Computer Networks
Computer Networks
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMPUTER NETWORKS QUESTION BANK Unit - I Data Communication
Two Mark Questions
1. What is network? What are the three criteria necessary for an effective and efficient network? Network is a connected group of autonomous computers that are abided by some rules and also where functionality is shared. The most important criteria are performance, reliability and security. Performance of the network depends on number of users, type of transmission medium, and the capabilities of the connected h/w and the efficiency of the s/w. Reliability is measured by frequency of failure, the time it takes a link to recover from the failure and the network's robustness in a catastrophe. Security issues include protecting data from unauthorized access and viruses.
2. What is meant by data communication? Data communication is the exchange of data (in the form of 1s and 0s) between two devices via some form of transmission medium (such as a wire cable). 3. What are the three fundamental characteristics determine the effectiveness of the data communication system? The effectiveness of the data communication system depends on three fundamental characteristics: Delivery: The system must deliver data to the correct destination. Accuracy: The system must deliver data accurately. Timeliness: The system must deliver data in a timely manner. 4. What are the advantages of distributed processing? Advantages of distributed processing include security/encapsulation, distributed databases, faster problem solving, security through redundancy and collaborative processing. 5. What are the types of network? LAN, MAN and WAN 6. What are some of the factors that determine whether a communication system is a LAN, MAN, or WAN? Size, Ownership, the distance it covers and its physical structure 7. What is a protocol? Why are standards needed? In networks, communication occurs between the entities in different systems. Two entities cannot just send bit streams to each other and expect to be understood. For communication, the entities must agree on a protocol. A protocol is a set of rules that govern data communication.
Co-ordination across the nodes of a network is necessary for an efficient communication. If there are no
standards, difficulties arise. A standard provides a model or basis for development to which everyone has agreed.
8. For n devices in a network, what is the number of cable links required for a mesh and ring topology? Mesh topology - n (n-1)/2 Ring topology - n 9. What is the difference between a passive and an active hub? An active hub contains a repeater that regenerates the received bit patterns before sending them out. A passive hub provides a simple physical connection between the attached devices. 10. Distinguish between peer-to-peer relationship and a primary-secondary relationship. Peer-to-peer relationship: All the devices share the link equally. Primary-secondary relationship: One device controls traffic and the others must transmit through it. 11. Assume 6 devices are arranged in a mesh topology. How many cables are needed? How many ports are needed for each device? Number of cables=n (n-1)/2=6(6-1)/2=15 Number of ports per device=n-1=6-1=5 12. Group the OSI layers by function. The seven layers of the OSI model belonging to three subgroups. Physical, data link and network layers are the network support layers; they deal with the physical aspects of moving data from one device to another. Session, presentation and application layers are the user support layers; they allow interoperability among unrelated software systems. The transport layer ensures end-to-end reliable data transmission. 13. What are header and trailers and how do they get added and removed? Each layer in the sending machine adds its own information to the message it receives from the layer just above it and passes the whole package to the layer just below it. This information is added in the form of headers or trailers. Headers are added to the message at the layers 6,5,4,3, and 2. A trailer is added at layer2. At the receiving machine, the headers or trailers attached to the data unit at the corresponding sending layers are removed, and actions appropriate to that layer are taken. 14. The transport layer creates a communication between the source and destination. What are the three events involved in a connection? Creating a connection involves three steps: connection establishment, data transfer and connection release. 15. What is the DC component? Direct current is a zero-frequency signal with constant amplitude.
16. How does NRZ-L differ from NRZ-I? In the NRZ-L sequence, positive and negative voltages have specific meanings: positive for 0 and negative for 1. in the NRZ-I sequence, the voltages are meaningless. Instead, the receiver looks for changes from one level to another as its basis for recognition of 1s.
17. What are the functions of a DTE? What are the functions of a DCE? Data terminal equipment is a device that is an information source or an information sink. It is connected to a network through a DCE. Data circuit-terminating equipment is a device used as an interface between a DTE and a network.
18. What does the electrical specification of EIA-232 describe? The electrical specification of EIA-232 defines that signals other than data must be sent using OFF as less than -3 volts and ON as greater than +3 volts. The data must be transmitted using NRZ-L encoding. 19. Discuss the mode for propagating light along optical channels. There are two modes for propagating light along optical channels, multimode and single mode. Multimode: Multiple beams from a light source move through the core in different paths. Single mode: Fiber with extremely small diameter that limits beams to a few angles, resulting in an almost horizontal beam. 20. What is refraction? The phenomenon related to the bending of light when it passes from one medium to another.
21. How are the guided media differing from unguided transmission media? Guided transmission media Unguided transmission media 1. Guided indicate, medium is contained within physical boundary 2. Transmission takes place through wire. 1.Unguided medium does not have any Physical boundary 2. It is a wireless transmission.
22. What are the disadvantages of optical fiber as a transmission medium? The disadvantages of optical fiber are Very expensive. Installation and maintenance is difficult. Fragility. 23. What are the criteria used to evaluate transmission medium? The criteria used to evaluate transmission medium are Throughput Propagation speed Propagation time Wavelength 24. Give the relationship between propagation speed and propagation time? Propagation time = distance / propagation speed The time required for a signal or a bit to travel from one point to another is called Propagation time. Propagation speed is the distance, a signal or a bit travel through a medium in one second.
25. Explain cross talk and what is needed to reduce it? Effect of one wire on another is called as cross talk. One wire will be the sending antenna and the other wire will be the receiving antenna. We can use the shielded twisted pair cable or coaxial cable for transmission, which contains metal foil to reduce cross talk.
16 Mark Questions
1. Explain ISO/OSI reference model. Physical layer Data link layer Network layer Transport layer Session layer Presentation layer Application layer 2. Explain the topologies of the network. Mesh topology Star topology Tree topology Bus topology Ring topology 3. Explain the categories of networks. Local Area Network (LAN) Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) Wide Area Network (WAN) 4. Explain coaxial cable & fiber optics. Coaxial cable Coaxial cable standards Coaxial cable connectors Fiber optics Propagation modes Fiber sizes Cable composition Light sources for optical cable Fiber optic connectors Advantages & disadvantages of optical fiber 5. Explain line coding (digital to digital conversion). Unipolar Polar Bipolar
accepted. Otherwise, the received stream of bits is discarded and the dates are resent. 11. Give the essential properties for polynomial. A polynomial should be selected to have at least the following properties. a) It should not be divisible x. b) It should be divisible by(x+1). 12. Define checksum. The error detection method used by the higher layer protocol is called checksum. Checksum is based on the concept of redundancy. 13. What are the steps followed in checksum generator? The sender follows these steps a) The units are divided into k sections each of n bits. b) All sections are added together using 2's complement to get the sum. c) The sum is complemented and become the checksum. d) The checksum is sent with the data. 14. List out the steps followed is checksum checker side. The receiver must follow these steps a) The unit is divided into k section each of n bits. b) All sections are added together using 1's complement to get the sum. c) The sum is complemented. d) If the result is zero. 15. Write short notes on error correction. It is the mechanism to correct the errors and it can be handled in 2 ways. a) When an error is discovered, the receiver can have the sender retransmit the entire data unit. b) A receiver can use an error correcting coder, which automatically corrects certain errors. 16. Mention the types of error correcting methods. There are 2 error-correcting methods. a) Single bit error correction b) Burst error correction. 17. What is the purpose of hamming code? A hamming code can be designed to correct burst errors of certain lengths. So the simple strategy used by the hamming code to correct single bit errors must be redesigned to be applicable for multiple bit correction. 18. Define flow control. Flow control refers to a set of procedures used to restrict the amount of data. The sender can send before waiting for acknowledgment. 19. What is a buffer? Each receiving device has a block of memory called a buffer, reserved for storing incoming data until they are processed. 20. Mention the categories of flow control. There are 2 methods have been developed to control flow of data across communication links. a) Stop and wait- send one from at a time. b) Sliding window- send several frames at a time. 21. What is the function of stop and wait flow control?
In this method, the sender sends one frame and waits for an acknowledgement before sending. 22. Mention the advantage and disadvantage of stop and wait flow control. Advantage: simplicity Disadvantage: inefficiency. 23. Define ARQ. Error control in the data link layer is based on Automatic repeat request (ARQ), which means retransmission of data in 3 cases. a) Damaged frame b) Lost frame c) Lost acknowledgment. 24. Mention the function of go-back N-ARQ. It is the popular mechanism for continuous transmission error control. In the method, if our frame is lost or damaged, all frames sent since the last frame acknowledged are retransmitted. 25. What is selective reject ARQ? In selective reject ARQ only the specific damaged or lost frame is retransmitted. If a frame is corrupted in transit, a NAK is returned and the frame is resent out of sequence. 26. Define HDLC. It is a bit-oriented data link protocol designed to support both half-duplex and full duplex communication over point to point and midpoint links.
27. List the types of stations is HDLC. HDLC differentiates between 3 types of stations. a) Primary b) Secondary c) Combined 28. Define configuration. The bond configuration refers to the relationship of hardware devices on a link. 29. List the various ways of station configuration. The stations are configured in 3 ways a) Unbalanced configuration b) Symmetrical configuration c) Balanced configuration 30. What are the different communication modes in HDLC? HDLC supports 3 modes of communication between stations. a) Normal response mode (NRM) b) Asynchronous response mode (ARM) c) Asynchronous balanced mode (ABM) 31. Mention the types of frames in HDLC. There are 3 types of HDLC frames. a) Information frames (I-frames) b) Supervisory frames (S-frames) c) Unnumbered frames (Uframes) 32. Give the usage of I, S, U frames. I frames - used to transport user data and control information relating to user data. S frames - used only to transport control information, primarily data link layer and error controls. U frames - reserved for systems management.
33. Write the types of frame fields contained in HDLC. Each frame in HDLC may contain up to 6 fields. a) Beginning flag field b) An address field c) A control field d) An e) A frame check sequence (FCS) field f) An ending flag field.
information
field
34. What is meant by bit stuffing? Bit stuffing is the process of adding one extra 0 whenever there are 5 consecutive in the data so that the receiver doesn't mistake the data for a flag. 35. Define LAN. A Local Area Network (LAN) is a data communication system that allows a number of independent devices to communicate directly with each other in a limited geographic area. 36. Mention the various architecture in a LAN. LAN is dominated by 4 architectures. a) Ethernet b) Token bus c) Token ring d) Fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) 37. Define a standard 802.3 IEEE 802.3 supports a LAN standard originally developed by Xerox and later extended by a joint venture between digital equipment corporations. Intel Corporation and Xerox. This was called 'Ethernet'. 38. List the most command kinds of Base band 802.3 LAN. a) 10 Base 5 b) 10 Base 2 c) 10 Base T d) 1 Base 5 e) 100 Base T 39. Mention the different kinds of Ethernet networks. a) Switched Ethernet b) Fast Ethernet c) Gigabit Ethernet 40. Write short notes on FDDI. Fiber distributed data interface is a local areas. Network protocol standardized by ANSI and ITU-7. It supports data rates of 100 Mbps and provides a high-speed alternative to Ethernet and token ring access method used here is token passing. 41. Describe the three HDLC station types? The three HDLC station types are: Primary station: The primary station has the complete control of the link. The Primary station sends commands to the secondary station. Secondary station: The secondary station sends responses. Combined station: The combined station is one which acts either as a primary or a Secondary, depending upon the nature and direction of the transmission. Combined station sends both commands and responses. 42. What is piggy backing? Piggy backing means combining data sent and acknowledgement of the frame received in one single frame. Piggy backing can save bandwidth because the overhead from a data frame and an ACK frame can be combined into just one frame 43. Name the four types of S-frames? The four types of S-frames are Receive ready(RR).The value of the code sub field is 00
Receive not ready(RNR). The value of the code sub field is 10 Reject(REJ). The value of the code sub field is 01 Selective reject(SREJ). The value of the code sub field is 11 44. Name the categories of U-frames? The five categories of U-frames are Mode setting, Unnumbered exchange Disconnection. Initialization mode and Miscellaneous mode
16 Mark Questions
1. Explain error detection and error correction techniques. Types of errors Single bit error Burst error Error detection Vertical redundancy check(VRC) Longitudinal redundancy check(LRC) Cyclic redundancy check(CRC) Checksum Error correction Single-bit error correction Hamming code Burst error correction 2. Explain error control mechanism. Stop and wait ARQ Sliding window ARQ Go back-n Selective-reject 3. Explain the flow control mechanism Stop and wait Sliding window. 4. Explain the timers and time registers in FDDI. Time registers Synchronous allocation(SA) Target token rotation time(TTRT) Absolute maximum time(AMT) Timers Token rotation timer(TRT) Token holding timer(THT) 5. Explain about Ethernet. Access method :CSMA/CD Addressing Electrical specification Frame format Implementation: 10 base 5 :Thick Ethernet
10 base 2 :Thin Ethernet 10 base T :Twisted-pair Ethernet 1 base 5 :Star LAN 6. Explain the frame format for token ring and token bus. Access method: Token passing Priority and reservation Time limits Monitor stations 7. Explain about HDLC. Station types: Primary station Secondary station Configurations: Unbalanced configuration Symmetrical configuration Balanced configuration Modes of communication: Normal Response Mode(NRM) Asynchronous Response Mode(ARM) Asynchronous Balanced Mode(ABM) Frames : Flag field Address field Control field Information field FCS field
packet represents just a place of a multipacket transmission, the network treats it although it existed alone. Packets in this technology are referred to as datagram. 10. What are the two types of implementation formats in virtual circuits? Virtual circuit transmission is implemented in 2 formats. Switched virtual circuit Permanent virtual circuit. 11. What is meant by switched virtual circuit? Switched virtual circuit format is comparable conceptually to dial-up line in circuit switching. In this method, a virtual circuit is created whenever it is needed and exits only for the duration of specific exchange. 12. What is meant by Permanent virtual circuit? Permanent virtual circuits are comparable to leased lines in circuit switching. In this method, the same virtual circuit is provided between two uses on a continuous basis. The circuit is dedicated to the specific uses. 13. Define Routers. Routers relay packets among multiple interconnected networks. They Route packets from one network to any of a number of potential destination networks on internet routers operate in the physical, data link and network layer of OSI model. 14. What is meant by hop count? The pathway requiring the smallest number of relays, it is called hop-count routing, in which every link is considered to be of equal length and given the value one. 15. How can the routing be classified? The routing can be classified as, Adaptive routing Non-adaptive routing. 16. What is time-to-live or packet lifetime? As the time-to-live field is generated, each packet is marked with a lifetime, usually the number of hops that are allowed before a packet is considered lost and accordingly, destroyed. The time-to-live determines the lifetime of a packet. 17. What is meant by brouter? A brouter is a single protocol or multiprotocol router that sometimes acts as a router and sometimes act as a bridge. 18. Write the keys for understanding the distance vector routing. The three keys for understanding the algorithm are Knowledge about the whole networks Routing only to neighbors Information sharing at regular intervals 19. Write the keys for understanding the link state routing. The three keys for understanding the algorithm are Knowledge about the neighborhood. Routing to all neighbors.
29. Define Gateway. A device used to connect two separate networks that we different communication protocols. 30. What is LSP? In link state routing, a small packet containing routing information sent by a router to all other router by a packet called link state packet.
16 Mark Questions
1. Explain the two approaches of packet switching techniques. Datagram approach Virtual circuit approach Switched virtual circuit(SVC) Permanent virtual circuit(PVC) Circuit - switched connection versus virtual - circuit connection Path versus route Dedicated versus shared 2. Explain IP addressing method. Internetwork protocol (IP) Datagram Addressing Classes Dotted decimal notation A sample internet 3. Define routing & explain distance vector routing and link state routing. Distance vector routing Sharing information Routing table Creating the table Updating the table Updating algorithm Link state routing Information sharing Packet cost Link state packet Getting information about neighbors Initialization Link state database 4. Define bridge and explain the type of bridges. Bridges Types of bridges Simple bridge Multiport bridge Transparent bridge 5. Explain subnetting
Subnetting Three levels of hierarchy Masking Masks without subnetting Masks with subnetting Finding the subnetwork address Boundary level masking Non-boundary level masking 6. Write short notes about repeaters, routers and gateways. Repeaters Routers Routing concepts Least-cost routing Non adaptive routing Adaptive routing Packet lifetime Gateways
9. What are the two possible transport services? Two basic types of transport services are, Connection service Connectionless services 10. The transport layer creates the connection between source and destination. What are the three events involved in the connection? For security, the transport layer may create a connection between the two end ports. A connection is a single logical path between the source and destination that is associated ith all packets in a message. Creating a connection involves three steps: Connection establishment Data transfer & Connection release. 11. What are the techniques used in multiplexing? The three basic techniques of multiplexing are, Frequency-division multiplexing Time-division multiplexing Wave-division multiplexing 12. What is meant by congestion? Congestion in a network occur if user send data into the network at a rate greater than that allowed by network resources. 13. Why the congestion occur in network? Congestion occurs because the switches in a network have a limited buffer size to store arrived packets. 14. How will the congestion be avoided? The congestion may be avoided by two bits BECN - Backward Explicit Congestion Notification FECN - Forward Explicit Congestion Notification 15. What is the function of BECN BIT? The BECN bit warns the sender of congestion in network. The sender can respond to this warning by simply reducing the data rate. 16. What is the function of FECN? The FECN bit is used to warn the receiver of congestion in the network. The sender and receiver are communicating with each other and are using some types of flow control at a higher level. 17. What is meant by quality of service? The quality of service defines a set of attributes related to the performance of the connection. For each connection, the user can request a particular attribute each service class is associated with a set of attributes. 18. What are the two categories of QoS attributes? The two main categories are User Oriented Network Oriented
19. List out the user related attributes? User related attributes are SCR - Sustainable Cell Rate PCR - Peak Cell Rate MCR- Minimum Cell Rate CVDT - Cell Variation Delay Tolerance 20. What are the networks related attributes? The network related attributes are, Cell loss ratio (CLR) Cell transfer delay (CTD) Cell delay variation (CDV) Cell error ratio (CER) 21. What is frame? A frame consists of one complete cycle of time slots, including one or more slot dedicated to each sending device. 22. What is interleaving? The switch moves from device to device at a constant rate and fixed order. This process is called interleaving. 23. What is framing bits? One or more synchronization bits are usually added to the beginning of each frame. These bitts are called framing bits.
24. What is the difference between service point address, logical address and physical address? Transport layer header includes a type of address called a service point address or port address which makes a data delivery from a specific process on one computer to a specific process on another computer. If a packet passes the network boundary we need another addressing to differentiate the source and destination systems. The network layer adds a header, which indicates the logical address of the sender and receiver. If the frames are to be distributed to different systems on the network, the data link layer adds the header, which defines the source machine's address and the destination machine's address.
16 Mark Questions
1. Explain the duties of transport layer. End to end delivery Addressing Reliable delivery
3(POP3). Although POP3 is used to download messages from the server, the SMTP client still needed on the desktop to forward messages from the workstation user to its SMTP mail server.
Request Line
Status Line
Headers
A Blank Line
Body
11. Write down the three types of WWW documents. The documents in the WWW can be grouped into three broad categories: static, dynamic and active. Static: Fixed-content documents that are created and stored in a server. Dynamic: Created by web server whenever a browser requests the document. Active: A program to be run at the client side.
12. What is the purpose of HTML? HTML is a computer language for specifying the contents and format of a web document. It allows additional text to include codes that define fonts, layouts, embedded graphics and hypertext links. 13. Define CGI. CGI is a standard for communication between HTTP servers and executable programs. It is used in crating dynamic documents. 14. Name four factors needed for a secure network. Privacy: The sender and the receiver expect confidentiality. Authentication: The receiver is sure of the sender's identity and that an imposter has not sent the message. Integrity: The data must arrive at the receiver exactly as it was sent. Non-Reputation: The receiver must able to prove that a received message came from a specific sender. 15. How is a secret key different from public key? In secret key, the same key is used by both parties. The sender uses this key and an encryption algorithm to encrypt data; the receiver uses the same key and the corresponding decryption algorithm to decrypt the data. In public key, there are two keys: a private key and a public key. The private key is kept by the receiver. The public key is announced to the public. 16. What is a digital signature? Digital signature is a method to authenticate the sender of a message. It is similar to that of signing transactions documents when you do business with a bank. In network transactions, you can create an equivalent of an electronic or digital signature by the way you send data. 17. What are the advantages & disadvantages of public key encryption? Advantages: a) Remove the restriction of a shared secret key between two entities. Here each entity can create a pair of keys, keep the private one, and publicly distribute the other one. b) The no. of keys needed is reduced tremendously. For one million users to communicate, only two million keys are needed. Disadvantage: If you use large numbers the method to be effective. Calculating the cipher text using the long keys takes a lot of time. So it is not recommended for large amounts of text. 18. What are the advantages & disadvantages of secret key encryption? Advantage: Secret Key algorithms are efficient: it takes less time to encrypt a message. The reason is that the key is usually smaller. So it is used to encrypt or decrypt long messages. Disadvantages: a) Each pair of users must have a secret key. If N people in world want to use this method, there needs to be N (N-1)/2 secret keys. For one million people to communicate, a half-billion secret keys are needed. b) The distribution of the keys between two parties can be difficult. 19. Define permutation. Permutation is transposition in bit level.
Straight permutation: The no. of bits in the input and output are preserved. Compressed permutation: The no. of bits is reduced (some of the bits are dropped). Expanded permutation: The no. of bits is increased (some bits are repeated). 20. Define substitutional & transpositional encryption. Substitutional: A character level encryption in which each character is replaced by another character in the set. Transpositional: A Character level encryption in which the characters retain their plaintext but the position of the character changes.
16 Mark Questions
1. Explain the functions of SMTP. System for sending messages to other computer users based on e-mail addresses. SMTP provides mail exchange between users on the same or different computers. User Agent Mail Transfer Agent Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions Post Office Protocol 2. Write short notes on FTP. Transfer a file from one system to another. TCP connections Basic model of FTP 3. Explain about HTTP. HTTP transactions HTTP messages URL 4. Explain the WWW in detail. Hypertext & Hypermedia Browser Architecture Categories of Web Documents HTML CG I Java 5. Explain the type of encryption/decryption method. Conventional Methods: Character-Level Encryption: Substitutional & Transpositional Bit-Level Encryption: Encoding/Decoding, Permutation, Product, Exclusive-Or & Rotation Public key Methods 6. Explain about RSA algorithm. Public key Encryption technique.