COMPUTER NETWORKS

BASIC
1. What is a computer network?
A computer network is a set of devices or nodes communica ng via links. These devices
communicate with each other in order to share resources and exchange data. All the devices
in the network are capable of transmi ng and receiving data using the same
communica on protocols.
2. What is a node in a computer network?
A node in a computer network is a device capable of genera ng, transmi ng and receiving
data produced by others devices in the same network. A node is otherwise referred to as a
sta on or system. Some examples of nodes include printers, computers, modem and so on.
3. What is a link in a computer network?
A link in a computer network is the physical interface or medium through which the data
generated by the nodes in the computer network, is transmi ed. It can be a cable, op cal
fiber, air, radio waves or any other physical medium capable of transpor ng a signal
containing some informa on.
4. What is the use of gateway in a computer network?
A gateway acts as an entry point to a computer network. It manages all the inflow and
ou low of data from a computer network. A gateway is capable of connec ng two dissimilar
networks using different transmission protocols. Unlike the other networking devices, the
gateway can act in any layer of the network architecture model.
5. What is the use of firewall in a computer network?
A firewall is a hardware or so ware – based device responsible for monitoring the network
security and filtering the inflow of data from the external untrusted sources. The data traffic
sa sfying a defined set of security protocols is only allowed to enter the secured internal
network. This prevents any malicious external so ware from accessing the confiden al
informa on from the internal networks.
6. How does the proxy server protect the computer network?
A proxy server acts as an intermediate server between the users and the website requested
by the users. When a user makes a web request, this request is transferred to the proxy
server which then makes the web request on behalf of the user, collects the response from
the web server and then proceeds to send the data to the user. This prevents end users and
internal networks from being a acked by malicious so ware in the Internet.
7. What is the use of NIC in a computer network?
Network Interface Card (NIC) is a component which allows a device to connect to a
computer network. It provides the devices a dedicated, reliable and secure connec on to
the network. It manages the wired and wireless communica ons of devices in order to
exchange informa on with other devices.
8. What is the use of MAC address in a computer network?
MAC address is a unique 12 – digit hexadecimal address associated with the Network
Interface Card (NIC). MAC address is also referred to as physical address or hardware address
or link layer address or burned – in address as this address is hard – wired at the me of
manufacturing and is unique to that par cular network adaptor. This hardware address is
responsible for forwarding of data between intermediate devices.
9. What is the use of IP address in a computer network?
IP address also called the global address or network address or logical address, is used to
uniquely iden fy a device on the computer network. Rou ng of transmi ed data is done
with the help of IP addresses of the source and des na on. The IP addresses of devices are
not unique and may vary over a certain me period.
10. What is the use of ipconfig command in computer network?
IPCONFIG stands for Internet Protocol Configura on. It is a command – line u lity which
displays some addi onal informa on such as the device’s currently assigned IP address, IP
addresses of the DNS servers being used, subnet mask in addi on to the TCP/IP
configura on of the network. It also displays the enabled and disabled configura ons of
connected devices.
11. What is the use of ifconfig command in a computer network?
IFCONFIG stands for Internet Configura on. As the name suggests, ifconfig command is used
for the configura on of the network interface parameters or assignment of address to the
network interface or to display the informa on of the current network interface
configura on. This command is o en used in UNIX – like opera ng systems.
12. What is data encapsula on in a computer network?
Data encapsula on in a computer network is the addi on or binding of some addi onal
informa on to data during its transmission. Every layer of the OSI and TCP/IP model binds
some informa on such as headers and trailer at the sender side. For example, the IP
addresses of the source and des na on are included in the header of the packet in the
network layer.
13. What is the use of ping command in a computer network?
Ping command is used in a computer network to check the connec vity or reachability of a
remote host. An echo request is sent to a remote address to check if it’s accessible. If the
echo request is delivered to the des na on host and the host is able to respond with an
echo reply, then the host is considered to be alive and reachable.
14. What is the use of beacon frames in a computer network?
Beacon frame is a management frame used in IEEE 802.11 WLAN. In a WLAN, the access
point and the devices periodically publicize their presence using the beacon frames. These
frames are used to synchronize devices and contain network informa on such as the traffic
map, mestamp, SSID, beacon interval and so on.
15. What is encoding in a computer network?
Encoding in computer network is the process of conversion of data such as images, text,
audio, video into a binary pa ern or code for secure and efficient transmission of data.
16. What is conges on in a computer network?
Conges on in a computer network occurs as a consequence of excess load on the network.
If the nodes or links of the network carry large amount of data which exceeds the maximum
capacity of the network, this may lead to deteriora on in the performance of the network
and may induce delay in transfer of data.

17. What is down me in a computer network?

Down me is the me taken for a computer network to recuperate from failure and during
this recovery me, the network is unavailable for data transmission. A network may be down
due to mul ple reasons such as so ware or hardware failure, traffic overload, outage of
power and so on.
18. What is the Protocol Data Unit (PDU) in a computer network?
Protocol Data Unit (PDU) is a term used to address a unique block of informa on added or
removed at each layer of the OSI model. Each layer uses a different PDU which can only be
decoded by the corresponding layers at the sender and receiver sites. For example, the PDU
of physical layer is bits i.e., 0s and 1s whereas the PDU of network layer is packets containing
the IP addresses.
19. What is the use of Telnet in computer network?
Terminal Network (Telnet) is an applica on layer protocol which allows end users to
remotely access or log into another computer. It allows users of one machine to access an
applica on program and u lize its resources remotely in another machine.
20. What is the role of port numbers in a computer network?
Port Numbers facilitate process – to – process delivery on a computer network. There might
be mul ple applica ons or processes running on the same system. In order to dis nguish
these processes, each of these processes is assigned a 16 – bit port number. For example,
port number 25 is used by SMTP, a message transfer agent responsible for transferring
electronic mail.
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21. What is crossover cable?

Crossover cable is an Ethernet cable which is used to connect alike or similar type of devices
and both ends must follow similar wiring standards. The transmission and recep on pins at
both the ends are reversed, such that the output from one computer acts as an input to
another computer.
22. What is Round Trip Time?
Round Trip Time (RTT) is the sum of the me taken for data to be transmi ed from source
to des na on and the me taken for the acknowledgement of the delivered data to be
delivered to the source. The maximum value of Round Trip Time is twice the propaga on
me.
23. What is a Brouter?
Bridge Router (Brouter) is a networking device capable of opera ng as a bridge as well as a
router. It can func on in network and datalink layers of the network model. It can transfer
data packets to other networks when func oning as a bridge and also route data packets to
other devices within the network when func oning as a router.
24. What is Sta c IP?
Sta c IP is the IP address assigned to a system by the Internet Service Provider (ISP). As the
name suggests, sta c IP addresses are fixed and do not change as long as the system is
connected to the network.
25. What is Dynamic IP?
Dynamic IP is the IP address assigned temporarily to a system using Dynamic Host
Configura on Protocol (DHCP). The dynamic IP addresses can be changed over me
according to the user’s requirement. DHCP servers maintain a pool of IP addresses from
which an IP address is temporarily assigned to the system.
26. What is encryp on?
Encryp on is the process of conver ng human understandable text to unintelligible format
called cipher text using certain mathema cal procedures such that only an authorized user is
able to decode it to retrieve the original data.
27. What is throughput?
Throughput is the actual measure of data that can be transferred in a computer network. It
is measured in terms of bits per second (bps).
28. What is peer – to – peer network?
Peer – to – peer network is a decentralized network in which there is no central controller.
Each node can request as well as offer services i.e., send and receive data at their own
convenience. The workload is also evenly distributed among all nodes or peers.
29. What is client – server network?
Client – server network is a centralized network in which there exist two types of devices
called client and server. Client requests services from the server and the server is
responsible for the provision of the requested services.
30. What is Serial Line Internet Protocol?
Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) is an internet communica on protocol responsible for
data transfer over serial transmission lines. It supports TCP/IP networking over serial ports
and routers. It offers dial – up access to Internet using the SLIP servers at the ISP.
31. What is an edge router?
Edge router is a dedicated router that resides at the boundary of a network in order to
connect the internal network to the external networks. Edge routers accept the inbound
data traffic flowing into the network.
32. What is a Public IP?
Public IP address is a global address which allows direct access to the Internet. It facilitates
communica on outside the local network. These IP addresses are allo ed by the Internet
Service Provider (ISP) and helps to connect to the Internet from the internal network.
33. What is a Private IP?
Private IP address is a local address assigned to the system by the local network router. It
facilitates communica on between devices within the same internal network and doesn’t
allow external devices to establish a connec on with internal network devices.
34. What is PoE?
Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology allows the devices to deliver electrical power by
means of network cables. This eradicates the need for separate power outlets and supplies
to deliver electrical power and saves cost by transmi ng data and power over a single cable.
35. What is address deple on?
Address deple on is the exhaus on of allocated IPv4 addresses for connected devices. IPv4
supported classful addressing in which class B address space was ge ng depleted soon with
the increase in the number of users due to its fair balance between the number of networks
and hosts. Whereas class A supported more hosts than required while class C supported
very few hosts.
36. What is Point – to – Point Protocol?
Point – to – Point Protocol (PPP) is a communica on protocol opera ng in the datalink layer
in order to facilitate the transfer of mul protocol packets between two devices connected
via a point – to – point link. It comprises of data encapsula on protocol, link control protocol
and network control protocols.
37. What is MTU?
Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is the maximum size of the payload of a frame. It
depends on the datalink and physical layer protocols. The MTU of Standard Ethernet with
data rate of 10 or 100 Mbps is 1500 bytes.
38. What is an autonomous system?
An autonomous system (AS) is a collec on of networks and routers governed by a single
administra on. All the devices and routers in the AS follow the same rou ng policy. Each AS
can choose their desired intradomain rou ng protocols to handle rou ng within the AS.
39. What is Basic Service Set?
Basic Service Set (BSS) is a collec on of sta onary or mobile wireless sta ons within IEEE
802.11 network. The sta ons may communicate with each other with the help of the
op onal central base sta on known as Access Point (AP).
40. What is Extended Service Set?
Extended Service Set (ESS) is a collec on of two or more Basic Service Sets (BSSs). The BSSs
may be connected by means of wired or wireless networks. Each BSS consists of one or more
wireless sta ons and an op onal access point.
41. What is piconet?
Piconet is a Bluetooth network consis ng of at most 8 sta ons out of which one is primary
sta on and the others are secondary sta ons. The communica on between the primary and
secondary sta ons may be one – to – many or one – to – one communica on.
42. What is sca ernet?

Sca ernet is a Bluetooth network formed by combining two or more piconets. In a

sca ernet, the primary sta on of one piconet may be a secondary sta on of another
piconet. This sta on is referred to as bridge node as it bridges the two piconets.
43. What is the use of tracert command?
Tracert command is used to display or trace the paths to be taken in order to reach the
required des na on host. This command displays the list of routers a packet must be
forwarded to in order to reach any device in the network. Tracert command is available on
Windows only.
44. What is the use of traceroute command?
Traceroute is a widely used command line u lity available in Windows as well as Linux. This
command is used to track the real – me routes taken by the packet from the source to
des na on. It records the me taken for the packet to reach each intermediate router and
the IP addresses of all the pinged intermediate routers.
45. What is bit rate?
Bit rate in a computer network can be simply defined as the number of bits that can be
transmi ed over the channel in unit me. It is usually measured in bits per second (bps).
46. What is baud rate?
Baud rate in a computer network is the number of voltage level changes that occurs in a
transmi ed signal in unit me. It is associated with the number of mes the signal carrying
informa on bits alters. It is usually measured in bauds per second.
47. What is a point – to – point link?
Point – to – point link in a computer network is a link that is reserved for connec ng two
par cular devices. This dedicated link between the two connected devices only carries the
data traffic with respect to those two devices.
48. What is layering?
The func ons of a network architecture model is split into mul ple blocks for the ease of
data transmission. The decomposi on of the network into mul ple components or layers is
called layering. Each layer of the network model is associated with one par cular func on.
This provides a modular design of the network.
49. What is Bandwidth – Delay product?
Bandwidth – Delay product is the measure of number of bits that can occupy a link at a
me. For example, if bandwidth is 10 bps and delay is 5 seconds, then the bandwidth – delay
product is 50 bits i.e., 50 bits can simultaneously be transmi ed on the link at a me.
50. What is mul plexing?
Mul plexing in a computer network is the process of combining several data streams and
transmit them together on the same communica on link. In mul plexing, the capacity of a
single channel is divided in order to accommodate mul ple data streams. Mul plexing is
used in process – to – process delivery to combine informa on of all process and display
them on the same system.