Data Communication Networks

Topics and Practice Problems for Week 7

Topics to study from the Book/Lecture Slides:

1. Transport Services and Protocols

2. Connectionless and Connection-oriented Multiplexing and De-multiplexing
3. UDP, UDP Header, and Checksum
4. TCP, TCP Header
5. Principles of Reliable Data Transfer - Stop-and-wait versus Pipelining
6. TCP Reliability – sequence # and ACK #, timer timeout
7. TCP Flow Control
8. TCP Congestion Control (TCP Tahoe, TCP Reno, TCP CUBIC), Congestion Avoidance (ECN, TCP Vegas)

Practice Problems:

1. Suppose you have the following 16-bit data streams;

1000101000101010,
0001010111101001,
1000010101000100.
a) Compute Checksum.
b) If the second bit of the first data stream is flipped, show how this error is detected by the
receiver.

2. Suppose we have a link with bandwidth (R) of 100 Mbps, a one-way propagation delay between the
sender and the receiver is 20 milliseconds, and the packet size is 1500 bytes.
a) Computing the Sender Utilization (Usender), estimate the performance of the Stop-and-Wait
Protocol.
b) Computing the Sender Utilization (Usender), estimate the performance of a Pipelining Protocol for
a sender window size of 10 packets.

3. Host A and B are communicating over a TCP connection, and Host B has already received from A all
bytes up through byte 126. Suppose Host A then sends two segments to Host B back-to-back. The
first and second segments contain 80 and 40 bytes of data, respectively. In the first segment, the
sequence number is 127, the source port number is 302, and the destination port number is 80.
Host B sends an acknowledgment whenever it receives a segment from Host A.
a) In the second segment sent from Host A to B, what are the sequence number, source port
number, and destination port number?
b) If the first segment arrives before the second segment, in the acknowledgment of the first
arriving segment, what is the acknowledgment number, the source port number, and the
destination port number?
c) If the second segment arrives before the first segment, in the acknowledgment of the first
arriving segment, what is the acknowledgment number?
 d) Suppose the two segments sent by A arrive in order at B. The first acknowledgment is lost and the
second acknowledgment arrives after the first time-out interval. Draw a timing diagram, showing
these segments and all other segments and acknowledgments sent. (Assume there is no
additional packet loss). For each segment in your figure, provide the sequence number and the
number of bytes of data; for each acknowledgment that you add, provide the acknowledgment
number.

4. Suppose that the two measured SampleRTT values are 115 ms, and 128 ms. Compute the
EstimatedRTT after each of these SampleRTT values is obtained, using a value of α = 0.125 and
assuming that the value of EstimatedRTT was 110 ms just before the first of these two samples were
obtained. Compute also the DevRTT after each sample is obtained, assuming a value of β = 0.25 and
assuming the value of DevRTT was 6 ms just before the first of these two samples was obtained. Last,
compute the TCP TimeoutInterval after each of these samples is obtained.

5. If for a TCP session, the total allocated buffer at a receiver is 5600 bytes, and the packet size is 400
bytes. At a certain point in time, there are 3 packets stored in the receiver buffer which are
packets # 3, 4, and 5 (packets 1 and 2 have been delivered to the application process). The sender
has received the acknowledgment for packet 5 while packets 6 and 7 are in flight.

a) Assuming that the data byte stream starts with the number 1. Compute the Receive Window
(using the formula) that the receiver will advertise to the sender. Write the values in the
variables, LastByteReceived, LastByteRead, and TotalBuffer.
b) Also, tell the packet numbers of the packets that the sender will send at this transmission
round to avoid buffer overflow at the receiver (ignore congestion control). Write values in the
variables, LastByteSent and LastByteAcknowledged.

6. Consider an instance of TCP’s Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease (AIMD) algorithm where
the window size at the start of the slow start phase is 2 MSS and the threshold at the start of the
first transmission is 8 MSS. Assume that a timeout occurs during the fifth transmission. Find the
congestion window size at the end of the tenth transmission.

7. Consider the given Figure. Assuming TCP Reno is the protocol experiencing the behavior shown,
answer the following questions. In all cases, you should provide a short discussion justifying your
answer.
 a) Identify the intervals of time when TCP slow start is operating & when TCP congestion avoidance
is operating.
b) After the 16th transmission round, is segment loss detected by a triple duplicate ACK or by a
timeout?
c) What is the value of ssthresh at the 18th transmission round?
d) During what transmission round is the 70th segment sent?
e) Assuming a packet loss is detected after the 26th round by the receipt of a triple duplicate ACK,
what will be the values of the congestion window size and of ssthresh?

8. Discuss the basic functionality of the following TCP Congestion Control/Congestion Avoidance
versions:
a) TCP Tahoe
b) TCP Reno
c) TCP CUBIC
d) ECN
e) TCP Vegas