Com S 486 Name:_______KEYS__________

Spring 2013

Q1. (5 points) Can a computer have two DNS names that fall in different top levels? If so, give
a plausible example. If not, explain why not.

ANS. It is possible.
www.large-bank.com and www.large-bank.ny.us could have the same
IP address. Thus, an entry under com and the other under one of the
country domains is certainly possible and common.
Q2. (5 points) How does TCP detect a lost packet? What action is taken when loss is detected?

ANS. TCP can detect loss in two ways. If a timeout occurs, TCP infers that a
packet was lost and retransmits the packet for which the timer has expired. It also
reduces its window size to one. If the sender receives a triple-duplicate ACK, TCP
also infers that a packet was lost and retransmits the subsequent packet to the
ACKed sequence number. In this case it reduces its window size by half.
Q.3. (10 points) Suppose, within your Web browser, you click on a link to obtain a Web page.
The IP address for the associated URL is not cached in your local host, so a DNS look-up is
necessary to obtain the IP address. Suppose that n DNS servers are visited before your host
receives the IP address from DNS. Each DNS visit incur an RTT. Further suppose that the Web
page associated with the link contains exactly one object, consisting of a small amount of HTML
text and the HTML file references three very small objects on the same server. Let RTT0 denote
the RTT between the local host and the server containing the object. Assuming zero transmission
time of the object, how much time elapses from when the client clicks on the link until the client
receives the objects with
1) Non-persistent HTTP with no parallel TCP connections?
2) Non-persistent HTTP with parallel connections?
3) Persistent HTTP with pipelining?

ANS. 1) nRTT + 2RTT0 + 3*2RTT0

2) nRTT + 2RTT0 + 2RTT0
3) nRTT + 2RTT0 + RTT0

Q.4. (5 points) What are the functions of a DNS resolver and a DNS name server? Classify
each one of them as client, server or both.

ANS. A resolver is the client program that accesses the DNS for mapping between IP
address and hostname. Such a mapping is provided by the DNS name server.

A resolver is always a client, but a name server is both a client and a server.

Q.5. (10 points) Consider the following plot of TCP window size as a function of
time.

Assuming TCP Reno is the protocol experiencing the behavior shown below,
answer the following questions. In all cases, you should provide a short
discussion to justify your answer.
 1) Identify the intervals of time when TCP Slow Start is operating.
2) Identify the intervals of time when TCP Congestion Avoidance is operating.
3) After the 16th transmission round, is segment loss detected by a triple duplicate ACK
or by a timeout?
4) After the 22nd transmission round, is segment loss detected by a triple duplicate ACK
or by a timeout?
5) What is the initial value of Threshold at the first transmission round.
ANS.

a) TCP slow start is operating in the intervals [1,6] and [23,26]

b) TCP congestion avoidance is operating in the intervals [6,16] and [17,22]
c) After the 16th transmission round, packet loss is recognized by a triple
duplicate ACK. If there was a timeout, the congestion window size would
have dropped to 1.
d) After the 22nd transmission round, segment loss is detected due to timeout,
and hence the congestion window size is set to 1.
e) The threshold is initially 32, since it is at this window size that slow start
stops and congestion avoidance begins.