CS455 Computer Networking Systems

Wednesday 7:20 - 10:00 PM, Innovation Hall 134

Instructor: Dr. Songqing Chen
Office: 445 S&T II
Phone: 703-993-3176
E-mail: sqchen AT cs dot gmu dot edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m, or by appointment
Course Homepage: http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~sqchen/courses/CS455S07

OVERVIEW

The course will present data communications fundamentals and computer networking methods, using the ISO 7-layer reference model to organize the study. Attention will be focused on the protocols of the physical, data link control, network, and transport layers, for local and wide area networks. Emphasis will be given to the Internet Protocol Suite. Some advanced topics, such as network security, wireless and mobile computing networks, will also be covered. Students will program simplified versions of the protocols as a part of the course project.

PREREQUISITES

CS 310, 365, and STAT 344, ability to program in C/C++.

TEXTBOOKS

TENTATIVE TOPICS

HOMEWORKS AND PROJECTS

Homework assignments are on a semi-regular basis. We will use a network simulator, Network Workbench (NW), for course projects. This simulator enables the study and implementation of various networking protocols in a "virtual reality", where network devices (namely, routers and switches) are simulated and your protocol implementations can be tested and debugged. The official platform is site-unix (meaning that the TA will grade your projects on that platform). Currently, it points to zeus.ite.gmu.edu. On site-unix, the current version of NW, nw42, can be found at /usr/local/nw42. (Note that, for security reasons, you can login into site-unix only from osf1.) To install nw42 in your home directory, follow the instructions in /usr/local/nw42/Linux-setup.txt.

Alternatively, you can install NW on your PC from netlab.gmu.edu/NW. Note that site-unix is the only official platform. You are responsible for resolving any compatibility issues before submitting (although we expect few such problems).

GRADING POLICY

Your grade will be calcuated as follows:

NOTES

GMU Academic Calendar

Honor Code

Disability Resource Center

Dr. Songqing Chen Dept. of Computer Science George Mason University