Welcome to Computer Networks Online! (Comp 343).

This is the temporary home until I get things working with ecollege.com.

The course text is Peterson & Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, second edition, published by Morgan-Kaufmann. You can get it at Beck's bookstore, or else order it online from any of the usual places.

Listed below are a sequence of outline pages for the chapters to Peterson & Davie. The basic structure of this online course is to read the indicated material in the chapters, following the suggestions on the outline pages here. Each chapter outline page contains both study questions and Exercises. You should submit written solutions to both, but the study questions are intended to be less formal and the questions should be read before you read the applicable section of the text. Some of the study questions are also simply intended to generate some discussion; there may not in fact be a hard-and-fast answer.

A good place to start is with my LAN, IP, and TCP summary. This should give you some overview of the terminology, and some idea as to where all this is heading. After that, you can start in on chapter 1.

Actually, you could also begin in chapter 2, or work on the first chapters in parallel. The sections of the text don't have to be done in order; see below. Also, some of the sections might be omitted; check with me for the latest information here. The outline below goes only up to chapter 6, which covers the heart of the text; bits of the last three chapters might be added later.

I am adding a modest programming assignment. In Chapter 1 of the text there appears a "simple-talk" (simple because it is not complex) or "simplex-talk" (simplex because it is one-way, not duplex) program, using TCP. The assignment is to rewrite part of it in java, and run it. Contact me if you need help setting up java; the java developers kit can be downloaded for free from java.sun.com.

Here is a summary of what has to be done before what. Start with my LAN, IP, and TCP summary. At this point you can start in on any of the sections in Chapter 1, any of sections 2.2-2.6 of Chapter 2 (we skip 2.8 and 2.9, and just do the first subsection of 2.7), or 3.1.

You need 3.1 to read 3.2 and 3.3 (we skip 3.4, and only skim 3.3 for that matter).

Chapter 4 pretty much needs to be done in order, and requires 3.1 as a prerequisite. Maybe 3.2 too.

Chapter 5 also pretty much needs to be done in order. Most of the chapter is the TCP section, 5.2; this section also should be done in order and requires 2.5 as a prerequisite.

Chapter 6 requires chapter 5.

You can defer sections 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 for a while, and you can defer 3.3. You should at least skim all of Chapter 1 relatively early, though, since there's lots of basic material here. Pay particular attention on first reading to 1.1.3 and 1.1.4 and 1.2.3. You should try to read 2.1 relatively early, too.