CMPT 371 Assignment #1 Fall 2019

Due Date: Friday, September 27 at 3:00 PM in the course assignment box.

PART I: Questions on Chapters 1 and 2

1. Consider a 1 Gbps network link that is shared by users, each of whom is transmitting 20%
of the time and requires 450 Mbps when transmitting.

(a) Determine the maximum number n of users that the link can support when circuit-
switching is used and calculate the average percentage of the link bandwidth that is
used when there are n users.
(b) Suppose that packet-switching is used and that there are 5n users sharing the link where
n is the value that you found in part (a). Determine the probability that n or fewer
users are active simultaneously. (Hint: Use the binomial theorem.)
(c) Repeat part (b), but this time determine the probability that 4n or more users are active
simultaneously.

2. Problem P18 (pg. 73) in the textbook. In parts (a) and (d) only compute the mean and
standard deviation to the destination, not the intermediate routers. The command traceroute
hostname should work on any host using a Unix-like (e.g., Linux or OS X) operating system.
The command man traceroute gives information about traceroute. On a Microsoft Windows
host, use the tracert command in a cmd shell. On a Mac running OS X, traceroute is available
in the Network Utility. Another option on a Unix-like host is the tracepath command. The
output formats of these commands are slightly different but all will provide the information
that you need to answer the questions.

3. Suppose that two hosts, A and B, are connected by a link with length m = 12, 000 km
and transmission rate R = 100 Mbps. Suppose that the propagation speed over the link is
s = 2.0 · 105 km/sec.

(a) Calculate the bandwidth-delay product, R · dprop .

(b) Suppose that a file of 5 Mb is sent continuously as a single message from host A to host
B. What is the maximum number of bits that will be in the link at any given time?
(c) What quantity does the bandwidth-delay product measure?
(d) What is the width in metres of a bit in the link?
(e) Derive a general expression for the width of a bit in terms of the propagation speed s,
the transmission rate R, and the length of the link m. Be sure to consider both long
links and very short links when deriving your expression.
(f) For what values of R, s, and m is the width of a bit the same as the length of a link?

4. A message of length 4 MB is to be sent over a path of 3 links in a packet-switched network.

The propagation delay on each link is β = 1 msec and the transmission rate is R = 1 Mbps. In
this question, we will compare the time to complete the transmission using message switching
(message is sent in a single transmission) and packet-switching (message is partitioned into
packets which are transmitted in a pipeline). Assume that the headers have length 0 and
there are no processing delays at the nodes.
 (a) Calculate the total time Tms from the start of transmission at the first node of the path
to the time that the last bit is received at the last node of the path when message
switching is used.
(b) For packet switching, Tps is defined similarly to Tms . Determine the number of packets
p that minimizes the total time Tps when packet switching is used and calculate Tps .

5. Read the HTTP/1.1 specification (RFC 2616) which you can find in the RFC Sourcebook by
following the link on the Resources page of the course website.

(a) What does it mean for a client to ”pipeline” requests to a server over a persistent
connection? How must the server respond to these requests?
(b) Does HTTP/1.1 provide a client with any ways to prevent the transmission of sensitive
or private information? Explain.
(c) What is an advantage of a proxy cache using a conditional GET to request an object
from an origin server? Is is always necessay for a proxy cache to contact an origin server
when a client requests an object?
(d) How does a client request a non-persistent connection?

6. P19 (pg. 178) in the textbook describes an approach to exploring the process of getting IP
addresses through the DNS hierarchy. Use this approach to find the IP addresses of the SFU
Web server, the School of Computing Science Web server, and one other Web site outside of
SFU in the .ca domain. Attach listings of your queries. This exercise should be done on a
Unix or Linux host.

Note: You must show your derivations and explain your reasoning in your answers to the above
questions. A formula or numerical value with no explanation will not receive any marks, even if it
is correct. Also pay close attention to the units (e.g., Mb vs. MB). In all questions, Mbps means
106 bits/sec.

PART II: Wireshark Lab 1

The link to Wireshark Lab 1 is on the Homework page of the course website. You need to install
and use the Wireshark packet sniffer/analyzer on your own computer. SFU will not let me install
it on the CSIL computers.