The required textbook for the course is Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, fifth edition, by Larry Peterson and Bruce Davie. It is available in the CMU Bookstore. Almost all the material that we will cover is in the textbook.
For the recitations, please see Dave's Notes on Software Engineering for Systems Hackers.
There are a few recommended texts which are useful references (especially if networking becomes your career). You can get the best price on them by ordering from an on-line bookstore.
Finally, if you have not taken 15-213, you may find its textbook useful as a gentle, software-focused introduction to computer architecture.
This semester we will again have recitations for 15-441. Please select one recitation section to attend (the content will be identical). Recitations will cover systems hacking techniques designed to save you time and pain on the projects, will go into more detail about certain topics such as TCP, and will have review sessions before exams.
Your final grade for the course will be based on the following weights for the individual assignments:
The midterm will be an in-class, closed-book exam, covering all material up to that point in the course. The final exam will be a closed-book exam, covering m aterial from the whole year, with emphasis on the second half of the course.
Project 1 will focus on the implementation of an IRC-like chat server, ensuring familiarity with socket programming. Project 2 will build upon your IRC server from project 1 implementing routing protocols within the application. Project 3 will focus on file transfers and the protocol components necessary for efficient and reliable file transfer (retransmission, congestion control, caching, etc.) Project 1 is a solo project; projects 2 and 3 are to be done in groups of two students.
The homework will combine both textbook-like questions as well as hands-on experimental exercises. There will be three homework assignments.
Because of the importance of understanding both the theoretical and hands-on elements of networking, students must pass all three components of the course (homeworks, exams, and the projects) in order to receive a passing grade for the course. This does not affect the actual letter grade assignment unless one of the components is not completed to a passing standard.
Also available as an ical file that you can subscribe to. Note that the video links are from Spring 2005 and are provided as a "best match" to the specified lecture, in the hope that they might be useful for review.
| Date | Instructor | Topics | Notes | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 08/30 | SS | Introduction [pdf] [ppt] |
||
| Wed 08/31 | Wolf | Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of...Sockets! [pdf] [odp] |
Recitations available via GitHub as well (feel free to contribute and fork) 15-441 Recitation Sessions | |
| Thu 09/01 | SS | Protocol Stacks and Layering [pdf] [ppt] |
Readings End to End Arguments in System Design and Internet Protocols Design Philosophy. | |
| Fri 09/02 | Athula and Wolf | HW 1 |
HW 1 released, due |
|
| Tue 09/06 | RBD | Application Layer Examples [pdf] [ppt] |
9.1 | |
| Wed 09/07 | Wolf | Why so Software Engineeringy? [pdf] [odp] |
See Revision Control chapter of systems-se. Also see the online Subversion book, and Git Immerstion. |
|
| Thu 09/08 | RBD | Physical Layer [pdf] [ppt] |
Project 1 Assigned | 2.1-2.5 |
| Fri 09/09 | Athula and Wolf | PJ1CP1 |
Project 1 Checkpoint 1 released, due 9/16 by midnight. | |
| Tue 09/13 | Wolf | Cryptography: Gur Cbjre bs Xabjyrqtr [pdf] [odp] |
Read Beware of Snake Oil. Also, a steganography example! And don't forget, the title slide had ciphertext... | 8.1-8.2 |
| Wed 09/14 | Athula | Sockets & Concurrency and Project 1 Q& A [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 09/15 | RBD | Coding and error control [pdf] [ppt] |
2.6-2.10 | |
| Fri 09/16 | Athula and Wolf | PJ1CP2 |
Project 1 Checkpoint 2 released, due 9/30 by midnight. Also, Project 1 Living Document released. | |
| Tue 09/20 | RBD | Datalink and ethernet [pdf] [ppt] |
3.1-3.2 | |
| Wed 09/21 | Wolf | Learning the Pythonic Way [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 09/22 | RBD | Switching and Bridging [pdf] [ppt] |
||
| Tue 09/27 | SS | IP forwarding & addressing [pdf] [ppt] |
4.1 | |
| Wed 09/28 | Athula | HTTP Parsing [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Wed 09/28 | Wolf | Testing in the Trenches [pdf] [odp] |
Learn how to use your browser, try ctrl-shift-i in Chrome. It can help test. | |
| Wed 09/28 | Charles | HW 2 |
HW 2 released, due |
|
| Thu 09/29 | SS | IP Packets, IPv6, NAT [pdf] [ppt] |
||
| Fri 09/30 | Athula and Wolf and Charles | PJ1CP3 |
Project 1 Checkpoint 3 released, due 10/14 by midnight. | |
| Tue 10/04 | SS | Routing: Distance Vector/Link State [pdf] [ppt] |
4.2 | |
| Wed 10/05 | Athula | Angels (OpenSSL) and D(a)emons [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 10/06 | SS | Routing: BGP [pdf] [ppt] |
4.4 | |
| Tue 10/11 | SS | DNS [pdf] |
9.3 | |
| Wed 10/12 | Wolf | No Web Server Left Behind: Doing Project 1 in Close to 48 Hours [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 10/13 | RBD | Router Design [pdf] [ppt] |
3.3-3.5 | |
| Tue 10/18 | RBD | Tunnels, Virtual circuits, ATM, MPLS, VPN [pdf] [ppt] |
4.3 | |
| Wed 10/19 | Athula | Midterm exam Review |
||
| Thu 10/20 | RBD/SS | MIDTERM EXAM |
||
| Tue 10/25 | SS | Transport Intro [pdf] |
5.1-5.5 | |
| Wed 10/26 | Athula | Distributed HTTP Service [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 10/27 | SS | TCP & Congestion Control [pdf] [ppt] |
5.2 | |
| Tue 11/01 | SS | More TCP & Congestion Control [pdf] [ppt] |
6.1-6.3 | |
| Wed 11/02 | Wolf | How You're Going to Rule the World [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 11/03 | SS | TCP Performance [pdf] [ppt] |
6.4 | |
| Tue 11/08 | RBD | Web + CDNs + Caching + Hashing [pdf] [ppt] |
Helpful references Silver Needle in the Skype and An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to-Peer Internet Telephony Protocol. | 9.4 |
| Wed 11/09 | Athula | What does the future behold? [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 11/10 | RBD | P2P [pdf] [ppt] |
9.4 | |
| Mon 11/14 | Wolf | PJ3CP1 |
Project 3 Checkpoint 1 released, due 11/21 by midnight. Also, Project 3 Living Document released. | |
| Tue 11/15 | RBD | VoIP, video, multimedia [pdf] [ppt] |
7.2, 9.2 | |
| Wed 11/16 | Wolf | There is no Such Thing as TCP: TCP Congestion Control [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 11/17 | RBD | QOS [pdf] [ppt] |
5.4, 6.5 | |
| Tue 11/22 | SS | Mobile Networking (IP & TCP) [pdf] [ppt] |
2.7, 4.4 | |
| Wed 11/23 | Thanksgiving |
|||
| Fri 11/25 | Thanksgiving |
|||
| Tue 11/29 | AB | Wireless neworks, ad-hoc wireless, and sensor networks [pdf] [ppt] |
2.8 | |
| Wed 11/30 | Wolf | You Aren't a One Man Army: Introducing 0MQ [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 12/01 | SS | Questioning our assumptions [ppt] |
||
| Tue 12/06 | RBD | Security - firewalls, DoS, etc. [pdf] [ppt] |
8.3-8.5 | |
| Wed 11/30 | Wolf | The Last Recitation [pdf] [odp] |
||
| Thu 12/08 | RBD | Class Review [pdf] [ppt] |
||
| Sun 12/18 | Athula and Wolf | Final Review: A Shot in the Dark [pdf] [odp] |
in 5409 Wean Hall, 1pm-2pm or whenever the questions stop | |
| Tue 12/20 | RBD/SS | Final Exam |
Last updated: Thu Dec 22 15:16:27 -0500 2011 [validate xhtml]
