Chapter 1 questions

1. What is the difference between a host and an end system? List the types of end systems. Is a Web server an end system?
2. The word protocol is often used to describe diplomatic relations. Give an example of a diplomatic protocol.
3. What is a client program? What is a server program? Does a server program request and receive services from a client program?
4. What are two types of transport services that the Internet provides to its applications? What are some characteristics of each of these services?
5. Provide a brief, high-level description of how the Internet's connection-oriented service provides reliable transport.
6. Contrast flow control and congestion control, i.e. what is the difference between them?
7. Design and describe an application-level protocol to be used between an automatic teller machine and a bank's centralized computer. Your protocol should allow a user's card and password to be verified, the account balance (which is maintained at the centralized computer) to be queried, and an account withdrawal to be made (that is, money disbursed to the user). Your protocol entities should be able to handle the all-too-common case in which there is not enough money in the account to cover the withdrawal. Specify your protocol by listing the messages exchanged and the action taken by the automatic teller machine or the bank's centralized computer on transmission and receipt of messages. Sktech the operation of your protocol for the case of a simple withdrawal with no errors, using a diagram similar to that of Figure 1.2 (page 8 of 4th-7th edition or page 7 of 3rd edition). Explicitly state the assumptions made by your protocol about the underlying end-to-end transport service.

Chapter 2 questions

1. List five nonproprietary Internet applications and the application-layer protocols that they use.
2. What is the difference between network architecture and application architecture?
3. In what way is instant messaging a hybrid of client server and P2P architectures?
4. For a communication session between a pair of processes, which process is the client and which is the server?
5. In a P2P file-sharing application, do you agree with the statement, "There is no notion of client and server sides of a communication session"? Why or why not?
6. What information is used by a process running on one host to identify a process running on another host?
7. List the various network-application user agents that you use on a daily basis.
8. What is meant by a handshaking protocol?
9. What is the difference between persistent HTTP with pipelining and persistent HTTP without pipelining? Which of the two is used by HTTP/1.1?
10. True or false?
    • a. A user requests a Web page that consists of some text and two images; for this page, the client will send one request message and receive three response messages.
    • b. Two distinct Web pages (for example, www.mit.edu/research.html and www.mit.edu/students.html) can be sent over the same persistent connection.
    • c. With nonpersistent connections between browser and origin server, it is possible for a single TCP segment to carry two distinct HTTP request messages.
    • d. The Date: header in the HTTP response message indicates when the object in the response was last modified.
11. Re: Figure 2.5 (page 96 of 6th edition or page 97 of 5th edition or page 93 of 4th edition or page 86 of 3rd edition), why do applications such as electronic mail, remote terminal access, the Web, and file transfer run on top of TCP rather than UDP? Why do Internet telephony applications typically run over UDP rather than TCP?
12. Visit http://www.iana.org. What protocols are associated with the well-known port numbers 21, 22, 23, 25, and 80?

Chapter 4 question

1. There are two ways a host can be assigned an IP address. One is manual configuration by a system administrator (typically in a file on the host). The other is DHCP. What does DHCP stand for, what is its purpose, and why is it popular? Illustrate with example(s) of why it is used. (Refer to pages 345-349 of 6th edition or 355-359 of 5th edition or 349-353 of 4th edition or pages 338-339 of 3rd edition.)

The assignment should be done individually.

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