CSci 551 Exam 1 Feb 4th 2014

• Before you begin, write your USC ID.

• READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.

• The exam is closed book and closed notes.
• Answer the questions only in the spaces provided on the question sheets. If you run out of
room for an answer, your answer is probably incorrect.

• Your answers do not need to be complete, grammatically correct sentences.

• For some multiple-choice questions, more than one choice may be correct. You will receive
credit for partial answers.
• An incorrect answer to a multiple-choice question will result in a deduction of 50% of the
points allotted to that question. So, for example, if a multiple-choice question worth 1 point
has 2 correct answers and one of your answers is wrong, you will get 0.5 for the correct answer
and -0.25 for the incorrect answer, resulting in a total of 0.25.

USC ID:
CSci 551 Exam 1, Page 2 of 6 Feb 4th 2014

1. (a) (2 points) Which of the following features datagrams do not provide?

Best effort delivery
Minimum network assumptions
Basic Building Block
√
Soft state
Narrow waist
√
Byte ordering
(b) (3 points) Listed below are a couple of sentences that characterize the BGP protocol. Write the term that
best describes this characteristic.
1. BGP advertisements include a sequence of ASes for the path.
BGP is a

Solution: path vector

2. Routing changes are advertized periodically.

BGP is a

Solution: stateful protocol or soft state protocol

3. In addition to shortest distance, BGP routers use to decide the route.

Solution: policy

(c) (1 point) What is the technical term for the translation of a hostname to an address

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Solution: binding, resolution, Domain Name Resolution

2. (3 points) Goooogle recently launched a new “secure network” service, where every pair of neighboring routers
on the Goooogle network would share a secret key and use this key to encrypt/decrypt the packets on each link.
Would you use this service to securely transmit your data? Why?

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Solution: no (1 point)
Encryption is fundamentally an end-to-end requirement; the end-to-end argument suggests that there is no
benefit from having intermediary routers do encryption. If users want private communication they would
need to do end-to-end encryption. There could be a threat to the data until the data reached the network (i.e.
first router) We also need to trust routers as data is being decrypted and encrypted.(2 points) ,
(acceptable partial answers) same key at each router makes it more vulnerable, difficult and delay caused due
to encryption and decrypted at the router (1 point)
CSci 551 Exam 1, Page 3 of 6 Feb 4th 2014

3. In satellite and mobile networks, links are typically characterized by low bandwidth, high delay, and high loss
rates.
To improve the performance of the applications, performance enhancing proxies (PEPs), are deployed along the
path between end hosts. As shown below, the PEP intercepts the connection between host A and B and establishes
two connections, one between A–PEP and one between the PEP–B.

R   R  

Host     R   Host    
R  
A   B  
R  
R  

PEP  
X   R  

(a) (1 point) What principle does the PEPs voilate in this scenario?

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Solution: fate sharing, end to end argument

(b) (2 points) How does it violate it?

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Solution: by storing state in the network

(c) Assume there is a failure and the link marked with a X goes down.
i. (2 points) What happens to the application between A and B?

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Solution: (2 points) Nothing, it does not know about the link failure

ii. (2 points) How does it recover from the failure?

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Solution: the network finds an alternate path from PEP to B, there may be a small delay

iii. (2 points) what happens at host A and B during recovery?

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CSci 551 Exam 1, Page 4 of 6 Feb 4th 2014

Solution: A and B are not aware of the link failure

(d) Assume there is a failure and the PEP goes down.

i. (2 points) What happens to the application between A and B?

..............................................................................................

Solution: it fails, the state stored at the PEP is lost

ii. (2 points) How does it recover from the failure?

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Solution: state at PEP is lost, find alternate path without PEP

iii. (2 points) what happens at host A and B during recovery?

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Solution: application at A/B will try to connect directly on alternate path

CSci 551 Exam 1, Page 5 of 6 Feb 4th 2014

4. The paper on Routing Stability in Congested Networks by Shaikh et al. discusses two types of routing protocols,
OSPF and BGP, and presents markov models for link failure and recovery. Based on the techniques in the paper,
we are going to model a new UDP based routing protocol, called USC-RP.
Let’s assume a topology with a single link between routers HR1 and HR2. HR1 and HR2 are directly connected
with a high speed, unloaded, lossy link. The probability of dropping a packet is p but the packet experiences no
delay on the link. The clocks are synchronized.
We deploy USC-RP on HR1 and HR2 in the scenario. The first router, HR1 sends a “hello” packet every 60
seconds to HR2. The second router, HR2 declares the link is down, if and only if it does not receive a hello for
three minutes.
(a) (9 points) Draw the markov model for the USC-RP when going from the up to the down state. Indicate the
probability of transition from each state and the cost associated with it.

Solution: (4 pt) four states (2pts) transitions (2pt) c=60, (0.5) start transition (0.5pt) end transition

(b) Discuss two ways the OSPF model for a U2D cycle is different than the one drawn above.
i. (3 points) 1)

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Solution: cost is different, number of states are different, jitter is added leading to forking

ii. (3 points) 2)

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Solution: cost is different, number of states are different, jitter is added leading to forking

(c) Discuss two ways the BGP model for a U2D cycle is different than the one drawn above.
i. (3 points) 1)

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CSci 551 Exam 1, Page 6 of 6 Feb 4th 2014

Solution: cost is a function of RTT since TCP, last cost is Left over time, number of states are
different

ii. (3 points) 2)

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Solution: cost is a function of RTT since TCP, last cost is left over time, number of states are
different