News

• Adam Sulmicki's 417 page (Local copies of book/java tutorial, java-linux info, and more)
• Project 1 (due date postponed to September 21, 11am, via submit)
• Notes 1, 2, 3, 4 available.
• For project clarfications, grades, etc., see TA project page.
• Some popular networking texts (if you are looking for more background).
• Project 2 preliminary description.
• Midterm 1 on November 4.
• Project 2 files. There are several changes from the preliminary project description, including: "NetworkEntity" is now called "NetworkSocket"; there are interfaces that your source and sink entities must implement; some method parameters have changed.
• Note 5: TCP Congestion Control. Includes solution to problems 3-15 and 3-16.
• Material covered in Exam 1 (if you did not already know)
  • Chapters 1 and 3 of text book.
  • Notes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
  • Java threads.
• Exam 1 solution and grades.
• Project 3: Same as project 2 except you will be graded for performance and you must accomodate a networkSocket MTU of 24 bytes 32 BITS (so you have to use small (say 16 bit) sequence numbers). Due November 22, 11pm.
• Unless otherwise stated, late projects are not accepted.
• New course in Network Security.
• Final Exam on December 21, Tuesday, 8-10 am (as fixed in UMCP exam schedule; snow date to be announced).
• For both classes and exams, if the usual classroom building is locked, then look in AVW 1152.
• Project 4 preliminary description. Due December 12, 11pm.
• Exam 2 on December 7, Tuesday   9, Thursday. Covers chapter 4, 2, and part of 5.
  Suggested homework problems from chapter 4: 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 18.
  Suggested homework problems from chapter 5: 1, 4, 5.
• Exam 2 solution and grades.
• Final grades.
• HOT  Corrected Final grades. The SIDs were mixed up in the previous version. The submitted grades are ok.

Overview

The programming project in this class involves a Java-based emulation of the transport layer. It is a major part of the course and is to be done individually. You have to design and implement a protocol that satisfies a transport-layer service specification.

NOTE: This section of CMSC 417  most likely differs considerably from  Dr. Hollingsworth's.  Our focus is on the Internet, the texts are online, and the course project is different.

Texts/Notes (online)

• Computer Networking. and Internet Protocols by Keith W. Ross and James F. Kurose. (REQUIRED)
• This book is under construction, but adequately stable for our purposes. The authors and publisher are allowing us to use it  for free. They would appreciate our  feedback (strengths and weaknesses, mistakes, praises, etc). Please post your feedback to the newsgroup csd.cmsc417.book.
• JAVA INTRODUCTION suggested by Sharno:
• Java Tutorial  (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html)
• Getting Started
• http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html
• Learning the Java Language

Maybe skip section "More Features of the Java Language" except for subsection "Managing Inheritance".
• Essential Java Classes

Maybe skip sections "Setting Programming Attributes" and "Accessing System Resources". Definitely read up on String and StringBuffer; Thread and its related classes; Throwable and Exception and their friends; Reader, Writer, InputStream, and OutputStream classes from java.io and their descendants.
• Custom Networking
• Java Programming Language Basics, Part 1, by Monica Pawlan. Lessons 1, 2, 8.  Download book from here.
• Java Programming Language Basics, Part 2, by Monica Pawlan. Lesson 1 ("Socket Communication"). Download book from here.
• JAVA DETAILS
• JDK 1.1.x Documentation
• The Java Language Specification, by James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele.
• Note 1: Internet Overview
• Note 2: General Network Overview
• Note 3: Qos Packet-switched Networks
• Note 4: Transport Layer Principles (postscript (138K), gzipped postscript (41K))
• Note 5: TCP Congestion Control. Includes solution to problems 3-15 and 3-16.

Exam Schedule and Course Weightages

• Midterm 1 --- 15%    November 4, Thursday
• Midterm 2 --- 15%    December 7, Tuesday   9, Thursday
• Final           --- 30%    December 21, Tuesday, 8:00-10:00am
• Projects     --- 40%

The weightages are approximate and may change by upto 5%. I reserve the right to fail, regardless of overall numeric score, students who do not submit a good faith attempt to complete all programming assignments.

 Projects

• Please pick up your OIT cluster accounts from the TA during his office hours or by email.
• To keep students in 417 from getting in each others way, students are assigned TCP/IP port numbers and they should use only these ports. The accounts range from aus41701, aus41702, ..., aus41760. Account 417x is assigned ports 6000+10(x-1)  to  6000+10x-1  (e.g., aus41721 has ports 6200 to 6209).
• Project 1.  Due September 21,  11am, via submit
• Project 2 preliminary description. Project 2 files.
• Project 3: Same as project 2 except you will be graded for performance and you must accomodate a networkSocket MTU of 24 bytes 32 BITS (so you have to use small (say 16 bit) sequence numbers). Due November 22, 11pm.
• Project 4 preliminary description. Due December 12, 11pm.

Additional References

• Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 1: Principles, Protocols, and Architecture.

Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 2: Design, Implementation, and Internals.
Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 3: Client-Server Programming and Applications.
By D. Comer and D.L. Stevens, Prentice Hall.
Excellent treatment of TCP/IP programming and implementation.
 
• TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols.

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2: The Implementation.
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 3: TCP for Transactions, HTTP, NNTP and the UNIX Domain Protocols.
By W. Stevens, Prentice Hall.
Excellent and very thorough treatment of TCP/IP programming and implementation.
 
• An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking: ATM Networks, the Internet, and the Telephone Network. By S.Keshav. Addison Wesley, 1997. ISBN 0-201-63442-2. Book web page.

Initial chapters provide a good introduction to ATM, Internet, and telephony. Later chapters look at research issues in Internet QoS.
 
• Computer Networks 3rd Edition. By A. Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall 1996.

A huge sprawling book. Covers practially all aspects of networking (telephony, Internet, VC packet switching, wired and wireless LANs, etc.). Suffers from too much talk and imprecision.

This page and all problem sets, lecture notes, and exams linked to it are copyrighted. Use of these pages for the class CMSC417 at the University of Maryland is permitted. Any other use requires permission of the author (Udaya Shankar, shankar@cs.umd.edu).