La Trobe University, Bendigo
Division of Information Technology
BITCNE: Computer Networks
Assignment 2 2000
Your task in this assignment is to investigate one only of the
following topics in computer network architecture, and submit a
report on your findings.
Note that all of the topics are about, or related to,
application-level protocols in the Internet.
Each of the topics has a "theory" section, where you have to look
up the information somewhere (presumably on the Web, or in an RFC),
and a "practical" section where you have to demonstrate how
the particular system under discussion actually operates in
practice. You must complete both sections to gain a high mark.
Note also that additional topics might appear on this page as they
are suggested to me. It could be worth checking back regularly if you
don't like any of those given below.
- HTTP1.1 Proxies
-
- Theory
- HTTP/1.1 apparently has support for Proxy Servers.
and caching. Discover how this is implemented in the protocol.
Briefly discuss the limitations of proxy servers in HTTP/1.1.
- Practical
- How effective is La Trobe's proxy server? Use Telnet
(as described in the lectures) to GET a Web page from the proxy server.
Can you tell if the page was cached? How?
- PUT Method
-
- Theory
- In the lecture, we looked at the GET and HEAD methods
of HTTP/1.0, and later we will look at the POST method. We hardly
mentioned the PUT method at all.
Your task: find out all about the PUT method of HTTP/1.0
and write about how it works. In particular, describe how
authentication is handled in the PUT method.
- Practical
- Use an HTML browser/editor which understands PUT, such as
the W3 consortium's
amaya
(it's possible recent versions of
Netscape
might work as well). Use the PUT feature and
document how it works compared to alternative techniques for achieving
the same result.
- USENET (Newsgroups)
-
- Theory
- Investigate the
Network News Transfer
Protocol
(NNTP) in the usenet
news system.
NNTP is the basis of usenet and has many interesting features.
- Practical
- Use telnet to connect to a nearby news server.
Most NNTP servers support a "HELP" command so you can easily discover
what features they offer. Use the protocol to learn what newsgroups are
carried on the news server, to obtain a list of article headers, and
to deliver an article. If you're really keen, try using the protocol
to post an article to one of the "test" newsgroups (eg, latrobe.test).
- POP
-
- Theory
- Investigate the POP3 protocol. What is it used for?
What other alternatives are available to achieve the same purpose?
What improvements does POP3 have over POP2?
How does it handle authentication?
- Practical
- Use telnet to connect to a POP server. If you're on
a La Trobe campus, you can probably use "students.latrobe.edu.au".
Exercise some of the protocol features mentioned in the "theory"
section.
- FTP
-
- Theory
- Investigate FTP. Find out the answers to mysteries like:
"What is FTP used for?", "What is the PORT command used for?" "What is
the difference between text and image (binary) modes?", "What is the
difference between active and passive mode?"
- Practical
- See what FTP control protocol messages you can
send (and receive) using telnet. Explain why you can't fully
debug FTP using telnet alone.
- Other
- Any other appropriate application protocol-related topic with the
explicit prior approval of the lecturer.
You should expect to write something between 1500 and 3000 words on the
topic of your choice, although this is not mandatory. You can
submit your assignment using either traditional hard copy (paper)
form, or as an email attachment
of MIME type text/html
sent to
cnsubmit@ironbark.bendigo.latrobe.edu.au
, as for the
first assignment. Your choice of submission format will not affect
the mark gained for your assignment.
Submissions must, as usual, adhere to the requirements of the La Trobe
University, Bendigo Assignment Guide.
This assignment carries 15% of your mark for Computer Networks.
Due Date:12th May, 2000
Lecturer: Phil Scott, 5444 7277,
p.scott@latrobe.edu.au.
Copyright © 2000 by
Phil Scott,
La Trobe University.