This course provides a tour of the building blocks for the Internet. We
capture traffic from our small network lab of workstations, bridges, and
routers. We inspect these traffic samples using a protocol analyzer to view
protocols in action. And finally, students will use the Socket API to write
networked applications that interact with existing services and with
programs written by others in the class.
To write a robust network application, you must be prepared to have individual components fail. Dealing with this possibility changes how we design our applications and our protocols.
Prerequisites: CS 202
Networks taught me that it is miraculous any two computers can communicate at all. Computer architecture taught me that it's miraculous computers don't crash millions of times per second.
-- Tim Bahls '06
Networks are like a modern wildwest-come be an outlaw.
-- Tim Bahls '06
Remember, when you connect with another computer, you're connecting to every computer that computer has connected to.
-- Dennis Miller
Students get a chance to read real-life specifications and analyze their performance.
-- Prof. Parker
