IT-101

Section 001

Introduction to Information
Technology
Lecture #18
Overview
Chapters 2 and 20
 Introduction to the internet
What is the Internet?
 The internet is a publicly available, global network of computers
 It interconnects billions of Users
– Businesses
– Citizens
– Governments
– Academic Institutions
– Research Centers
– Libraries
– Etc. Etc.
 Provides a Common Communications System for Diverse
Computing and Network Environments
 Still Rapidly Expanding ( interplanetary internet, airborne internet,
internet odors etc.)
 Involves Numerous Technologies (Not a Single Technology)
 Internet History Milestones

1985 1993
NSFNET founded Web Browser
1969 1983
by The National “Mosaic” invented
ARPANET DOD Mandated
Science by Mark Andreesen
R&D Project Adoption of TCP/IP
Foundation

ARPANET INTERNET

1974 1983
Vinton Cerf ARPANET Split into 1991
and Robert Kahn ARPANET and World Wide Web
Initiated TCP/IP MILNET Released by
Tim-Berners Lee
Applications of the Internet
 The internet is used for a variety of
applications including:
 Email
 Instant messaging
 WWW
The World Wide Web (WWW)
 The world wide web is a sophisticated system for universal information
capture and delivery
 The world wide web consortium (W3C) definition of the web: "The
World Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an
embodiment of human knowledge"
 Provides information access in ways not previously possible
– Hyperlinked (Hypertext)
– Graphical user interface
– Pictorial and non-text information
– Information that changes rapidly
– Immediate access
– Anyone can author a web site
– Multi-user access to the same information (try that with a book)
– Searchable information
 The functionality of the WWW is based on 3 standards:
 URL (Universal Resource Locator)

 HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

 HTTP (Hypertext transfer Protocol)

 The Universal Resource Locator (URL)
Each page of information on the web has a unique address called the
URL at which it can be found

http://mason.gmu.edu/~abaranie/lecture18.htm

The document
can be obtained Host Name - Path to the Web File Name
Page Denotes that the File
using the The Name of is Written in HTML
Hypertext the Server HyperText Markup
Transfer Protocol Language
(HTTP)
HTML
 HTML is a universal, simple language for formatting,
embedding of graphics, and hypertextual linking of
documents
 It is a language that is used to specify the structure of
documents for retrieval across the Internet using browsers
 HTML is more than just a word processing file format
 It is a “glue” language where specialized phrases may be
used to build hypertextual links to other documents to glue
them together
 Hypertextual documents allow readers to freely move
around the document, following links to subjects of
interest
 A portion of the html document from the course web
site:

<a
href="http://mason.gmu.edu/~abaranie/it101/IT101hw8.doc">Homework
8</a>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
href="http://mason.gmu.edu/~abaranie/it101/IT101hw8_solns.doc">Solutio
ns</a><br><br>
HTTP
 HTTP is the protocol used for document exchange between
servers and clients (typically browsers) in the WWW
 To retrieve a document, the client first sends a request to the
server and waits for a reply
 The http daemon (a program that waits for http requests) on
the server then handles the request and the document is sent
to the client over a TCP/IP connection
Web Client/Server Architecture
How the Internet works
Underlying principle of the Internet:
Packet Switching
 The internet was first conceived in 1969 as ARPANET (Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network) which was used to connect computers in
geographically dispersed research centers
 ARPANET was the first major implementation of a packet switched network
 Previously, data communications were based on circuit switching as in traditional
telephone networks, where a dedicated link is set up for the duration of the call
 The invention of packet switching in the early 1960’s enabled the transmission of
data over links that are not established beforehand. In packet switching, data is
assembled into packets which are then independently routed (using routers) to
their destination through various links over the network. This leads to the
distribution of resources, an increase in resource utilization, and increased fault
tolerance since a packet may take alternative routes to reach its destination
 The destination node receives these packets and re-assembles them to construct
the original message
 This breakthrough was what made internet a reality
Source Destination

One possible route for a data packet

Source: http://howstuffworks.com
Addressing Schemes
We know that packets are sent over the network, but how does a packet
reach its destination?
 Three addressing schemes are used concurrently in sending information
across the Internet
 Organizationally-Unique Identifier (OUI)

 This is the 48-bit (MAC) unique address stamped on Network

Interface Cards
 IP Address

 All devices connected to the internet are identified by a unique 32-

bit IP address
 It is via IP addresses that computers in the internet can identify

each other
 Domain Name System (DNS)

 Hierarchical, alphanumeric addressing scheme that is a “synonym”

of an IP address
The IP Address
 Unique 32-bit (4 byte) logical address
– 129.174.1.8 (This one belongs to GMU)
 Made up of two parts
Decimal IP address
– Network Number
• Identifies a network
• Must be assigned by the Internet Network
Information Center (InterNIC)
– Host Number
• Identifies a host on a network
• Assigned by the local network administrator
 IP Address Classes
 There are 5 different classes of IP addresses: A, B, C, D and E.
 A, B, and C are available for commercial use
 For example, a Class A network could support 126 networks,
each with 16,777,216 hosts
 Converting a 32-bit Internet Address to
Dotted Decimal Format
Recall binary to decimal conversion

 An Internet address, known as an IP address for “Internet Protocol”

is comprised of four binary octets, making it a 32-bit address.
 IP addresses, difficult for humans to read in binary format, are often
converted to “dotted decimal format”
 To convert the 32-bit binary address to dotted decimal format, divide
the address into four 8-bit octets and then convert each octet to a
decimal number.
 Each octet will have one of 256 values (0 through 255)

192.48.29.253
(Example of an IP address in dotted decimal form)
IP address conversion
Convert the following 32-bit Internet address into dotted decimal format:

01011110000101001100001111011100

1) Divide the IP address into four octets

01011110
00010100
11000011
11011100
2) Convert each binary octet into a decimal number
01011110 = 64+16+8+4+2 = 94
00010100 = 16+4 = 20
11000011 = 128+64+2+1 = 195
11011100 = 128+64+16+8+4 = 220
3) Write out the decimal values separated by periods
94.20.195.220
IPv4 to IPv6
 The number of IP addresses provided by a 32-bit code (IPv4) is
insufficient for the Internet’s current growth trajectory
 How many different addresses does a 32-bit number provide?
– 232 = 4,294,967,296
 How can we be running short?
– Rapid global diffusion
– Rapid proliferation of wireless devices that require an IP address
– Voice over IP will only increase the shortage
 Is there a solution?
– IPv6 is going to increase the address space to 128 bits
– How many addresses will that provide?
 Short term work-arounds like Network Address Translation have helped
stall the need to migrate to IPv6, and many predict the transition will be
a rough one.
The Domain Name System
 We would go crazy if we would have to remember the IP
addresses of all the web sites that we wanted to visit

 The Domain Name System translates between domain names

and IP addresses of devices connected to the Internet
– A domain name (a part of the URL) is a unique
alphanumeric name such as gmu.edu
– The top level domain name is edu and the secondary level
domain name is gmu in the above example (there could be
up to 127 levels, but more than 4 is rare)
Examples of top level domains
 Generic top level domains
 .com

 .biz

 .info

 .edu

 .mil

 .net, etc.

 Country codes (2 character codes)

 .jp, .sw, .us, etc.
 DNS
IP ADDRESSES DOMAIN NAMES
Every device connected
has a unique 32-bit Human
DNS Readable
address
cnn.com

Translation Between Every device

Machine Readable domain Names and IP connected has an
e.g. 151.196.19.22 Addresses alphanumeric
address

 IP address and domain name allocation requires central administration to

avoid duplication
 Previously administered by U.S. government contract (NSI)
 In 1998, technical coordination assigned to ICANN (Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers).
How DNS works
 When you type a URL into the address portion of your browser,
the browsers’ first task is to convert the domain name into an IP
address so that it can send a request to the appropriate web
server at that IP address for the web page that you are
requesting
 To accomplish this task, the browser interacts with a name
server, a machine that maintains lists to translate the domain
names into IP addresses
 Once the browser receives the IP address from the name
server, it sends a request for the web page that you are
requesting
 Let us retrieve the IP address of the name server that we are
using…