CSCI P438: Computer Networks

General Course Information (Fall 2011)

Lecture: Mon & Wed, 9:30am - 10:45am
Location: LH 102
Recitation: Fri, 9:05am - 9:55am
Location: WH 005
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Instructor: Minaxi Gupta
Email:
Office hours: Mon and Wed immediately after class (or by appt)
Office: Lindley Hall (LH) 230D
AIs: Christopher W. Dunn, Pushkar Ratnalikar, Vasumathi Sridharan, Vaibhav Shankar
Email:
Email:
Email:
Email:
AI office Hours:
Mon: 11am-12pm (Vaibhav), 4pm-5pm (Vasumathi)
Tue: 1pm-2pm (Chris), 2:30pm-3:30pm (Pushkar)
Wed: 1pm-2pm (Vasumathi), 2:30pm-3:30pm (Vaibhav)
Thur 12:00pm-1:00pm (Pushkar)
Fri: 11:30am-12:30pm (Chris)
AI office hour location: Lindley Hall (LH) 035


Course Summary/Pre-requisites

Our goal in this class is to learn about computer networks. We will do this by understanding how the networks work today and why they are designed the way they are. The course will primarily focus on the Internet but will also cover other past and present network technologies to put things in perspective. Since applications play an important role in the evolution of the Internet we will also study DNS, peer-to-peer networks, multicast, and security.

Topics to be covered include: Error control, medium access, routing, congestion control, end-to-end transport, TCP/IP, IEEE 802.11 networks, security, and applications.

Pre-requisites: Programming experience in C/C++ is required.


Textbook

Required textbook:
Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (5th edition) by Jim Kurose and Larry Moss. Addison Wesley, 2010.

I will derive material from the other reference books, RFCs, and research papers for certain classes. However, you are not required to buy any additional materials for this class.

The following books are excellent references for UNIX network programming (sockets etc.) and will be very useful for the programming assignments:

Grading and Exams

The tentative grade break-up for the class is as follows: