CSCI 445 Computer Communication Networks
by Hui Chen, Ph.D.

Overview

This is an undergraduate and graduate combined computer networking class that cover a wide range of topics in computer networking. It consists of lectures, labs, and various assigments.

Syllabus

Download it in a PDF file

Textbook

Larry L. Peterson and Bruce S. Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, 5th Ed., Morgan Kaufmann, 2011. ISBN-10: 0123850592. ISBN-13: 978-0123850591.

Reference Books

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 5th Ed. Prentice Hall PTR, Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, USA, 2010, ISBN-10: 0132126958, ISBN-13: 978 -0132126953.

James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 5th Ed., Addison Wesley, 2009, ISBN: 0-13-607967-9

Class Schedule and Material

  1. 08/18 Fundamentals: Concepts

    Resources: VSU Library Off-Campus Access

    Assignment: Read Sections 1.1 - 1.3 of the textbook and An early history of the internet

  2. 08/20 - 08/24 Fundamentals: Bandwidth and Latency

    Assignment: Read Section 1.5 of the textbook and complete Exercises L2-1, L2-2, and L2-3

  3. 08/26 Encoding and Framing

    Assignment: Read Sections 2.1 - 2.3 of the textbook and complete Exercises L3-1, L3-2, and L3-3

    Student Presentation Assignment: See lesson plan on 09/09

  4. 08/31 Error Detection

    Assignment: Read Section 2.4 of the textbook and complete Exercises L4-1 and L4-2

  5. 09/02 Reliable Transmission and Examples in Point-to-Point Networks

    Assignment: Read Sections 2.5 of the textbook and complete Exercises L5-1 and L5-2

  6. 09/07 Labor Day Holiday; No Class.

  7. 09/09 Media Access Control and Examples in Multiple-Access Networks

    Student presentation on: Broadband Internet Performance: A View From the Gateway

    Assignment: Read Sections 2.6 of the textbook and complete Exercises L6-1 and L6-2 and Chapter 4 The Medium Access Control Sublayer of in Reference book Tanenbaum 2010

  8. 09/14 Socket Programming with Ethernet

    Resources: Debian Virtual Machine Image at Dropbox.com; Debian Virtual Machine Image at Onedrive.com; Setting Up Virtual Machines

    Assignment: Read section 1.4 of the textbook and complete Homework 1 and check out Beej's Guide to Network Programming by Brian Hall.

  9. 09/16 Packet Switching

    Assignment: Read section 3.1.1 - 3.1.3 of the textbook

  10. 09/21 Bridges and LAN Switches

    Assignment: Read section 3.1.4 of the textbook

  11. 09/23 Simple Internetworking: Concepts

    Topic: internetworking, IPv4 packet format, IPv4 classful and classless addressing, address resolution (ARP), host configuration (DHCP), error reporting (ICMP), virtual networks and tunnels

    Assignment: Read section 3.2 of the textbook

  12. 09/28 Simple Internetworking: Addressing Revisited

    Topic: Subnetting and Clasless Addressing

    Assignment: Read section 3.2 of the textbook. Complete mini-project 1 in which you are to configure an IPv4 interwork using Linux virtual machines.

  13. 09/30 Midterm Exam

  14. 10/05 Fall break (Monday October 5 - Tuesday October 6, 2015 ). No classes

  15. 10/07 Simple Internetworking: Routing

    Topic: Intradomain routing algorithms including distance-vector (RIP) and link-state (OSPF) routing algorithms, and link costs

    Assignment: Read section 3.3 of the textbook

  16. 10/12 - 10/14 Global Internetworking: Interndomain Routing and MPLS

    Topic: Evolution of the Global Internet, interdomain routing (BGP), MPLS, virtual private networks and tunnels, and routing among mobile devices

    Assignment: Read section 4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.2 - 4.5 of the textbook; Project 1 and Project 2 (network design and implementation using Linux virtual machines);

  17. 10/19 - 10/21 Global Internetworking: Transition to IPv6

    Topic: Evolution of the Global Internet, IPv6, transition to IPv6, multicasting, and mobile IP

    Assignment: Read section 4.1.3 of the textbook and additional research papers and technical reports; Project 3 (network design and implementation for IPv4 to IPv6 transition using Linux virtual machines)

  18. 10/26 - 10/28 End-to-End Protocols

    Topic: Simple demultiplexer (UDP), reliable byte stream (TCP), and transport for real-time applications (RTP)

    Assignment: Read sections 5.1, 5.2, and 5.4 of the textbook;

  19. 11/02 Socket Programming with IP , UDP and TCP

    Topic: Socket API for programming with IP, UDP, and TCP protocols

    Resources: Sample programs are in Blackboard; Linux (Ubuntu 14.04) Virtual Machine for VirtualBox;

    Assignment: Read section 1.4 of the textbook and complete Homework 2 and check out Beej's Guide to Network Programming by Brian Hall.

  20. 11/04 - 11/11 Congestion Control and Resource Allocation

    Topic: Resource allocation, queuing disciplines, TCP congestion control, congestion-avoidance mechanisms, and quality of service

    Assignment: Read sections 6.1 - 6.5 of the textbook; Team mini-research project initiation (Project 4)

    Student presentation on: Measuring and Mitigating Web Performance Bottlenecks in Broadband Access Networks

  21. 11/16 Infrastructure Services: Name Service

    Topic: Name Service (DNS) and E-mail

    Assignment: Read sections 9.3.1 and 9.1.1 of the textbook; Checkpoint for Project

    Student Presentation on: Ankit Singla, Balakrishnan Chandrasekaran, P. Brighten Godfrey, and Bruce Maggs. 2014. The Internet at the Speed of Light. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets-XIII). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Pages 1 , 7 pages. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2670518.2673876

  22. 11/18 Infrastructure Services: Network Management

    Topic: Network management (SNMP)

    Assignment: Read sections 9.3.2 of the textbook; Checkpoint for Project

  23. 11/23 - 11/25 Network Security

    Topic: Introduction to security policies, enforcing mechanisms, cryptographic building blocks, key distribution, authentication, and example systems (PGP, SSH, TLS, SSL, HTTPS, IPsec, and wireless security)

    Assignment: Read sections 8.1 - 8.5 of the textbook

  24. 11/26 Thanksgiving Holiday

  25. 11/30 World Wide Web and Content Distribution Networks

    Topic: World Wide Web (HTTP), Web Service, content distribution networks

    Assignment: Read sections 9.1.2, 9.1.3, and 9.4.3 of the textbook;

    Student Presentation on: Ramakrishnan Durairajan, Paul Barford, Joel Sommers, and Walter Willinger. 2015. InterTubes: A Study of the US Long-haul Fiber-optic Infrastructure. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 565-578. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2785956.2787499

  26. 12/02 Project and Paper Presentations (Last day of class in Fall 2015)

  27. 12/03 Reading Day. Senior Project Presentation.

  28. 12/04 - 12/09 Final Examination Week

    CSCI445/545 Final Exam:

    6:00 - 8:00PM Monday, December 7, 2015 at HM 14S