSWER: They are sent over UDP

5. What is the destination port for the DNS query message? What is the source port of
DNS response message?

ANSWER: The destination port for the DNS query is 53 and the source port of
the DNS response is 53.
 Screenshot for ipconfig –all

6. To what IP address is the DNS query message sent? Use ipconfig to determine the IP
address of your local DNS server. Are these two IP addresses the same?

ANSWER: It’s sent to 192.168.1.1, which is the IP address of one of my local DNS
servers.

7. Examine the DNS query message. What “Type” of DNS query is it? Does the query
message contain any “answers”?

ANSWER: It’s a type A Standard Query and it doesn’t contain any answers.

8. Examine the DNS response message. How many “answers” are provided? What do
each of these answers contain?

ANSWER: There were 2 answers containing information about

the name of the host, the type of address, class, the TTL, the data length and the IP
address.
Answers
www.ietf.org: type A, class IN, addr 209.173.57.180
Name:
www.ietf.org
Type: A (Host
address) Class:
IN (0x0001)
Time to live: 30 minutes
Data length: 4
Addr: 209.173.57.180
www.ietf.org: type A, class IN, addr 209.173.53.180
Name:
www.ietf.org
Type: A (Host
address) Class:
IN (0x0001)
Time to live: 30 minutes
Data length: 4
Addr: 209.173.53.180

9. Consider the subsequent TCP SYN packet sent by your host. Does the destination IP
address of the SYN packet correspond to any of the IP addresses provided in the DNS
response message?

ANSWER: The first SYN packet was sent to 209.173.57.180 which

corresponds to the first IP address provided in the DNS response message.

10. This web page contains images. Before retrieving each image, does your host issue
new DNS queries?

ANSWER: No
 Screenshot for DNS query

Screenshot for DNS response

Now let’s play with nslookup2.
• Start packet capture.
• Do an nslookup on www.mit.edu
• Stop packet capture.
You should get a trace that looks something like the following:

We see from the above screenshot that nslookup actually sent three DNS queries and
received three DNS responses. For the purpose of this assignment, in answering the
following questions, ignore the first two sets of queries/responses, as they are specific to
nslookup and are not normally generated by standard Internet applications. You should
instead focus on the last query and response messages.

If you are unable to run Wireshark and capture a trace file, use the trace file dns-
ethereal-trace-2 in the zip file http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/wireshark-
traces.zip
11. What is the destination port for the DNS query message? What is the source port of
DNS response message?

ANSWER: The destination port of the DNS query is 53 and the source port of
the DNS response is 53.

12. To what IP address is the DNS query message sent? Is this the IP address of your
default local DNS server?

ANSWER: It’s sent to 192.168.1.1 which as we can see from the ipconfig –all
screenshot, is the default local DNS server.

13. Examine the DNS query message. What “Type” of DNS query is it? Does the query
message contain any “answers”?

ANSWER: The query is of type A and it doesn’t contain any answers.

14. Examine the DNS response message. How many “answers” are provided? What do
each of these answers contain?

ANSWER: The response DNS message contains one answer containing the
name of the host, the type of address, the class, and the IP address.

Answers
www.mit.edu: type A, class IN, addr 18.7.22.83
Name: www.mit.edu
Type: A (Host
address) Class:
IN (0x0001)
Time to live: 1 minute
Data length: 4
Addr: 18.7.22.83

15. Provide a screenshot.

 Screenshot for DNS response

Now repeat the previous experiment, but instead issue the command:
nslookup –type=NS mit.edu

Answer the following questions :

16. To what IP address is the DNS query message sent? Is this the IP address of your
default local DNS server?

ANSWER: It was sent to 128.238.29.22 which is my default DNS server.

17. Examine the DNS query message. What “Type” of DNS query is it? Does the query
message contain any “answers”?

ANSWER: It’s a type NS DNS query that doesn’t contain any answers.

18. Examine the DNS response message. What MIT nameservers does the response
message provide? Does this response message also provide the IP addresses of the MIT
nameservers?
ANSWER: The nameservers are bitsy, strawb and w20ns. We can find their IP addresses
if we expand the Additional records field in Wireshark as seen below.

Answers
mit.edu: type NS, class inet, ns bitsy.mit.edu
mit.edu: type NS, class inet, ns strawb.mit.edu
mit.edu: type NS, class inet, ns w20ns.mit.edu
Additional records
bitsy.mit.edu: type A, class inet, addr 18.72.0.3
strawb.mit.edu: type A, class inet, addr 18.71.0.151
w20ns.mit.edu: type A, class inet, addr 18.70.0.160

19. Provide a screenshot.

Screenshot for DNS response

Now repeat the previous experiment, but instead issue the command:

nslookup www.aiit.or.kr bitsy.mit.edu

Answer the following questions:

20. To what IP address is the DNS query message sent? Is this the IP address of your
default local DNS server? If not, what does the IP address correspond to?

ANSWER: The query is sent to 18.72.0.3 which corresponds to bitsy.mit.edu.

21. Examine the DNS query message. What “Type” of DNS query is it? Does the query
message contain any “answers”?

ANSWER: It’s a standard type A query that doesn’t contain any answers.
22. Examine the DNS response message. How many “answers” are provided? What does
each of these answers contain?

ANSWER: One answer is provided in the DNS response message. It contains the
following:

Answers
www.aiit.or.kr: type A, class inet, addr 222.106.36.102
Name: www.aiit.or.kr
Type: Host address
Class: inet
Time to live: 1 hour
Data length: 4
Addr: 222.106.36.102

23. Provide a screenshot.

 5. Socket Programming
Objective: Write a TCP client program which reads a sentence from the user and sends it
to the TCP server program which converts it into uppercase and sends the result back to
the client program which displays the result

TCP Client Code:

TCP Server Code:
 6. Socket Programming
Objective: Write a UDP client program which reads a sentence from the user and sends it
to the UDP server program which converts it into uppercase and sends the result back to
the client program which displays the result

UDP Client Code:

UDP Server Code:
 7. Socket Programming
Aim: Write a TCP client program which connects to TCP server program and reads a file
content which is sent by the server program and writes into a newly created file.

TCP Client Code:

import java.io.*;

import java.net.*;

public class Client {

public static void main (String [] args ) throws IOException {

int filesize=2022386;

int bytesRead;

int currentTot = 0;

/*We defined a class named Client, Main method and a variable filesize which can be
thought of like a buffer size.

bytesRead contain the current statistics of the bytes read from the input channel ie
inputstream, currentTot contains the total number of bytes read.*/

Socket socket = new Socket("172.16.0.63",15123);

System.out.println("client's socket : " + socket);

byte [] bytearray = new byte [filesize];

InputStream is = socket.getInputStream();

FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("copy.doc");

BufferedOutputStream bos = new BufferedOutputStream(fos);

int n=bytearray.length;

System.out.println("n="+n);

bytesRead = is.read(bytearray,0,bytearray.length);

System.out.println("bytesread=" + bytesRead);
 currentTot = bytesRead;

do {

bytesRead =

is.read(bytearray, currentTot, (bytearray.length-currentTot));

if(bytesRead >= 0) currentTot += bytesRead;

} while(bytesRead > -1);

/*We defined a Socket object which try to connect on ip 127.0.0.1(local ip in my case,

change it when you try on lan with ip of your friends computer) on port number 15123.
We define a variable byteArray which will act just like a buffer to hold temporary data,
InputStream object called in which will help us to collect all information passed to input
channel of client ie files or even the messages which are transferred to client.

We define the FileOutputStream object which point to the file which will be filled with
data copied from the server file. The BufferedOutputStream helps us to write data to the
output file via a byte array.

We read the data from the inputstream using the read method of the object. The data read
from the input channel is stored in the byte array. We initially set currentTot to number
of bytes read.

Now we implement a do-while loop. It reads again from the input stream and now if the
bytesRead is >=0 then we update out currentTot object. When the byteRead is -1 i.e.
there is no data left on the inputstream then the do-while loop exits.

After that we write the finally read bytes on the file and then close the stream.*/

bos.write(bytearray, 0 , currentTot);

bos.flush();

bos.close();

socket.close();

}
TCP Server Code:

import java.io.*;

import java.net.*;

public class Server {

public static void main (String [] args ) throws IOException {

ServerSocket welcomeSocket = new ServerSocket(15123);

/* creating welcomeSocket on which server will be listening for client's

requests */

Socket connectionSocket = welcomeSocket.accept();

/* accepting client's connection request. To client's socket, connectionSocket is

attached */

System.out.println("Accepted connection : " + connectionSocket);

/* printing the details of connectionSocket */

File transferFile = new File ("sample.txt");

/* opening the file whose name is passed as an argument to the File class
constructor */

byte [] bytearray = new byte [(int)transferFile.length()];

/* creating byte array. the size of this array should be the size of the file which
is opened in the previous statement*/

FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(transferFile);

/* FileInputStream is a bytes stream class that’s used to read bytes from a

file.*/

BufferedInputStream binn = new BufferedInputStream(fin);

/* BufferedInputStream has the ability to buffer the input. here

BufferedInputStream adds buffering ability to the FileInputStream class so that we can
perform mark and reset operation */

binn.read(bytearray,0,bytearray.length);
 /* Reads bytes from the buffered file input stream (the given file) into the
specified byte array, starting at the given offset.*/

OutputStream os = connectionSocket.getOutputStream();

/* getOutputStream method of the Socket class returns an output stream for the
connectionSocket */

System.out.println("Sending Files...");

os.write(bytearray,0,bytearray.length);

/* Writes bytearray.length bytes from the specified byte array starting at offset
off to output stream os */

os.flush();

/* Flushes this output stream and forces any buffered output bytes to be
written out.*/

connectionSocket.close();

System.out.println("File transfer complete");

}
 8. Socket Programming

Objective: Write a TCP client program which reads two integers from the user and passes
them to the TCP server program which adds them and sends the result back to the client
which displays the result.

TCP Client Code:

import java.io.*;

import java.net.*;

class Client1{

public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception{

BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new

InputStreamReader(System.in));

String input1 = bufferedReader.readLine();

int number1 = Integer.parseInt(input1);

String input2 = bufferedReader.readLine();

int number2 = Integer.parseInt(input2);

Socket clientS=new Socket("127.0.0.1",6789);

DataOutputStream ots=new DataOutputStream(clientS.getOutputStream());

ots.writeInt(number1);

ots.writeInt(number2);

DataInputStream ins=new DataInputStream(clientS.getInputStream());

int sum = ins.readInt();

System.out.println("the total is "+sum);

clientS.close();}}
TCP Server Code:

import java.io.*;

import java.net.*;

class Server1

public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception

ServerSocket welcomeS=new ServerSocket(6789);

Socket connectionS=welcomeS.accept();

DataInputStream inc=new DataInputStream(connectionS.getInputStream());

int number1 = inc.readInt();

int number2 = inc.readInt();

int number3=number1+number2;

DataOutputStream ots=new DataOutputStream(connectionS.getOutputStream());

ots.writeInt(number3);

connectionS.close();