The purpose of this first homework is to acquire some material that will be useful later, to become familiar with the infrastructure that will support the class, and to refresh your basic network programming skills.
I. (5 pts) Visit http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcxx00.html and explore the space of internet RFCs. Retrieve and skim the TCP, IP, UDP RFCs, becoming familiar with the structure and contents of these documents. List 5-10 questions that reading these RFCs has raised for you.
II. (15 pts) Do problems 1.28, 1.29, and 1.30 in the textbook. The skeleton for simplex-talk is available
on the lab computers as /local/cs555/assignments/hwk1/simplex-talk and
here.
Write a paragraph or two summarizing the similarities and differences you observed in the
behavior of the programs as they evolved from 1.28 through 1.30. What questions does this
exercise raise?
III. (5 pts) Self evaluation: the programming in part II, above, is intended to be a refresher of very basic network programming concepts using sockets. How long did it take you? Was it easy or hard? Was the task a familiar one or new to you?
This homework is due by midnight Sept. 6. Store the final version of the programs and Makefile for
part II in your personal CS555 directory, /net/cs555/students/yourname/ as homework1/{client.c,server.c,Makefile}. Store the verbal
responses as homework1/answers.txt.