Computer Networks I – Exam 1 Prototype

CSE 5344, Section XXX

Total Points Possible: 100
Final Grade Weighting: XX%

Student Name: ________________________________ Last-4 Digits SID#: ___________

This exam covers Chapters 1 – 3 of the Kurose and Ross text and our class
work to date. The exam is organized into three sections as follows:

Section I – True/False (Weight : 30%)

Section II – Multiple Choice, Fill-in/Short Answer (Weight : 40%)
Section II – Numerical Problems (Weight : 30%)

Please ensure that you follow the instructions carefully for each section.
Provide your name and student ID# (last-4) in the spaces provided at the top of
this page, and the last four digits of your student ID# on the top of each of the
remaining pages.

Section I - True/False (2 points per question – total:30 points)

Instructions: Circle the letter beside the choice that is the best answer for each question. Circle
the letter “T” (for True) if the statement is correct, or the letter “F” (for False) if the statement is
incorrect.
1. T / F The Internet’s Transport Layer protocol provides reliable data transfer between end
systems.
2. T / F Packet switching, instead of circuit switching, is generally used to transfer data in the
Internet.
3. T / F Networks should be designed such that the Traffic Intensity value for each network
node is less than 1.
4. T / F The purpose of MIME is to specify the format of the header information that is
contained in an email message.
5. T / F The SMTP command “SUBJ LINE:” is used to specify the subject line in an SMTP
mail message.
6. T / F TCP provides a guaranteed bandwidth service to the application layer.
7. T / F The maximum size of a single UDP segment is limited to 216 –1 bytes.
8. T / F The Destination Port Number specified by a client in the TCP and UDP segment
header is used to identify the communications port to be accessed on the server.
9. T / F Packet switched networks use a methodology known as statistical-multiplexing in
order to optimize network capacity utilization and sharing of resources among a
large number of users.
10. T / F FTP uses two separate TCP connections, one to port 20 and one to port 21, and is said
to send its commands “out of band”.

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11. T / F During the first step of a TCP connection handshake between a client and a server,
the server receives a TCP segment with a null sequence number and the SYN bit set
to 1.
12. T / F A stop-and-wait protocol will typically demonstrate a higher channel utilization
factor than a pipelined protocol.
13. T / F TCP congestion control is designed to prevent buffer overflow in network end-
systems.
14. T / F In modeling network congestion, as “offered load” increases relative to “real load”,
network throughput generally improves.
15. T / F Due to the characteristics of its congestion avoidance algorithm, TCP can be said to
be a “fair” protocol with regard to sharing available bandwidth among users of a
common transmission link.

Section II - Multiple Choice, Fill-in, Short Answer (2 points per question –

total: 40 points)
Instructions: Circle the letter beside the choice that is the best answer for each question. For
multiple choice, choose only ONE answer unless specifically asked to do otherwise. For Fill-in
and Short Answer questions, provide ONLY the number of answers requested in the spaces
indicated. Any additional answers you provide beyond the number requested will not be credited.
There will be no partial credit awarded for answers in this section.

1. Which of the following services does the Internet network layer provide for the Internet
transport layer?
a. in-order delivery of data segments between processes
b. best effort delivery of data segments between communicating hosts
c. multiplexing and demultiplexing of transport layer segments
d. congestion control

2. The definitive specifications for most of the Internet’s protocol stack is found in:
a. Detailed specifications maintained by the ITU-T
b. A body of working documents known as Requests For Comment (RFCs)
c. IEEE 800.3
d. IANA documents numbered 0000 – 1024
e. all of the above

3. List the four different types of delays encountered in packet switched networks:
a. _________________________________________
b. _________________________________________
c. _________________________________________
d. _________________________________________

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4. Fill in below the names of the four upper layers of the Internet’s protocol stack, listed in order
from the “top” layer to the “bottom” (physical) layer:
a. ____________________________ (top layer)
b. ____________________________
c. ____________________________
d. ____________________________
e. GIVEN: Physical (bottom layer)

5. The main reason(s) why the Internet’s Domain Name System is implemented as a distributed
database is/are:
a. poor performance due to distance for some users
b. single point of failure in the system
c. huge bandwidth required to a single location
d. all of the above

6. The main task of the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) is to:
a. translate port numbers to IP addresses
b. specify the standards for Internet domain names
c. provide an authority for registering domain names
d. translate mnemonic names to IP addresses
e. none of the above

7. Consider the operation of downloading a Web page consisting of an index page that
references 3 JPEG objects. Assuming that the server does not parse the index page, and
ignoring latency involved in transferring the objects themselves, fill in the blanks below
with the correct values:
a. Utilizing HTTP/1.0 with no parallel connection capability, the number of RTTs
required to download the page is _______.
b. Utilizing the default mode of HTTP/1.1, _______ RTTs are required to download
the page.

8. Given the following lines from a Java program segment:

Socket connectionSocket;
ServerSocket listenSocket = new ServerSocket(7890);
Which of the following lines of code could be used to establish an incoming connection with a
requesting host?
a. connectionSocket = listenSocket.accept();
b. Socket connection = ServerSocket.accept();
c. ServerSocket.accept = connectionSocket;
d. Socket connectionSocket = ServerSocket.accept();

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9. Given the following lines from a Java program segment:

byte[] dataOut = new byte [512];
String userInput = inFromUser.readLine();
dataOut = userInput.getBytes();
Which of the following lines of code could be used to create a new UDP datagram packet to
send the data that was provided by the user to a host identified by the InetAddress object
IPAddress?
a. DatagramPacket packetToSend = new DatagramPacket(dataOut, dataOut.length,
IPAddress, 9876);
b. UDPPacket = new UDPDataGram (userInput, userInput.length, IPaddress,
portNumber);
c. DatagramPacket packetToSend = new DatagramPacket(dataOut, dataOut.length,
IPAddress);
d. Socket datagramSocket = new dataGramPacket(dataOut, IPAddress);

10. In question number 8. above, what is the purpose of the numeric value “7890” and how is it
used by the client?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

11. In a hierarchical overlay peer-to-peer network, such as is used with popular services such as
KaZaA/FastTrack:
a. peer hosts acquire content and directory information from a centralized server
b. peers hosts join the network via a bootstrapping node and uses flooding to acquire
content
c. peer hosts join the network via a bootstrapping node and distribute/acquire content via
a node designated as a group leader
d. the most decentralized approach used in popular P2P content distribution networks is
employed

12. Consider a TCP connection between sender A and receiver B. Sender A sends a 900 byte
TCP segment with sequence number 3100 and header length 20 bytes. What
acknowledgement number will receiver B reply with to inform sender A that it has received
this segment correctly and in order? (Ignore the possibility of a cumulative ack for this
question.)

Answer:

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13. When a destination host transport layer receives data from the network layer, it
unambiguously identifies the appropriate process to pass the data to by using a triplet
consisting of:
a. source port #, destination IP address, and source IP address
b. destination port #, source port #, process ID#
c. destination port #, source port #, destination IP address
d. destination port #, source port #, source IP address
e. none of the above
14. The role of the CDN provider’s authoritative DNS name server in a content distribution
network, simply described, is:
a. to provide an alias address for each browser access to the “origin server” of a CDN
website
b. to map the query for each CDN object to the CDN server closest to the requestor
(browser)
c. to provide a mechanism for CDN “origin servers” to provide paths for clients
(browsers)
d. none of the above, CDN networks do not use DNS
15. In order to support local caching of previously retrieved objects, and thereby reduce average
delay encountered in object retrieval via the Web, the HTTP protocol provides:
a. cookies
b. content type MIME
c. HTML modification data
d. conditional GET
e. none of the above
16. Given that the requested information is not available at any intermediate databases, a non-
iterated DNS query from a requesting host would follow the path:
a. root name server, local name server, authoritative name server
b. authoritative name server, root name server, host name server
c. local name server, root name server, local name server, authoritative name server
d. local name server, root name server, authoritative name server
e. none of the above
17. From the list below, select the items found in the TCP segment structure that are not found in
the UDP segment structure (circle all that apply – no partial credit):
a. Application Generated Data
b. Destination Port #
c. Source Port #
d. Sequence #
e. Receiver Window Size
f. Acknowledgement #
g. Segment Length
h. Checksum
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18. An alternating-bit protocol which provides reliable data transfer between two end-points
would utilize:
a. a checksum to detect and correct bit errors
b. a timer/timeout value at the receiver to detect packet loss
c. a range of sequence numbers from 0 to n, where n is the window size
d. cumulative acknowledgements
e. none of the above

19. Select the four essential steps, briefly described, for terminating a TCP connection between a
client and a server, assuming that the initiating host is the client (select exactly 4 - no partial
credit):
a. Client sends TCP segment with ACK0 and final sequence number
b. Client sends TCP segment with FIN =1 and goes into FIN_WAIT state
c. Server sends TCP segment to ACK the client’s FIN request and enters CLOSE_WAIT
state
d. Server sends TCP segment with FIN=0
e. Server sends TCP segment with FIN=1
f. Client sends TCP segment with to ACK server’s FIN and enters second FIN_WAIT
state
g. Client sends TCP segment with FIN=0

20. Considering a fixed congestion window model, which of the following values are compared to
determine if server stalls are encountered?
a. O/S , log2(W/S + 1)
b. RTT, S/R
c. WS/R, RTT + S/R
d. WS/R, 2RTT + S/R
e. none of the above

Section III - Numerical Problems ( 6 points per question - total 30 points)

Instructions: Calculate the values requested and provide a numeric answer for each question.
You may use a calculator if desired, but problems have been developed in such a way that
calculators should not be required. Show your work for each problem. If you need additional
space, use the back of the page, but be sure to identify the problem number associated with the
calculations. Select the numeric result of your calculations from the choices provide, or fill in the
blanks where requested. Maximum credit can only be achieved if you circle the correct
numeric value from the choices provides, AND you show the calculations used to derive the
answer. Partial credit may be awarded for complete and accurate calculations with minor errors.
No credit will be given for an answer selected with no work shown (i.e. “lucky guesses” do not
count).

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1. Given the following values at Router B, calculate the transmission rate, R, required from
Router B in order to achieve a Traffic Intensity at Router B of 0.6:
s = propagation speed of the link from B = 2.5 * 108 meters per second
a = average arrival rate of packets at B = 600 packets/second
L = specified packet length for all packets arriving at B = 1000 bits
Q = number of upstream routers in the link to B = 2
d = distance to next-hop router from B = 2800km
CALCULATIONS:

ANSWER:
a. 1.0 Mbps
b. 1.4 Mbps
c. 2.5 Mbps
d. 1.25 Mbps

2. Calculate the end-to-end delay, dend-end, between the source host and the destination host in a
network with 4 routers between source and destination? Assume that the network is NOT
congested (i.e. dqueue is insignificant), and that:
i. all packets are 10,000 bits in length,
ii. each link between source and destination is 5 kilometers long,
iii. the processing time is 10msec at the source host and at each router,
iv. the transmission rate from the source host and each router is 1Mbps,
v. the propagation speed of each link is 2.5 x 108 meters/second.
CALCULATIONS:

ANSWER:
a. 88 milliseconds
b. 100.1 milliseconds
c. 110 milliseconds
d. 1.21 seconds

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3. Consider a value known as the “stop-and-wait utilization penalty” which represents the
difference between sender bandwidth utilization in a stop-and-wait protocol and a pipelined
protocol over the same channel. Calculate the stop-and-wait utilization penalty for data
transmissions between two points, A and B, where:
i. the specified packet size is 4000 bits/packet
ii. the data transmission rate on the link between A and B is 2.0 Mbps
iii. the propagation time from A to B is 20 msec
iv. the window size of the pipelined protocol is 10

CALCULATIONS:

ANSWER:
a. 0.432
b. 0.891
c. 0.281
d. 0.202

4. Calculate the simplified TCP latency observed at the requesting client when downloading a
single 60,000 Byte object from a website. Assume the following:
i. there is no loss or corruption in the network (i.e. no retransmissions),
ii. the receiver’s receive buffer is infinite in size (i.e. it is not a factor),
iii. the congestion window is fixed at 10 segments,
iv. the transmission rate of the link is 100Kbps,
v. the maximum segment size is 10,000 bits, and
vi. the RTT is consistent at 1.0 seconds
CALCULATIONS:

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ANSWER (problem 4 above):

a. 6.2 seconds
b. 4.4 seconds
c. 4.6 seconds
d. 7.2 seconds (typo – was 7.3 on exam)

5. Given that the previously calculated values for Estimated RTT and RTT Deviation are as
shown below, and that the new sample RTT shown has just been measured, what Timeout
interval will TCP use for the next transmitted segment?
i. EstimatedRTT (k) = 4 msec
ii. DevRTT (k) = 2 msec
iii. new SampleRTT = 8 msec
iv. α = .125
v. β = .25
CALCULATIONS:

ANSWER:
a. 8.5 milliseconds
b. 9.0 milliseconds
c. 12.75 milliseconds
d. 14.5 milliseconds

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