2nd - Computer Networks Exam - September, 13th 2010

Name:

Rules: Short answers are appreciated. Each question scores 2%. Duration 2 hours.

1. What are the main tasks of a router?

routing and forwarding
2. Name two protocols we can find on the Network Layer of TCP/IP communication architecture.
IP & ICMP
3. How can a service similar to circuit-switching be provided over a packet-switching network?
By using virtual ciruits.
4. Give a mathematical expression of the transfer time of N datagrams between two end systems
connected by means of two routers (ttx is datagram transmission time and tpr is propagation time)
3*tprN*ttx
5. The contents of the first byte of an IP datagram [header] is 0x45. What does it mean?
4 means IPv4 and 5 means the length of this datagram header is 5 32-bit words.
6. What fields of IPv4 header are related to fragmentation/reassembly functionality?
More fragments flag + Do not fragment flag + framentation_offset + datagram_identifier
7. What is the unit of “fragmentation offset” IPv4 header field?
It is measured as the number of 8 byte blocks. Real offset in bytes is offset*8
8. If the MTU of a given network is 503 bytes, what is the size of the first fragment of a 1024 bytes
datagram being forwarded onto that network?
500 bytes (503-20=483, closest but lower mutiple of eight is 480, so 480+20=500)
9. How many hosts can be found on my network if my address is 158.42.10.23 and network mask
is 255.255.224.0 ?
Than mean mask is 19 bits for address, so there are 13 bit for the host part. 213-2 hosts.
10. Show CIDR network ID (x.x.x.x/y) for the above network (question 9).
158.42.0.0/19
11. Which are the new networks obtained by splitting the address space 192.168.1.0/24 into four
equal-size subnets? (use CIDR notation).
192.168.1.0/26, 192.168.1.64/26, 192.168.1.128/26, 192.168.1.192/26
12. What device would you need to interconnect two subnets? And two networks?
A router, a router.
13. What is the minimum size (in bytes) of IPv4 datagram header?
20 bytes
14. What is the "id" IPv4 datagram header field for?
It acts as a serial number. Each datagram has a different number, but fragments share the same id.
15. What is the purpose of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol?
To allow a computer to obtain IP configuration over the network.
16. What is the purpose of a NAT box?
To allow several computers to share a single public IP address.
17. What graph-theory algorithm is used by link-state routing protocols?
Dijkstra's algorithm.
18. Who is in charge of fragmenting IP datagrams?
Sending host and any router along the path to destination.
19. What is an autoconfigured private IP address?
Address in the range 169.254.0.0/16 assigned when manual configuration and DHCP are missing.
20. What is a private IP address? Put one example.
Non-routable addresses for private use only. Example: 192.168.1.1
21. What is the problem of only using manual configuration of IP addresses?
Any change requires admin to go through all the computers to update their config files.
22. Why incoming connections do not traverse a NAT box?
Because no entry of the translation table will match the incoming connection.
23. What is a virtual server in a NAT box?
To create a manual entry that will match a certain type of incomming connection. The new entry
will direct that traffic to an specific server on the private addressing space.
24. What is the protocol used for reporting errors with IP datagrams?
ICMP
25. What is the next version after IPv4?
IPv6
26. What command can be used to determine the sequence of routers to a certain server
(www.server.com)?
traceroute www.server.com
27. What ICMP messages are used by “ping” command?
echo request & echo response
28. What is network tunnel?
It is like a wormhole that goes from one location to another. Datagrams fed on one end will appear
on the other end. It can allow different IP version to be forwarded to another network.
29. Is BGP protocol used on the Networks Lab computers? Why?
No. BGP is only used on the Internet backbone (between different autonomous systems).
30. What parts of the Internet are routed with RIP protocol?
Some autonomous systems.
31. What parts of the Internet are routed with OSPF protocol?
Some autonomous systems.
32. What is flooding for?
To allow data to be sent to all the routers of a computer network.
33. What is a frame?
It is name of data unit on the Link Layer.
34. Why does link layer has addresses if IP already provides that?
It does not matter. Each layer can exist without the other. Certain Link Layer technologies (like
Ethernet) use multipoint links so addressing is needed to specify who the destination is.
35. What device do you need to add to a computer in order to connect it to a network?
A Network Interface Card (NIC). It is built-in in many modern computers though.
36. What error detection mechanism can be found on Ethernet?
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC).
37. Why checksum does not protect against word sequence changes? (reordering)
Because addition is commutative.
38. Why it is said Ethernet is a broadcast network.
Because each transmitted frame is received by all the nodes of the network (bus topology).
39. What is the purpose of a CSMA/CD on Ethernet?
To manage the efficient sharing of a common transmission media (bus)
40. Why Token Ring networks have higher network latency?
Because nodes have to wait till the next round of the token even if there is no other node willing to
transmit.
41. What is network latency?
It is the time since a node has a packet to transmit till the actual packet transmission.
42. What is a non-slotted channel?
A channel where time is not divided into slots (continuous time).
43. What is the length (in bits) of Ethernet CRC field?
32 bits
44. How are MAC addresses mapped to IP addresses?
By means of ARP protocol (Address Resolution Protocol)
45. What are the two operational modes of mobile clients in 802.11 networks?
Ad-hoc and infraestructure modes
46. What is the hidden terminal problem on wireless networks?
Two wireless nodes that cannot hear each other but can interfere each other's transmissions to a
third party.
47. What type of network is Bluetooth?
It is a Personal Area Network (PAN)
48. Who is entitled to create a digital certificate?
A Certification Authority
49. What is the RSA algorithm for?
It is a public-key cryptosystem. RSA algorithm is based on exponentiation.
50. What does it mean that a given message has been digitally signed?
Certain info has been added to the message so receiver can verify sender's identity.