COMP3191 – Semester 1 2017/2018

Assigned: Nov. 23, 2017

Due: Dec. 1, 2017 @2355

Assignment 1
1.
Fig. 1 shows two TCP senders at left and the corresponding receivers at right. The first sender
uses TCP Tahoe, and the second uses Reno. Assume that the MSS is 1 KB, that the one-way
propagation delay for both connections is 100 ms and the link joining the two routers has a
bandwidth of 25 Mbps. To simplify your calculations in this problem you may also assume that 1
KB = 1000 bytes, and 1 MB = 1000 KB. Let cwnd1 and cwnd2 be the values of the senders’
congestion windows.

Figure 1: Two TCP connections sharing a bottleneck link

a. What is the smallest value of cwnd1+cwnd2, in KB, for which the link joining the two
routers stays busy all the time?
Hint: Recall that the RTT is twice the one-way propagation delay.
b. Assume that the link buffer overflows whenever cwnd1+cwnd2 ≥ 1250 KB, and that at
time t = 0, cwnd1 = 1000 KB and cwnd2 = 250 KB. Approximately, what are the values of
cwnd1 and cwnd2 one RTT later? Also, what are the values of ssthresh for each of the
two connections? Assume that all losses are detected by triple duplicate ACKs.
c. After 8 more RTTs, approximately what are the values of cwnd1 and cwnd2?
d. Approximately how many more RTTs before cwnd1+cwnd2 ≥ 1250 KB again?
2. Consider the 7-node network shown below, with the given link costs. Using Dijkstra's algorithm,
find the least cost path from source node D to all other destinations. Show your work in tabular
format, as in Table 4.3 in the text.
 A 2 B 6 C

7
7
1 3
D
20
2
G 7 F 7 E

3. Consider the 7-node network shown below, with the given link costs. Suppose that a distance-
vector routing algorithm is run on this network, and that algorithm uses poison reverse.

A 2 B 6 C

7
7
1 3
D
20
2
G 7 F 7 E

a. After the routing algorithm has converged, what path does a packet take from G to D?
Specify all hops along the path (e.g., G-X-Y-Z…-D).
b. What distance toward D does router G advertise to router F?
c. Assume that the link between E and F goes down. Before any routing messages are sent
(but E and F recompute their shortest available paths based on what they have
previously been told by their neighbors), when a packet with destination D arrives at F,
to which router does F send that packet?
d. Assume that the link between E and F stays down, and that the algorithm has had a
chance to reconverge. When a packet with destination D arrives at F, to which
neighboring router is it sent?
4. IPv6 addresses
a. What is an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address for a host with an IPv4 address of 196.3.1.63?
b. What is the compact IPv6 address for
48CD:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0A4D:A446
c. How does IPv6 not having a header checksum improve router performance?
5. ASN
a. What is an AS number?
b. How many bits are in an AS number?
c. Who assigns AS numbers?
d. What is the AS number for the UWI, Mona? For the University of Kansas?
e. Are business relationships important in BGP? Justify your answer.
6. Suppose that the ALOHA protocol is used to share a 100 kbps radio channel. Suppose that
frames are 1000 bits long.
a. Find the maximum packet arrival rate in packets/sec.
b. Would you operate the network using the rate found in part a)? Justify your answer.
7. Timers are used in some token ring networks to provide priority access. When token arrives at a
station, a timer is reset to 0. The station then starts to transmit priority 4 frames until the timer
reaches T4. Then the station is allowed to transmit priority 3 frames until the timer reaches T3.
Following the transmission of priority 3 frames, the station transmits priority 2 frames and then
priority 1 frames using the same algorithm. What is the fraction of the total capacity reserved
for each priority class if all stations have timer values of T4=30 ms, T3=70 ms, T2=90 ms, and
T1=100 ms.
8. With all other factors fixed, does the efficiency of CSMA/CD scale as the data rate decreases?
1
9. The maximum throughput of CSMA/CD is given by: 𝑑prop . Assuming the speed of light in the
1+6.44
𝑑trans

transmission medium is 2.5 × 108 m/s.

a. Find the range of data rates which will result in a maximum throughput of greater than
0.8 for a packet size of 4660 bits and a distance of 250 m.
b. How much does the maximum throughput decline for a rate of 100 Mbps as the packet
size changes from 4600 bits to 830 bits for a distance of 250 m?
c. Find the range of packet lengths that will result in a maximum throughput of greater
than 0.6 for a distance of 500 m and a rate of 1.1 Gbps.
d. Consider the result in part c), as the packet length increases the maximum throughput
increases, then why not use a packet length of 100,000 bits?
 10. Consider the L2 network depicted in the figure, and assume that in the beginning none of the
switches have any forwarding state.
A

B7

B5

B2
C

D
B1

B3

H
G

B4 B6
J

a. Indicate which ports are not selected by the spanning tree algorithm.
b. Assume that switch B1 suffers catastrophic failure. Indicate which ports are not selected
by the spanning tree algorithm after the recovery process and a new tree has been
formed.

Acknowledgments
Problems 4—9 are from Prof. Victor S. Frost at The University of Kansas. Problems 2 and 3 are derived
from problems used at UC Berkeley.