HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING

COMP 2322

COMPUTER NETWORKING

MID-TERM TEST
12 MARCH 2022 (10:00AM – 11:30AM)

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. This is an OPEN BOOK test. You are required to complete it own by
YOURSELF.
2. The time allowed for the test is 90 minutes. After the time ends, you will
have 10 MORE minutes for submissions.
3. There are 8 questions with total 90 marks. Students should attempt ALL
questions. Partial marks will be awarded whenever reasonable.
4. Write down your answers on your own answer sheet and submit your
answer sheet to the Blackboard system at the end of the test.

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1. Decide true (T) or false (F) for each of the following statements. [10 marks, 1
mark each]
1) Using router buffer can avoid the packet loss problem at routers because all packets
received can be stored at the buffer temporally.
2) The client-server architecture becomes less and less popular for the Internet
applications and will be replaced by the peer-to-peer architecture.
3) The throughput of an end-to-end connection is limited by the minimum link capacity
of any link on the path from the source sender to the destination receiver.
4) Web caching can reduce the propagation delay of clients’ requests so that the
response time for the clients’ requests can be minimized.
5) Persistent HTTP connections can save the response time for the clients and server to
exchange HTTP requests and responses because the round-trip time (RTT) for
setting up the TCP connection is not needed.
6) The SMTP protocol allows mail servers to send email messages in ASCII codes.
7) Both POP3 and IMAP protocols are mail access protocols that allow user agents to
retrieve mails from the mail servers.
8) The DNS is a hieratical database system where the top-level domain (TLD) servers
locate at the top of the system and authoritative DNS servers locate at the bottom of
the system.
9) Reliable data transfer service can be implemented on the unreliable channel.
10) The pipeline mechanism allows a sender to send multiple packets in sequence and
wait for feedbacks from a receiver.

2. Answer the following questions. [10 marks]

1) Why does HTTP run on top of TCP rather than on UDP? [2 marks]
2) Give the main reasons that DNS is structured as a distributed database system. [4
marks]
3) HTTP provides a caching mechanism by Conditional GET. Briefly discuss whether
Conditional GET will reduce a Web application’s response delay or not under the two
scenarios: (1) the file to be retrieved is small (e.g., a few hundred bytes text file); (2)
the file to be retrieved is large (e.g., a several megabytes video file). [4 marks]

3. Briefly explain why the reliable data transport protocol uses the following
mechanisms. [10 marks, 2 marks each]
1) Sequence number
2) NACK packet
3) Retransmission
4) Timer
5) Checksum

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4. Answer the following question. [10 marks]
Consider a packet switched network, the source host segments long messages into
smaller packets and sends the packets into the network. The receiver then reassembles
the packets back into the original message. We refer to this process as message
segmentation. The figure below illustrates the end-to-end transport of a message with
and without message segmentation. Suppose each link is 4Mbps and the message is 1M
bytes long. Here, we ignore propagation, queuing, and processing delays.

End-to-end message transport: (a) without message segmentation; (b) with message
segmentation
1) Consider sending the message from source to destination without message
segmentation. If each switch uses store-and-forward packet switching, what is the
total time to move the message from source host to destination host? [4 marks]
2) Consider sending the message from source to destination with message segmentation.
Suppose that the message is segmented into 1000 packets equally. Each switch uses
store-and-forward packet switching, When the first packet is being sent from the first
switch to the second switch, the second packet is being sent from the source host to
the first switch. How long does it take to move the message from source host to the
destination host when message segmentation is used? [6 marks]

5. Answer the following questions. [10 marks]

1) For the checksum mechanism used in UDP, suppose you have the following three
16-bit hexadecimal numbers: EA53, F74B, D068. What is the checksum value of
these three numbers when presented as a hexadecimal number? [5 marks]
2) Consider the selected repeat (SR) protocol. Given the sequence number space is [0,
10], what is the largest allowable window size that can make the SR protocol work
properly? Generalize your result for the sequence number space [0, k]. Give your
justifications. [5 marks]
6. This question is about TCP fairness. [10 marks]
We know that TCP’s AIMD (additive increase, multiplicative decrease) algorithm
guarantees fairness among TCP sessions. Assume we modify AIMD algorithm to
AICD (additive increase, constant decrease) algorithm as follows: the additive
increase is the same as AIMD algorithm, however, if there is a packet loss, TCP
decreases the window size by a constant amount. Verify whether AICD is fair or
not and justify your answer. (Hint: You may consider two connections scenario for
cases: a) two connections decrease the same constant amount when facing packet
loss and b) two connections decrease different amount when facing packet loss).

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7. This question is about the TCP. [15 marks]

Host A and B are communicating over a TCP connection. The IP addresses of

Hosts A and B are 210.102.150.22 and 221.188.100.114, respectively. Suppose
Host B has already received from Host A all previous segments successfully. Now
Host A sends two segments to Host B sequentially and Host B will send an
acknowledgment (ACK) whenever it receives a segment from Host A. The
sequence number of the first segment sent by Host A is 80 and the segment contains
40 bytes of data. The second segment contains 100 bytes of data.
1) In the second segment sent from Host A, what are the source IP address,
destination IP address, and sequence number? [3 marks]
2) If the first segment arrives at Host B before the second segment, in the ACK to the
first segment sent by Host B, what is acknowledgment number? [1 mark]
3) If the second segment arrives at Host B before the first segment, in the ACK to the
second segment sent by Host B, what is acknowledgment number? [1 mark]
4) Consider a scenario where the two segments sent by Host A arrive in order at Host
B and Host B sends two acknowledgments sequentially. The first
acknowledgment is lost and the second acknowledgment arrives after the first
timeout interval. Assume there is no additional packet loss. Please draw a timing
diagram, showing these segments and all other segments and acknowledgments
sent. For each segment in the figure, please provide the sequence number and the
number of bytes of data; for each acknowledgment in the figure, please provide
the acknowledgment number. [10 marks]

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8. This question is about TCP congestion control. [15 marks]
Assume TCP Reno is the protocol experiencing the behavior shown as the figure below,
answer the following questions.

1) Identify the intervals of time when TCP slow start is operating. [2 marks]
2) Identify the intervals of time when TCP congestion avoidance is operating with
the additive increase approach. [3 marks]
3) Identify the time instant(s) that the segment loss is detected by a triple duplicate
ACK. [1 mark]
4) Identify the time instant(s) that the segment loss is detected by a timeout. [1 mark]
5) What is the initial value of ssthresh at the first transmission round? [1 mark]
6) What is the value of ssthresh at the 18th transmission round? [1 mark]
7) What is the value of ssthresh at the 30th transmission round? [1 mark]
8) During which transmission round is the 90th segment sent? Justify your answer. [3
marks]
9) Assuming a packet loss is detected at the 36th round by a timeout, what will be the
values of the congestion window size and of ssthresh? [2 marks]

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