CE707 – Assignment (MSc 2017-2018)

Published: Week 10

GENERAL COMMENTS

Content: There are 12 questions in the Assignment, all questions are of

equal weight. The Assignment covers all CE707 Syllabus and the
Learning Outcomes.

Submission: As advertised, please, check the deadline and the

submission mode. Submit the Assignment answers in the word format as
this will help with my feedback which I can write directly into the
submitted document.

Marking Criteria: High/full marks will be given for answers which

contain correct solutions of the problems and explanations. For
theoretical (bookwork) questions try to provide answers which go beyond
the material in the CE701 Lecture Notes.

In answering the questions be specific. Some questions contain an

indication of the maximum answer length which you are advised to
follow. In answering theoretical questions try to avoid simply repeating
the corresponding material from the Lecture Notes, instead try to add new
elements to your answer which you can find in other reference texts and
which demonstrate your independent thinking and work.

Academic Offences: Your work on the assignment must be your own.

Please, familiarise yourself with the University’s policy on academic
offences and academic integrity:

https://www1.essex.ac.uk/students/exams-and-coursework/academic-
offences.aspx

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Question 1

A 10 Mb/s classic Ethernet receives from the Network Layer a packet of:

(i) 30 bytes to be placed in the data field of the Ethernet frame. How long does it take [35%]
to transmit this Ethernet frame?

(ii) 1480 bytes to be placed in the data field of the Ethernet frame. How long does it [30%]
take to transmit this Ethernet frame?

(iii) 1510 bytes to be placed in the data field of the Ethernet frame. How long does it [35%]
take to transmit this Ethernet frame?

Hint: Take care in deciding which fields should be considered as a part of the Ethernet
Frame.

Question 2

A Gigabit Ethernet uses the CSMA/CD protocol and operates at B = 1 Gb/s speed.

(i) Explain what the CSMA/CD is, and how does it work. [20%]

(ii) The Ethernet uses 3 repeaters located at equal distances from each other along the [30%]
fibre of the length L = 4 km. Assuming that the velocity of propagation of a signal
through the cable is v = 2108 m/s and that the additional one-way delay introduced
by each repeater is 2 s, find the minimum frame size which is necessary in order to
use the CSMA/CD protocol.

(iii) Explain operation of each station in a LAN with CSMA/CD protocol after a [15%]
collision is detected by any station.

(iv) Explain what is a truncated exponential backoff algorithm and for what and how [15%]
it is used.

(v) Write a brief essay about peer-to-peer (P2P) and client-server networking, support [20%]
your answer with schematic drawings, discuss advantages and drawbacks of each model.

Question 3

(i) Explain the OSI, TCP/IP original, and truncated OSI layered models of computer [40%]
networks. Draw schematic diagram for each model. Describe briefly the main
functions played by each layer. (Note that the answer to this question should not be
longer than two A4 pages).

(ii) The point-to-point link which is a part of a more complex network connects two [60%]
hosts, H1 and H2 via two routers R1 and R2, as is shown in the Figure 3.1 below.
The packets are transmitted over the link in a frame with a 24-byte header. The link
between the Host 1 and the router R1 has the MTU of 600 bytes including the 24-byte

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frame header, the link R1 – R2 has the MTU of 512 bytes including the 24-byte
header, and the link between R2 and Host 2 has the MTU of 600 bytes including the
24-byte header. The transport layer at the Host 1 passes to its IPv4 Network Layer a
datagram which contains 1200 bytes of the data and 20 bytes of the TCP header for
transmission to the Host 2. Calculate the sizes of all fragments for each link, (Host 1 –
R1), (R1 – R2), and (R2 – Host 2), assuming that the network operates in a non-
transparent fragmentation mode.

Figure 3.1.

Question 4

Analyse the header of the IPv4 datagram shown in Figure 4.1 in order to solve the
following problems:

(i) How many fields belong to the fixed part of the header, and what are these field? [10%]

(ii) Prove using the information available there that the IPv4 datagram cannot carry [20%]
payload obtained from the Transport Layer which is larger than 65 495 bytes.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Figure 4.1 The IPv4 datagram header.

(iii) The value of IHL field in a particular IPv4 datagram is 12. How many Option [15%]
bytes are present in the datagram?

(iv) Explain the purpose of the Header Checksum field and what it does in IPv4. [15%]

(v) Explain how the datagram security is implemented in IPv4 protocol. [20%]

(vi) Explain what is the purpose and the main functions of the Options field in IPv4? [20%]

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Question 5

(i) The following IP addresses are given in dotted decimal notation: [10%]

31.129.80.10; 137.50.192.30; 200.199.198.197; 231.47.160.20

Present each address in binary notation, find its class, and hence derive the netid and
the hostid of each address.

(ii) Convert the IP addresses whose hexadecimal representation are: [25%]

(1) ABC23EF7; (2) 3FDA0599; (3) C721EA07; (4) 7D5F3A2B

to dotted decimal notation and to binary notation. Find the class and derive the netid
and hostid of each of these addresses.

(iii) A network has a subnet mask of 255.255.252.0. Find the maximum number of [15%]
hosts it can handle. (Hint: Remember about special addresses).

(iv) A campus has been allocated the 163.120.0.0/16 class B network address space. It [25%]
is necessary to support maximum 950 hosts per subnet and accommodate the
maximum number of subnets possible. Find the subnet mask which should be used.
Find the number of subnets supported by this mask. (Hint: Assume that the subnetids
with “all 0s” and “all 1s” (i.e. when the subnet part of the IP address consists either of
all zeros or all ones) must be excluded. This requirement is relaxed in modern
networks).

(v) Explain what are advantages and disadvantages of CIDR. Compare the router’s [25%]
operation in networks with and without CIDR. Using the CIDR addressing scheme, a
network within a larger network has been allocated a block of addresses which in the
dotted decimal representation is 210.48.48.0/20. Determine the lowest and highest
address in the block (expressed in dotted decimal notation) and the total number of
addresses in the network.

Question 6

(i) Explain concept of adjunct (control) protocols and list the main control protocols. [30%]

(ii) Explain briefly the functions carried out by each adjunct protocol, and, where [40%]
appropriate, compare their advantages and disadvantages. What are the similarities
and differences in functioning and implementation of ARP and RARP?

(iii) Why some of the adjunct protocols are not generally used nowadays? [30%]

(You are not required here to give a comprehensive description of the adjunct
protocols. The full answer to this question should not be longer than one A4 page).

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Question 7

(i) Explain what the congestion control in computer networks is, and how it differs [20%]
from the flow control.

(ii) Draw schematically the dependence of the congestion window Wc (in KB) on the [80%]
transmission time t (in the RTT units) for congested internet assuming the following
scenario: At t  33RTT the first three duplicate ACKs have been received by the
sender host before the RTO. After this another three duplicate ACKs were received at
t  67 RTT , and then at t  75RTT the first RTO of the sender’s acknowledgement
clock has occurred. You need to draw the dependence for a time interval between t=0
and t  80RTT and explain in detail each stage of the congestion window evolution.
Assume that at t  0 the first packet loss took place due to the RTO and the initial
window size is set to Wc  MSS  1 KB. The slow-start threshold for a fully open
congestion window is SST0 = 64 KB.

Question 8

(i) Explain in detail the Jacobson algorithm used to derive the RTO (Retransmission [20%]
Time-Out) interval for a TCP connection.

(ii) Using the Jacobson algorithm calculate the RTO if the current estimate of the RTT [60%]
(round-trip time) is 5.0 ms and the initial value of the mean deviation (dispersion) D is
0.7 ms. The further measurements resulted in the following values for RTT: M1 = 3.8
ms; M2 = 3.8 ms; M3 = 3.8 ms; M4 = 2.3 ms; M5 = 2.3 ms; M6 = 5.0 ms; M7 = 7.0 ms.
(Use the smoothing factor  = 0.875). Investigate the impact of  on calculation of
the RTT and how the results would change if  = 0.5 was used. You do not need to
carry out calculations for  = 0.5, just discuss what particular value of  reflects.

(iii) Explain what the Retransmission Ambiguity Problem is in connection with [20%]
dynamic estimation of RTT, and how the problem is resolved in the Karn’s algorithm.

Question 9

(i) Explain the difference between two transport layer protocols: TCP and UDP. [30%]

(ii) A client host sends a W = 320-byte file to a server which is L = 1200 km away [70%]
over a B = 2.5 Gb/s optical fibre network. Calculate the upper bound of the link
efficiency ( LEUB ) for this transmission assuming that the speed of light in optical
fibre is c = 200,000 km/s. What would be the LEUB for a link with transmission speed
B = 2.5 Mb/s?

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Question 10

(i) Explain static and dynamic routing in computer networks. [5%]

(ii) Describe the two main dynamic routing algorithms, their advantages and [10%]
disadvantages.

(iii) What is a purpose of Dijksra algorithm? Apply Dijkstra algorithm to compute the [55%]
shortest path from any one node of your choice to each other node in the network
shown in Figure 10.1. The numbers on each line shows the cost of the corresponding
line. Show in a table or describe in the text each step undertaken in the calculations.
The final routing table should show the obtained routes and their costs.

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2 1
H
5
4 6

2 3
4

3 2

K
Figure 10.1

(iv) Explain the main features and the applications of two routing protocols: RIP and [15%]
OSPF.

(v) Explain general architecture of the Internet routing. What is a definition of [15%]
Autonomous System (AS) and Area in global internetworks? Explain how hierarchy
of the Internet is used for optimisation of the packet routing, list the main classes of
routers used in global Internet and the corresponding protocols.

Question 11

(i) Discuss the main reasons behind the definition of IP version 6, IPv6, protocol, [20%]
including the main new features associated with it.

(ii) List the main fields in IPv6 packet header and explain the role of each field. (You [20%]
may sketch the IPv6 Main Header to support your explanation).

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(iii) Explain IPv6 address structure and IPv6 address representation. Give a few [20%]
examples of IPv6 addresses in non-optimised and optimised representation.

(iv) What is the address aggregation in IPv6? [20%]

(v) What is a role of Extension Headers in IPv6 packets? List the six types of [20%]
Extension Header and state their use. What are the positions of Extended Headers
with respect to the Main Header in IPv6 packet?

Question 12

(i) Explain in detail how authentication and security services are provided in IPv6. [20%]
What is IPSec?

(ii) With the aid of diagrams explain the Transport Mode and Tunnel Mode [30%]
encryption. What is the difference between these modes?

(iii) Explain Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption algorithms and how are they [20%]
implemented in IPv6.

(iv) Give a brief description of ICMPv6? [10%]

(v) Explain what is a purpose of DNS? What are the Iterative and Recursive Name [20%]
Resolution protocols?