CS349- Assignment 1

Tushar Bhutada- 170101073

Answer 1
The following protocols have been used at various layers by the application NPTEL as observed
using Wireshark. Also, all fields have not been explained in this part because the rest of them
have been explained in Answer 2.
Link Layer​- ​Ethernet II​ is the used protocol. ​Preamble​ allows synchronization of network
clocks across devices. ​Start Frame Delimiter​(SFD) marks the beginning of a new frame. ​Type
denotes the type of connection. ​The ​frame check sequence​ (FCS) is a cyclic redundancy check
(CRC) that allows the detection of corrupted data within the entire frame as received on the receiver
side.

Transport layer- TCP​ is the used protocol. ​Sequence Number field​ (32 bits) specifies the
number assigned to the first byte of data in the current message. ​Acknowledgment​ ​Number
field​ (32 bits) contains the value of the next sequence number that the sender of the segment is
expecting to receive if the ACK control bit is set. The Flags is a set of six values after the
reserved bits. ​Window field​ (16 bits) specifies the size of the sender's receive window (that is,
buffer space available for incoming data). ​Checksum field​ (16 bits) indicates whether the
header was damaged in transit. ​Urgent pointer field​ (16 bits) points to the first urgent data byte
in the packet. ​Options field​ (variable length) specifies various TCP options. The​ data field
(variable length) contains upper-layer information.
Network layer- IPv4​ is the used protocol. ​Total length​ field defines the entire packet size in
bytes, including header and data.​ The​ identification​ ​field is primarily used for uniquely identifying
the group of fragments of a single IP datagram. ​Fragment​ specifies the offset of a particular
fragment relative to the beginning of the original unfragmented IP datagram.

Application layer- Transport Layer Security(TLS)​ is the used protocol for security. The basic
unit of data in SSL is a ​record​. Each record consists of a five-byte record ​header​, followed by
data​. The header contains Record Type which can be of four types(Handshake, Change Cipher
Spec, Alert, Application Data). It is a 16-byte value formatted in network order.

Answer 2
Ethernet II​- ​Destination​ contains MAC Address of the destination (Hostel switch). ​Source
contains the MAC address of the sending device (My laptop). ​Type​ refers to the protocol used
for the payload in the frame.

IPv4-​ IPv4 address is in use (10.11.12.9). ​Header length​ is 20 bytes and shown as 5 because
the jump is 4 bytes each. ​DCP: CS0​ indicates best-effort delivery service and ​ECN: Not-ECT
implies Non ECN-Capable Transport. ​Packet size​ is 764 bytes.​ Flag​ value equals “Don’t
Fragment” to not break the packet into smaller fragments. ​TTL(​Time To Live​)​ is 128 hops.TCP
is used as​ protocol​ for the layer above. ​Header Checksum​ is the technique used for error
detection of packet headers. ​Source and Destination​ contain the IP address of my laptop and
the application respectively.

SSL​-The ​Application Data Protocol​ indicates that the protocol used at the application layer is
HTTP (secured with tls. ​Content-Type​ refers to the payload type(Application data here).
Version​ tells the protocol version for communication security(TLSv1.2 here). ​Length​ is the
message length.​Encrypted Application Data​ is unreadable by anyone who does not have the
required key.

TCP- ​The ​Source, Destination, Header length​ are the same as explained before.​Flags
PSH and ACK are set. ACK refers to the acknowledgment from another device upon receiving.
PSH is an indication by the sender that, if the receiving machine's TCP implementation
has not yet provided the data it's received to the code that's reading the data, it should do so at
that point. The ​Window Size Value​ indicates buffer space at one end for receiving. ​Scaling
Factor​ refers to the multiplier for window size displayed.
Answer 3
● Coursera/NPTEL has one of the most important features of their application as
streaming videos. Since these are educational applications, every piece of data has to
be received perfectly and as a result, TCP is used for reliable data transfer, making its
use inevitable. Also, data arrives in order which is a necessity for a video stream.
● TLSv1.2 serves as the Secure Sockets Layer which provides the most required security
to the application. This allows the application to send packets between two end devices
with protection from hackers/malicious bugs by encrypting the data.
● Ethernet II is used for its proper error handling and flow control mechanisms to ensure a
smooth run of the application.
● IPv4 is used to assist TCP as TCP is not compatible with other network layer
protocols(except IP).
Answer 4
DNS querying:​ On starting the application, DNS querying is done by the browser. Series of
messages are exchanged to allow the browser to learn the IP address of nptel.ac.in. the
querying is for ‘A’ record type, which is used to relate IP addresses with domain names.

Streaming videos​- Playing a video on the application causes the server to send data to my
laptop, each of which is ACKnowledged by a message. My laptop sent a cumulative ACK back
for multiple TCP segments of a reassembled PDU (upper-layer protocol data unit is broken
down into smaller TCP segments and then sent through the TCP connection) indicating the
first-byte number that it wants to be sent next. Once all these segments arrive, they are
re-assembled and the application layer receives data in the same order. Functionalities, like
playing, pausing, etc, are enabled through different port on my laptop but same port 443 on the
NPTEL server. The communication is achieved by sending acknowledgments through
piggybacking mechanism which is evident from the fact that ACK packet has non zero length
implying some data. KEEP-ALIVE messages are periodically exchanged to keep the connection
alive while a video is paused.

Downloading video​- Fundamentally it is the same as streaming, the only difference being that
the laptop ow sends messages to the server through the same port, no different ports this time.
The server also sends PSH packets when the video is about to finish being downloaded so that
the buffer is emptied by giving it to the relevant application.

TCP handshakes can be seen from the packets sequencing. The IP 14.139.160.71 corresponds
to the NPTEL home page.
● The first handshake is the ​three-way connection handshake​ (SYN SYN-ACK ACK)
that is used by TCP to set up a connection. It is initiated by a client hello message which
is responded with a server hello. The connection then acts as a pipeline where the two
ends can directly transfer data. To establish a connection, each device must send a SYN
and receive an ACK for it from the other device. Thus, conceptually, we need to have
four control messages pass between the devices. However, it's inefficient to send a SYN
and an ACK in separate messages when one could communicate both simultaneously.

● The second handshake is the ​termination sequence​ (FIN ACK FIN-ACK ACK). This
sequence is observed when the application is closed. Termination is done on each side
by sending a message with FIN bit set which serves as the termination request. The
receiving device replies with an acknowledgment. The connection is terminated if this
pair of FIN-ACK messages are received from both sides, hence the sequence isn’t
three-way handshake.
Answer 5
a) ​For streaming
Time Throughput RTT Packet Lost UDP TCP Received
size packets packets packets Responses

12 AM 16 KB/s 0.0259 sec 429 B 0 489 1512 1.175

11 AM 74 KB/s 0.0157 sec 684 B 0 888 7452 1.346

6 PM 111 KB/s 0.0098 sec 891 B 0 1131 11313 1.227

a) ​For downloading
Time Throughput RTT Packet Lost UDP TCP Received
size packets packets packets Responses

12 AM 38 KB/s 0.0471 sec 356 B 0 832 5386 1.392

11 AM 93 KB/s 0.0113 sec 532 B 0 599 4005 1.243

6 PM 155 KB/s 0.0243 sec 671 B 0 1036 7569 1.107

Answer 6
I had NPTEL allotted to me as the application. In all my experiments I found only one IP, which
is 14.139.160.71. The reason being NPTEL mostly has its video lectures on youtube as a result
of which the traffic to the application nptel.ac.in is not high and hence having one server suffices
the daily traffic the site encounters. But on the other hand, cousera.org had multiple IP’s
because of the fact that Coursera has its audience over the entire globe and hence to maintain
speed and efficiency to handle heavy traffic for educational learning it has various IP’s. Multiple
servers help in reducing network congestion and increase reliability, as there is no single point
of error.