CPSC 441: Computer Communications (Section L02, Winter 2005)

Course Description:

The purpose of this course is to introduce fundamental principles and concepts of computer networks. This year the course will follow a top-down approach, where we will first study popular network applications, then study communications services required to support these applications, and finally study how these communication services are implemented. Throughout this course, we will use the Internet's architecture and protocols to reinforce fundamental computer networking principles.

Textbook and References

The recommended textbooks for this course are:

• Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet (Third Edition), James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, Addison Wesley, 2005.

• Computer Networks (Fourth Edition), Andrew S. Tanenbaum,Prentice Hall, 2003.

It is recommended that you purchase one of the above-mentioned textbooks. Note that lectures will be drawn from both textbooks as well as recent research literature.

Lectures Outline

1. Introduction (2 weeks)
   Overview of the Internet, client/server paradigm, circuit switching, packet switching, physical media, queuing delay and packet loss, TCP/IP and OSI reference models, Internet Protocol Stack
   Lecture Slides: Introduction (PPT , PDF) 
   CAnet4 map
   Readings: Chapter 1 (Kurose and Ross); Sections 1.1 - 1.9, 2.2 (Tanenbaum)
2. Network Layer Addressing (1 week) 
   NIC addressing, IP addressing, IPv4, IPv6, ICMP 
   Lecture Slides: Network Layer Addressing (PPT, PDF), Link Layer Addressing (PPT, PDF) 
   Readings: Section 4.4, 5.4 (Kurose and Ross); Section 5.6 (Tanenbaum)
3. Application Layer (1.5 weeks) 
   Service requirements, WWW, HTTP, Electronic Mail, Domain Name System, Socket programming 
   Lecture Slides: HTTP and WWW (PPT , PDF), FTP, SMTP (PPT, PDF), DNS (PPT, PDF)
   Readings: Chapter 2 (Kurose and Ross); Sections 7.1 - 7.3 (Tanenbaum)
4. Transport Layer (2 weeks) 
   Service models, Multiplexing/Demultiplexing, Connection-less transport (UDP), Principles of reliable data transfer, Connection-oriented transport (TCP), TCP congestion control, TCP Variants
   Lecture Slides: Introduction/UDP (PPT, PDF), Checksum IP/UDP (PPT, PDF), Reliable Data Transfer (PPT, PDF), Transmission Control Protocol (PPT, PDF) 
   Readings: Chapter 3 (Kurose and Ross); Chapter 6 (Tanenbaum)
5. Network Layer Routing (1.5 weeks) 
   Routing and forwarding, Routing algorithms, Routing in the Internet, Multicast 
   Lecture Slides: Forwarding (PPT, PDF), Routing (PPT, PDF) 
   Readings: Chapter 4 (Kurose and Ross); Chapter 5 (Tanenbaum)
6. Link Layer and Local Area Networks (1.5 weeks) 
   Link layer services, Error detection and correction, Multiple Access Protocols, Link layer addressing, Ethernet, Hubs and switches, Point-to-Point Protocol
   Lecture Slides: (PPT, PDF) 
   Readings: Chapter 5 (Kurose and Ross); Sections 3.1, 4.1 - 4.3 (Tanenbaum)
7. Wireless and Mobile Networks (1.5 weeks) 
   Wireless links and network characteristics, Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs, Cellular Internet Access, Mobility management and Mobile IP 
   Lecture Slides: (PPT, PDF) 
   Readings: Chapter 6 (Kurose and Ross); Sections 4.4 - 4.5 (Tanenbaum)
8. Multimedia Networking (1 week) 
   Networked multimedia applications, best-effort service and multimedia delivery requirements, Multimedia protocols (RTSP, RTP, RTCP, SIP), Content Distribution Networks 
   Lecture Slides: (PPT, PDF) 
   Readings: Sections 7.1 - 7.5 (Kurose and Ross); Section 7.4 (Tanenbaum)
9. Security (1 week) 
   Principles of cryptography, symmetric key algorithms, public key algorithms 
   Readings: Sections 8.1 - 8.5 (Kurose and Ross); Sections 8.1 - 8.3 (Tanenbaum)

Interesting and Relevant URLs

• Charles Spurgeon's Ethernet Web Site
• Vinton Cerf and Robery Kahn are winners of the 2004 Turing Award, for thier pioneering work on internetworking. For more details, visit the ACM Turing Award page.
• For fun ... Pigeon-powered Internet takes Flight.
• Read about Marc Andreessen co-developer of Mosaic; Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the WWW; Sabeer Bhatia co-founder of Hotmail.
• Peer-to-Peer (A nice discussion on Peer-to-Peer networks from Wikipedia; link courtesy Matthew Tobiasz)
• The Digital Media Winners of 2004 (This article might give you an idea as to which P2P applications are popular. Article was linked from a Slasdot post. Link courtesy of Matthew Tobiasz)
• Links to Requests For Comments (RFCs) from freesoft (Courtesy of Phillipa Sessini)
• DNS Resource Directory
• RFC 1035 - Domain names - implementation and specification 
  Another link to RFC 1035 (Well-formatted Web page)
• RFC 1034 - Domain names - concepts and facilities
• RFC 2616 - Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP/1.1
• CANARIE
• Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (see the section on protocol number assignment and IP address services)
• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers