Internet: Technology, Protocols and Services: Homework Assignment 1

1. Given the current growth of the Internet and a human population of (then approximately) 10 billion, when will every human being on the planet have an IP address?
2. Compare the OSI NSAP (see Tanenbaum) and IPv4 address formats.
3. Sketch (pseudo-code) an algorithm for reassembling IP fragments.
4. How could you discover the minimum MTU on a path?
5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing hop-by-hop vs. end-to-end fragmentation and reassembly?
6. What are reasons for limiting the MTU in the data link layer?
7. Compare the German telephone number system with the IPv4 and IPv6 address assignments.
8. What is the single greatest advantage of having the IP checksum cover only the datagram header and not the data? What is the disadvantage? (C7.1)
9. Is it ever necessary to use an IP checksum when sending packets over an Ethernet? Why or why not? (C7.2)
10. What are the advantages of doing reassembly at the ultimate destination instead of doing it afte the datagram travels across one network?
11. When a minimum size IP datagram travels across an Ethernet, how large is the frame?
12. If all Internet service providers used supernetting and assign subscribers numbers from their block of addresses, what problem occurs when a subscriber changes from one provider to another? (C10.20)
13. Consider a fixed subnet partition of a class B network number that will accomodate at least 76 networks. How many hosts can be on each network? (C10.5)
14. What is the chief advantage of using protocol ports instead of process identifiers to specify the destination within a machine? (C12.8)
15. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using UDP (instead of TCP) for DNS?
16. Compute the link-state routing table with source B instead of A.
17. For the five-node network shown in class, show the effect of poison reverse when link AB goes down.
18. How might one implement load balancing between several hosts using DNS?
19. Sketch how a symmetric stream client might work, where either of two processes may contact the other.