Department of Electrical Engineering, UET Lahore

EE432: Computer Networks

Course Instructor: Dr. Naveed Nawaz Dated:

Semester: 7th

Session: Fall 2023

LAB 5 Transport Layer Protocol: Transmission Control Protocol

(TCP)

Name Roll. No. Report Marks (10) Viva Marks (5) Total Marks (15)

Checked on: ____________________________

Signature: ____________________________

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EE432 Computer Networks

Transfer Layer Protocol: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

Objectives
In this lab, we’ll investigate the behavior of TCP in detail. We’ll do so by analyzing a trace of the TCP segments sent and
received in transferring a file from your computer to a remote server. We’ll study TCP’s use of sequence and
acknowledgement numbers for providing reliable data transfer.

Instructions
1. Read carefully before starting the lab.
2. These exercises are to be done individually.
3. You are supposed to provide the answers to the questions listed at the end of this document and upload the completed
report to your google classroom.
4. Avoid plagiarism by copying from the Internet or from your peers. You may refer to source/ text but you must
paraphrase the original work. Your submitted work should be written by yourself.
5. Complete the lab half an hour before the lab ends.
6. At the end of the lab, a viva will be conducted to evaluate your understanding.

Background

2.3.1. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Introduction

TCP provides connections between clients and servers. A TCP client establishes a connection with a given server,
exchanges data with that server across the connection, and then terminates the connection.
TCP also provides reliability. When TCP sends data to the other end, it requires an acknowledgment in return. If an
acknowledgment is not received, TCP automatically retransmits the data and waits a longer amount of time. After some
number of retransmissions, TCP will give up, with the total amount of time spent trying to send data typically between 4
and 10 minutes (depending on the implementation).
TCP contains algorithms to estimate the round-trip time (RTT) between a client and server dynamically so that it knows
how long to wait for an acknowledgment. For example, the RTT on a LAN can be milliseconds while across a WAN, it
can be seconds. Furthermore, TCP continuously estimates the RTT of a given connection, because the RTT is affected by
variations in the network traffic.
TCP also sequences the data by associating a sequence number with every byte that it sends. For example, assume an
application writes 2,048 bytes to a TCP socket, causing TCP to send two segments, the first containing the data with
sequence numbers 1–1,024 and the second containing the data with sequence numbers 1,025–2,048. (A segment is the unit
of data that TCP passes to IP.) If the segments arrive out of order, the receiving TCP will reorder the two segments based
on their sequence numbers before passing the data to the receiving application. If TCP receives duplicate data from its peer
(say the peer thought a segment was lost and retransmitted it, when it wasn't really lost, the network was just overloaded),
it can detect that the data has been duplicated (from the sequence numbers), and discard the duplicate data.
There is no reliability provided by UDP. UDP itself does not provide anything like acknowledgments, sequence numbers,
RTT estimation, timeouts, or retransmissions. If a UDP datagram is duplicated in the network, two copies can be delivered
to the receiving host. Also, if a UDP client sends two datagrams to the same destination, they can be reordered by the
network and arrive out of order.
TCP provides flow control. TCP always tells its peer exactly how many bytes of data it is willing to accept from the peer at
any one time. This is called the advertised window. At any time, the window is the amount of room currently available in
the receive buffer, guaranteeing that the sender cannot overflow the receive buffer. The window changes dynamically over
time: As data is received from the sender, the window size decreases, but as the receiving application reads data from the
buffer, the window size increases. It is possible for the window to reach 0: when TCP's receive buffer for a socket is full
and it must wait for the application to read data from the buffer before it can take any more data from the peer.

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Protocol (TCP)
Finally, a TCP connection is full-duplex. This means that an application can send and receive data in both directions on a
given connection at any time. This means that TCP must keep track of state information such as sequence numbers and
window sizes for each direction of data flow: sending and receiving. After a full-duplex connection is established, it can be
turned into a simplex connection if desired.

2.3.2. TCP Connection Establishment and Termination

5.3.2.1. Three-Way Handshake
Following scenario occurs when a TCP connection is established:
1. The server must be prepared to accept an incoming connection. This is normally done by calling socket, bind, and
listen and is called a passive open.
2. The client issues an active open by calling connect. This causes the client TCP to send a "synchronize" (SYN)
segment, which tells the server the client's initial sequence number for the data that the client will send on the
connection. Normally, there is no data sent with the SYN; it just contains an IP header, a TCP header, and possible
TCP options (which we will talk about shortly).
3. The server must acknowledge (ACK) the client's SYN and the server must also send its own SYN containing the
initial sequence number for the data that the server will send on the connection. The server sends its SYN and the
ACK of the client's SYN in a single segment.
4. The client must acknowledge the server's SYN.
The minimum number of packets required for this exchange is three; hence, this is called TCP's three-way handshake. We
show the three segments in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1: TCP three-way handshake.

We show the client's initial sequence number as J and the server's initial sequence number as K. The acknowledgment
number in an ACK is the next expected sequence number for the end sending the ACK. Since a SYN occupies one byte of
the sequence number space, the acknowledgment number in the ACK of each SYN is the initial sequence number plus one.
Similarly, the ACK of each FIN is the sequence number of the FIN plus one.
An everyday analogy for establishing a TCP connection is the telephone system. The socket function is the equivalent of
having a telephone to use. bind is telling other people your telephone number so that they can call you. listen is turning on
the ringer so that you will hear when an incoming call arrives. connect requires that we know the other person's phone
number and dial it. accept is when the person being called answers the phone. Having the client's identity returned by
accept (where the identify is the client's IP address and port number) is similar to having the caller ID feature show the
caller's phone number. One difference, however, is that accept returns the client's identity only after the connection has
been established, whereas the caller ID feature shows the caller's phone number before we choose whether to answer the
phone or not.
5.3.2.2. TCP Connection Termination
While it takes three segments to establish a connection, it takes four to terminate a connection:

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1. One application calls close first, and we say that this end performs the active close. This end's TCP sends a FIN
segment, which means it is finished sending data.
2. The other end that receives the FIN performs the passive close. The received FIN is acknowledged by TCP. The
receipt of the FIN is also passed to the application as an end-of-file (after any data that may have already been queued
for the application to receive), since the receipt of the FIN means the application will not receive any additional data
on the connection.
3. Sometime later, the application that received the end-of-file will close its socket. This causes its TCP to send a FIN.
4. The TCP on the system that receives this final FIN (the end that did the active close) acknowledges the FIN.
Since a FIN and an ACK are required in each direction, four segments are normally required. We use the qualifier
"normally" because in some scenarios, the FIN in Step 1 is sent with data. Also, the segments in Steps 2 and 3 are both
from the end performing the passive close and could be combined into one segment. We show these packets in Figure 5.2.

Figure 5.2: Packets exchanged when a TCP connection is closed.

A FIN occupies one byte of sequence number space just like a SYN. Therefore, the ACK of each FIN is the sequence
number of the FIN plus one.
Between Steps 2 and 3 it is possible for data to flow from the end doing the passive close to the end doing the active close.
This is called a half.
The sending of each FIN occurs when a socket is closed. We indicated that the application calls close for this to happen,
but realize that when a Unix process terminates, either voluntarily (calling exit or having the main function return) or
involuntarily (receiving a signal that terminates the process), all open descriptors are closed, which will also cause a FIN to
be sent on any TCP connection that is still open.
Although we show the client in Figure 5.2 performing the active close, either end – the client or the server – can perform
the active close. Often the client performs the active close, but with some protocols (notably HTTP), the server performs
the active close.

Procedure
1. Capturing a bulk TCP transfer from your computer to a remote server: Before beginning our exploration of TCP, we’ll
need to use Wireshark to obtain a packet trace of the TCP transfer of a file from your computer to a remote server.
You’ll do so by accessing a Web page that will allow you to enter the name of a file stored on your computer and then
transfer the file to a Web server using the HTTP POST method. We’re using the POST method rather than the GET
method as we’d like to transfer a large amount of data from your computer to another computer. Of course, we’ll be
running Wireshark during this time to obtain the trace of the TCP segments sent and received from your computer.

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2. Start up your web browser. Go the http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/alice.txt and retrieve an ASCII copy of
Alice in Wonderland. Store this file somewhere on your computer.
3. Next go to http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/TCP-wireshark-file1.html. You should see a screen that looks like:

Figure 5.3: Screenshot of “http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/TCP-wireshark-file1.html”

4. Use the Choose File button in this form to enter the name of the file (full path name) on your computer containing
Alice in Wonderland (or do so manually). Don’t yet press the “Upload alice.txt file” button.
5. Now start up Wireshark and begin packet capture (Capture->Start) and then press OK on the Wireshark Packet
Capture Options screen.
6. Returning to your browser, press the “Upload alice.txt file” button to upload the file to the gaia.cs.umass.edu server.
Once the file has been uploaded, a short congratulations message will be displayed in your browser window.
7. Stop Wireshark packet capture. Your Wireshark window should look similar to the window shown below.

Figure 5.4: Wireshark window after packet capture

8. First, filter the packets displayed in the Wireshark window by entering “tcp” into the display filter specification
window towards the top of the Wireshark window. What you should see is series of TCP and HTTP messages between
your computer and gaia.cs.umass.edu. You should see the initial three-way handshake containing a SYN message.
You should see an HTTP POST message and a series of “HTTP Continuation” messages being sent from your
computer to gaia.cs.umass.edu. Recall from our discussion in the earlier HTTP Wireshark lab, that is no such thing as
an HTTP Continuation message – this is Wireshark’s way of indicating that there are multiple TCP segments being

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used to carry a single HTTP message. You should also see TCP ACK segments being returned from gaia.cs.umass.edu
to your computer.
9. Obtaining credit for this lab: Now, please proceed to the questions section to answer the questions. You must note
down your answers in this file itself. Please note that every student must upload this file (after duly filling in the
answers) on Google Classroom to obtain credit. Please clarify with your instructor/lab engineer if you have any
queries.

2.4.1. Questions
1. What is the IP address and TCP port number used by the client computer (source) that is transferring the file to
gaia.cs.umass.edu? To answer this question, it’s probably easiest to select an HTTP message and explore the details of
the TCP packet used to carry this HTTP message, using the “details of the selected packet header window”.

2. What is the IP address of gaia.cs.umass.edu? On what port number is it sending and receiving TCP segments for this
connection?

3. Recall the TCP lecture studied in class and explain the content of the TCP header like sequence number,
acknowledgement number and checksum etc.

4. What type of http packets used in transferring file to gaia.cs.umass.edu?

5. By looking into which field in TCP segment you can identify that a given segment is a SYN segment? What is the
sequence number of the TCP SYN segment that is used to initiate the TCP connection between the client computer
and gaia.cs.umass.edu?

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6. What is the header length of TCP verify it with Wire-shark?

7. What is the sequence number of the SYNACK segment sent by gaia.cs.umass.edu to the client computer in reply to the
SYN? What is the value of the ACKnowledgement field in the SYNACK segment? How did gaia.cs.umass.edu
determine that value?

8. What is the sequence number of the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST command? Note that in order to find
the POST command, you’ll need to look into the packet content field at the bottom of the Wireshark window, looking
for a segment with a “POST” within its DATA field.

9. Consider the TCP segment containing the HTTP POST as the first segment in the TCP connection. What are the
sequence numbers of the first 4 segments in the TCP connection (including the segment containing the HTTP POST)?
At what time was each segment sent? When was the ACK for each segment received?

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10. What is the length of each of the first four TCP segments?

11. What is the minimum amount of available buffer space advertised at the receiver?

12. Calculate the throughput (bytes transferred per unit time) for the TCP connection? Explain how you calculated it.

13. How can you find that a packet is retransmitted?

Let’s now examine the amount of data sent per unit time from the client to the server. Rather than calculating this from the
raw data in the Wireshark window, we’ll use one of Wireshark’s TCP graphing utilities - Time-Sequence-Graph(Stevens) -
to plot out data. Select a TCP segment in the Wireshark’s “listing of captured-packets” window. Then select the menu :
Statistics-> TCP Stream Graph-> Time-Sequence-Graph(Stevens).

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Figure 5.5: Time sequence graph (Stevens)

Here, each dot represents a TCP segment sent, plotting the sequence number of the segment versus the time at which it was
sent. Note that a set of dots stacked above each other represents a series of packets that were sent back-to-back by the
sender.
14. Use the Time-Sequence-Graph(Stevens) plotting tool and show the plot you obtained for the TCP segment. Also
explain that graph in few lines.

15. Use the TCP stream graph and plot the throughput graph also explain it in few lines.

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Assessment Rubrics for EE432: Computer Networks Lab 5

Student Name: ______________________________ Roll Number: _____________________________
Method:
Lab report evaluation and instructor observation during lab sessions.
Outcomes Assessed:
a. Ability to condut experiments as well as to analyze and interpret data
b. Ability to adhere to safety and disciplinary rules
c. Ability to use the techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice

Performance Exceeds expectation (5-4) Meets expectation (3-2) Does not meet expectation (1) Marks
Realization Downloads and installs Incapable of selecting relevant
Needs guidance to set up
of required software and sets up software to the experiment and
the system according to the
experiment the system according to the unable to setup the system with
experiment requirements
(a) experiment requirements required software tools
Carries out each procedural Needs assistance or
Conducting step in a satisfactory manner guidance to proceed Unable to carry out procedural
experiment and studies outputs of the through experiment steps, steps and make any useful
(a, c) software application studies outputs with minor observations of outputs
rigorously errors in interpretation
Laboratory
Observes lab safety rules; Observes safety rules and
safety and Disregards lab safety and
adheres to the lab disciplinary disciplinary guidelines with
disciplinary disciplinary rules
guidelines aptly minor deviations
rules (b)
Completes data collection
Completes data collection Fails at collecting data by
from the experiment setup by
with minor error and enters giving proper inputs and
Data following procedural steps,
data in lab manual with observing output states of
collection (c) ensures that the data is entered
slight deviation from experiment setup, unable to fill
in the lab manual according to
guidelines the lab manual properly
the specified instructions
Analyzes the data obtained Analyzes data with minor
from experiment thoroughly error and correlates it with Unable to establish the
and accurately verifies it with theoretical values relationship between practical
Data analysis
theoretical understanding, reasonably. Attempts to and theoretical values and lacks
(a, c)
accounts for any discrepancy account for any the theoretical understanding to
in data from theory with discrepancy in data from explain any discrepancy in data
sound explanation theory

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