Communication Networks (Fall 2008-9)

* The final exams were returned. A 5 point bonus for the exam grade was awarded for every student which received at least 50 point in the exam.
* A letter from Yehuda - Supplemental pages (hand written) for the exam
* Suggested solution to the final exam (updated) - please note that it is a suggested solution. It does not get into full details, and it present one possible solution in places where there may be some.

Course Summary

This course provides an introduction to fundamental concepts of computer communication networks, their protocols, and applications.

Administrative Info

Lecture Sun 16:00-19:00
Recitations Wed 11:00-12:00, Wed 12:00-13:00

Contact Info

Lecturer Yehuda Afek afek -at- post tau ac il Appointment by email coordination.
TA Yahav Nussbaum nuss -at- post tau ac il
Grader Eran Cohen erancoh1 -at- post tau ac il

Discussions

At the Virtul.t@u site of the course.

Course Material

Textbooks

Slides

Week Lecture Recitation
1 Introduction and Layering Socket Programing
2 Physical Layer, Data Link Layer, MAC Protocols
3 Hubs, Bridges, Switches Data Link Layer
4 Switching Units STP, Switching Fabric (no slides)
5 Scheduling: Buffer Management Scheduling, WFQ example
6 Network Layer: Routing Routing (updated)
7 Reliable Data Transfer IP (no slides)
8 End to End Protocols ARQ
9 Hanukkah
10 Flow Control, Congestion Control TCP flow & congestion control
11 Network Security Network Sniffing (no slides)
12 DNS, HTTP TCP (state chart), RSA example (from here)
13 DDoS Rehearsal (we will solve questions from homework and past exams)

Homework assignments

Note: The homework guidelines (click here) are obligating.
Practical homework FAQ (updated Nov 20)
Note: All homework assignments are mandatory. The lowest grade out of the four theoretical assignments will not be taken into account, if it is less than the grade of the final exam.

Grades
Assignment Due date Notes
Practical #1 Nov 26, 2008 From the grader: test data (word)
Theoretical #1 Dec 3, 2008
Theoretical #2 Dec 17, 2008 The writing "3 x 3" refers to 3 inputs and 3 outputs
Practical #2 End of
Jan 4, 2009		 Note:There is a mistake in the output example. The viewer should get the message "You are player 3".
From the grader: test data (word)
Theoretical #3 Jan 14, 2009
Practical #3 Jan 23, 2009 9:00am Linux TFTP client (for AMD64) man page
From the grader: automatic tests scores
Theoretical #4 Jan 28, 2009 Note:In question 3 do not use ASCII encoding, use the following encoding: A=1, B=2, ..., Z=26.
In question 2, the 1 in 8 lost packets refers to the data packets only (the ACKs are not lost).
solution guidelines (rtf)

Wireshark

website
On the Debian machines in our school you will find it under Applications -> Internet.

Final Exam

You can find samples of past final exams in the following places:
Last year's exams - A (with solution), B.
The site of the year before, look at the buttom of the page for old exams, the exam of this year with solution is on the top of the page.
The equivalent course in enginneering.
Note that the course material is not identical every year.