AAiT – ITSC 1071

(Fundamentals of IT)

Lecture 3 – Networking
Reading (see piazza – reading section):
- Handouts from Harvard university (Must read) (http://
cdn.computerscience1.net/2010/spring/lectures/3/notes3.pdf)
- Warriors of the Net video on YouTube (Recommended)
- Text book chapter 3 (Further reading)
What Is the Internet?

 1969

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What Is the Internet?

 1977

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What Is the Internet?

 Internet: global system of interconnected

computer networks
 Local Area Networks (LAN)
 Connects Devices in close proximity
 E.g 5killo Network (Wired and wireless
 Wide Area Networks (WAN)
 Connect devices across cities,
or country.
 Provided by Internet Service
Provider (ISP)
 E.g EthioTelecom’s network

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Sending Data Over The Internet

 Computers are not directly connected

 Must pass through intermediaries
 Routers offer very fast internal network speeds.
 Data can be transferred at upwards of 1 gigabit per
second between computers connected to a router.

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 Trace Route
 Tracing data path from US (Netwok-tools.com) to Ethiopia (AAiT)

Hop (ms) (ms) (ms)      IP Address Host name

1    0    0    0       206.123.64.233   -   Missouri, US
2    1    1    1       129.250.202.253  xe-0-4-012.r01.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net
  Colorado, US – NTT America (ISP)
3    1    1    1       89.221.40.162  ae0.dallas2.dal.seabone.net  
4    362    343    342       185.70.202.2Dallas,   -US
  – NTT America (ISP)
5    386    386    385       185.70.202.9  -  Italy, RIPE ISP
6    404    403    404       197.254.194.22   -   Italy, RIPE ISP
7    Timed out    Timed out    Timed out     Sudan

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Trace Route

 Data can take many different paths while

travelling from computer to computer
 A program called traceroute will allow us to see
what steps were taken to transfer data.
 AAiT, and EthioTelecom have disabled capabilities

 We can traceroute from another computer to

our machine though
 Go to http://network-tools.com/default.asp?
prog=trace
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Sending Data Over The Internet

 Router: networking device that routes and

forwards information
 E.g All computers from 2 to 7 in the previous slide
are routers

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IP Address
 IP (Internet Protocol) address: numerical address
given to each computer connected to the Internet
 An IP address consists of four numbers (ranging

from 0 to 255) separated by periods.

 Examples of IP addresses in previous example:
 206.123.64.233  computer in Missouri, US
 129.250.202.253  Colorado US
 197.254.194.22  Sundan
 How did I know what the IP Addresses were
 There is an IP registration database
 http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=whois

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What is my IP

 Type Windows key + R  type cmd  Press

Enter
 Type ipconfig and press Enter

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Domain Name System (DNS)
 Difficult to remember IP address if you want
to request information from another computer
 Domain Name: human-readable name given to a
related group of networked computers
 E.g facebook.com, aait.edu.et

 Domain Name System (DNS): The system that

converts domain names to IP addresses behind
the scenes
 E.g facebook.com  66.220.144.0 - 66.220.159.255
 What if I type in 66.220.144.0 on my browser?

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Internet Domain Hierarchy
DNS is Arranged Hierarchically (Like Ethiopian Names)
- root gives a name for et (Ethiopia) and stores its IP
- et gives domain names for education (edu)
government organization (gov) and stores their respective IP addr
- et in turn gives names for bdu and aait and stores IP addresses
General
root

top-level
org net et com uk ca
domains

net gov edu com

aait bdu
Specific
aait.edu.et 12
Top-Level Domain
 top-level domain: last part of domain name
 Examples:
 .com (commercial)
 .org (organization)
 .edu (education)
 .gov (government)
 .et (Ethiopia)
 .uk (United Kingdom)
 .ca (Canada)

 Some top-level domains (e.g., .com and .org) are open for
registration to anyone, whereas others (e.g., .gov and .edu)
have rules restricting eligibility.

 List of top-level domains:

 http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/

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DNS Lookup Example
root
t DNS server
du .e
it.e et
aa S
N et
t DNS server
aait.edu.et it .e du.e
aa
.et
S edu
N
aait.edu.et
edu.et
A aait=IPaddr
Local DNS DNS server
Client
resolver

DNS servers : Machines dedicated for translation are called

- There are multiple replicas of DNS servers in case one of them fail
- Use caching to improve performance. Remembering IP address of a domain
name once it is resolved.

DNS record types (partial list):

- NS: name server (points to other server)
- A: address record (contains IP address)

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Domain Registration
 To get your own website, you’ll need to register a
domain name of your own on DNS servers
 .gov, .edu are restricted
 But you can buy from .net, .com, .org, .et
 Since 2009 there are new additions such
as .bike, .clothing, …
 You must also tell them the IP address of the server
 But you can rent this too. E.g from smarterasp.net

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Modems and Routers

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Getting an IP Address
 DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
 protocol for assigning IP addresses to devices on a network
 Also gives you the list of DNS servers that you should
contact to resolve your addresses
 DHCP also provides the primary router with which your
computer will communicate
 This is called the default gateway.
 After we send the data to our primary router we trust that our data will
eventually get to the destination
 Runs automatically when you are connected to a
network

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 Getting an IP Address Via DHCP
Server (not selected) Client Server (selected)
Broadcast to
DHCP DISCOVER DHCP DISCOVER
all addresses

DHCP O FER
FFER DHCP OF
Client
DHCP REQ.
Collects repliesDHCP REQ. it accepts one
Also broadcast
server’s offer
CK
DHCPA and implicitly
reject rest
Initialization Complete

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Getting an IP Address Via DHCP

1. Client broadcasts need for an IP address.

2. DHCP servers on the network respond.
3. Client chooses a server and sends the MAC
(Media Access Control) address of its network
card.
 MAC address: globally unique identifier assigned to
network cards by manufacturers
4. DHCP server responds with an IP address and
other useful information. The server records that
the address is now in use.
 DHCP servers can also refuse to give an IP address for
security reasons or if there are no more free addresses.

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Demo

 If you want to see DHCP in action:

 Open network connection properties
 see if the connection has
“Obtain IP address” and
“Obtain DNS automatically”
checked
 Otherwise you are not
using DHCP

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IPv6

 Recall IP addresses are four numbers – each

from 0 – 255
 There can only be 4 billion unique addresses.
 Today there 7 billion people
 If we assume one address for each person, we will run
out of IP addresses in the near future
 IPversion 6 is replacing the current IP version 4
 There an be 2128 addresses in IPv6

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Leveraging Limited Addresses
 Another way of leveraging the limited
number of IP addresses is to use one IP
for more than one computer.
 Home routers communicate with
the internet via a single external IP address
 Each computer connected to router via different
internal IP addresses.
 Internal IP addresses are often of the form 10.1.x.y or
192.168.x.y.
 The router will relay the information from servers to
each computer

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Routers – different roles
 Routers can be called:
 Home routers
 If they offer connectivity to multiple
devices at home
 Access points (AP)
 If they offer wireless connectivity
 These access points implement an
802.11 standard.
 Variants - 802.11a, 802.11b (11MBPS), 802.11n (600 MBPS)
 NAT (Network Address Translation) routers.
 If they translate internal
and external IP addresses

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Firewalls
 Routers and modems may implement a
firewall for security purposes.
 Allowing requests made by the user and the
responses responses to go through or blocking
unsolicited connection attempts from outsiders.
 E.g MIT, owns all the IP addresses of the form 18.x.y.z.
– AAiT can block connections to these addresses
 Firewalls pose problems to technologies like Voice
Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) such as viber
 These rely on one user being able to initiate contact with
another via a phonecall.
 The Great Firewall of China affects a population of
over 1 billion.
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Administrivia

 Reading
 Harvard University’s Understanding computers and
the internet – networking
 http://cdn.computerscience1.net/2010/spring/lectures/3/notes3.pdf
 The lecture videos are available
 Watch warriors of the net video on YouTube
 Fluency With Information Technology Chapter 3
 You tube tutorials on:
 ipconfig, traceroute, ping, and nslookup
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h43fmazlkoI

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