417-F01-index

CMSC 417-0101

Computer Networks

Fall 2001

http://www.cs.umd.edu/~shankar/417-F01
Last updated Sun Dec 16 01:32:28 EST 2001
Please check (reload) this page at least twice a week

Overview - News - Texts/Notes - Exams - Projects - Grades

Professor	A. Udaya Shankar (email: shankar@cs.umd.edu). Office hours: TuTh 2-3:30 pm or by appointment (AVW 4141)
TA	Arun Vasan (email: as41701@umd5.umd.edu). Office hours: TuTh 10-12 am or by appointment (AVW 1151)
TA	Seungjoon Lee (email: as41702@umd5.umd.edu or slee@cs.umd.edu). Office hours: MF 2:30-4:30pm or by appointment (AVW 1151)
Classes	JMP 3201. TuTh 12:30-1:45pm
Newsgroup	csd.cmsc417.0101 For discussion and programming projects; read on a regular basis.
Project page	http://www.cs.umd.edu/~arun/ta/ For project descriptions, deadlines, clarifications, grades, etc. (read regularly).

News

(Sept 8) OIT accounts and project 1 available; details here.
(Sept 11) Chapter 1 slides: Part a ppt(1M) and html(400K); Part b ppt(230K) and html(230K).
(Sept 12) Chapter 2 slides: Part a ppt and html; Part b ppt and html.
(Sept 17) In view of the project, the next few classes will cover Transport Layer Principles (postscript (138K), gzipped postscript(41K), pdf (137K)) and socket level programming (from chapter 2).
(Oct 1) Revised Transport Layer Principles (postscript (224K), gzipped postscript(59K), pdf (183K))
(Oct 1) TCP congestion control.
(Oct 2) Project 2. Due October 23, 12 noon.
(Oct 2) Schedule
- Exam 1: Thursday, Oct 25.
- Exam 2: Tuesday, Nov 13 (approximate)
- Final exam: Tuesday, Dec 18, 8:00-10:00 am (officially scheduled time).
- Project 2: Oct 23, 12 noon.
- Project 3: Nov 2 (approximate).
- Project 4: Nov 29 (approximate).
- Project 5: Dec 9 (approximate).
(Oct 3) The revised Transport Layer Principles now has three additional figures (in the last two pages); so if you already have hardcopy, just print out the last two pages.
(Oct 9) Chapter 3 slides: Part a ppt and html; Part b ppt and html.
(Oct 10) Project page now has updated _417_NetworkSocket.java.
(Oct 16) Practice exam: fall 99 exam 1. Do it under exam conditions (time limit, no notes, etc). Solution will be posted this weekend.
(Oct 16) Optional (no grade, turn in if you want feedback) homework problems: Chapter 3: 19, 20, 21, 22.
(Oct 16) Correction to sliding window protocol in Note 4/4.1 (TCP Transport Layer Principles)
(Oct 22)
- Note 5.1: Note 5 (TCP Congestion Control) with correction to rto update
- Note 5.2: Solutions to two homework problems in TCP Congestion Control
(Oct 22) Solution to practice exam (fall 99 exam 1)
(Nov 4) Exam 1 solution .
(Nov 5) Grades (exam 1, projects 1,2) .
NOTE: Nov 7 Wednesday is last day to drop with W.
(Nov 6) Chapter 4 slides: Part a ppt and html; Part b ppt and html.
(Nov 14)
- Exam 2: Tuesday Dec 4 (tentative)
- Project 2: December 1 (tentative)
(Nov 26) Project 4 due December 6. See project page for exact time.
(Nov 26) Practice exam: fall 99 exam 2. Do it under exam conditions (time limit, no notes, etc). Solution will be posted this weekend.
(Nov 29) Exam 2 on December 11. Covers Chapter 4 and part (TBD) of Chapter 5. Graded exams can be picked up on Friday December 14.
(Dec 3) Fall 99 exam 2 solution .
(Dec 4) Chapter 5 slides: Part a ppt and html; Part b ppt and html. Part c ppt and html.
(Dec 4) Optional (no grade) homework problems: Chapter 4: 4, 6, 9, 13-16, 18. Chapter 5: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 14.
(Dec 10)
- Fall 99 exam 2 solution had two typos which are now fixed.
- Exam 2 covers all of chapter 4 and sections 5.1 to 5.5 of chapter 5.
(Dec 14)
- Exam 2 solution and grades . You can pick up your graded exam today from AVW 4153 (a few doors from my office).
- Project grades and details about course grade cutoffs and skipping final exam option will be posted by tomorrow.
(Dec 16)
- Project grades, "guaranteed" cutoffs, and skipping final exam option
- Exam 3 on Tuesday December 18, 8-10am, usual class room. Exam covers material of exams 1 and 2.
(Dec 20) HOT Final grades .

Overview

This class provides an introduction to computer networking. It covers basic networking concepts and algorithms, focussing on the Internet. The objective is an in-depth understanding of the TCP/IP protocol suite, datagram routing, congestion control, intra- and inter-domain routing, quality-of-service support, etc.

The programming project in this class involves a Java-based emulation of the transport layer. It is a major part of the course and is to be done individually. You have to design and implement a protocol that satisfies a transport-layer service specification.

Texts/Notes

(Required text) Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet by James Kurose and Keith Ross. ISBN 0-201-47711-4.
Java Resources
Note 1: Internet Overview
Note 2: General Network Overview
Note 3: Qos Packet-switched Networks
Note 4: Transport Layer Principles (postscript (138K), gzipped postscript(41K), (pdf (137K))
Note 4.1: Revised Transport Layer Principles (postscript (224K), gzipped postscript(59K), pdf (183K))
Note 5: TCP congestion control.
Note 5.1: Note 5 (TCP Congestion Control) with correction to rto update
Note 5.2: Solutions to two homework problems in TCP Congestion Control
Practice exam: fall 99 exam 1 and solution

Exam Schedule and Course Weightages

Midterm 1 --- 15%
Midterm 2 --- 15%
Final --- 30%
Projects --- 40%

The weightages are approximate and may change by upto 10%. I reserve the right to fail, regardless of overall numeric score, students who do not submit a good faith attempt to complete all programming assignments.

Projects

All project information is available at http://www.cs.umd.edu/~arun/ta/. Please stay current with that page.
Your OIT accounts have been emailed to your wam account or whatever email you have provided in testudo. In case you do not get the email, email Arun at as41701@umd5.umd.edu to get your account information.
To keep students in 417 from getting in each others way, students are assigned TCP/IP port numbers, and they should use only these ports. The accounts range from as41701, as41702, ..., as41760. Account as417x is assigned ports 6000+10(x-1) to 6000+10x-1 (e.g., as41721 has ports 6200 to 6209).
Project 1. Due September 21.
Project 2. Due October 23.
Project 3. Due November 2.
Project 4. Due December 6.

Additional References

Here are some popular networking texts that provide more detail than the Kurose-Ross text.

Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 1: Principles, Protocols, and Architecture.
Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 2: Design, Implementation, and Internals.
Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 3: Client-Server Programming and Applications.
By D. Comer and D.L. Stevens, Prentice Hall.
Excellent treatment of TCP/IP programming and implementation.
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols.
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2: The Implementation.
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 3: TCP for Transactions, HTTP, NNTP and the UNIX Domain Protocols.
By W. Stevens, Prentice Hall.
Excellent and very thorough treatment of TCP/IP programming and implementation.
An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking: ATM Networks, the Internet, and the Telephone Network. By S.Keshav. Addison Wesley, 1997. ISBN 0-201-63442-2.
Initial chapters provide a good introduction to ATM, Internet, and telephony. Later chapters look at research issues in Internet QoS.
Computer Networks 3rd Edition. By A. Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall 1996.
A huge sprawling book. Covers practially all aspects of networking (telephony, Internet, VC packet switching, wired and wireless LANs, etc.). Suffers from too much talk and imprecision.

This page and all problem sets, lecture notes, and exams linked to it are copyrighted. Use of these pages for the class CMSC417 at the University of Maryland is permitted. Any other use requires permission of the author (Udaya Shankar, shankar@cs.umd.edu).