COMPUTER NETWORKS

FOURTH EDITION

PROBLEM SOLUTIONS

ANDREW S. TANENBAUM
Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

PRENTICE HALL PTR

UPPER SADDLE RIVER, NJ 07458
 © 2003 Pearson Education, Inc.
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 PROBLEM SOLUTIONS 1

SOLUTIONS TO CHAPTER 1 PROBLEMS

1. The dog can carry 21 gigabytes, or 168 gigabits. A speed of 18 km/hour

equals 0.005 km/sec. The time to travel distance x km is x /0.005 200x sec,
yielding a data rate of 168/200x Gbps or 840/x Mbps. For x < 5.6 km, the
dog has a higher rate than the communication line.
2. The LAN model can be grown incrementally. If the LAN is just a long cable.
it cannot be brought down by a single failure (if the servers are replicated) It
is probably cheaper. It provides more computing power and better interactive
interfaces.
3. A transcontinental fiber link might have many gigabits/sec of bandwidth, but
the latency will also be high due to the speed of light propagation over
thousands of kilometers. In contrast, a 56-kbps modem calling a computer in
the same building has low bandwidth and low latency.
4. A uniform delivery time is needed for voice, so the amount of jitter in the net-
work is important. This could be expressed as the standard deviation of the
delivery time. Having short delay but large variability is actually worse than
a somewhat longer delay and low variability.
5. No. The speed of propagation is 200,000 km/sec or 200 meters/ sec. In 10
sec the signal travels 2 km. Thus, each switch adds the equivalent of 2 km
of extra cable. If the client and server are separated by 5000 km, traversing
even 50 switches adds only 100 km to the total path, which is only 2%. Thus,
switching delay is not a major factor under these circumstances.
6. The request has to go up and down, and the response has to go up and down.
The total path length traversed is thus 160,000 km. The speed of light in air
and vacuum is 300,000 km/sec, so the propagation delay alone is
160,000/300,000 sec or about 533 msec.
7. There is obviously no single correct answer here, but the following points
seem relevant. The present system has a great deal of inertia (checks and bal-
ances) built into it. This inertia may serve to keep the legal, economic, and
social systems from being turned upside down every time a different party
comes to power. Also, many people hold strong opinions on controversial
social issues, without really knowing the facts of the matter. Allowing poorly
reasoned opinions be to written into law may be undesirable. The potential
effects of advertising campaigns by special interest groups of one kind or
another also have to be considered. Another major issue is security. A lot of
people might worry about some 14-year kid hacking the system and falsifying
the results.
2

8. A B C D E. AB AC
AD AE BC BD BE CD CE DE
.

9.
n.
n n
n
n l
l n n n

i i
l n i
i i

l n .
n .
10. n n
n
p p . n
n
p . n
n
n
np p p n.
11.

12.

13.

14.
 3

15.

16. k k
k
k k
17. Pk k
fi k pk k
p .

kPk k p pk
k k p

18.
19.
fi
fi
20. n h
hn hn
M nh
hn / M hn
21.

22.
23.

24.
4

25.

fi

26. fi
fi

27.

28.

29. fi
A E
A B D E

30.

31.

fi

32.

fi
 5

SOLUTIONS TO CHAPTER 2 PROBLEMS

1. an bn c .
n
2.

‘‘ ’’

3.

4. S/N

5. H S /N H .
S /N
6. fi

7. f c /
f
8.
f /c
f

9.

f
6

10.
f c /
f
fi

11. f c c

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.
fi fi

17.

fi fi

fi
fi

18.

fi
 7

fi
19. /

/ fi

20. fl

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.
8

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.
35. A —
T/ . fi
/x
— T> /x f x/ .
36.

37.

38.

39.
 9

40.

41.

n/ n/

42. t s t s x /b
t s x /b kd
t x /b. fi
k
p /b x /b k p /b kd.
s> k p /b.
43. x /p fi
p h x /p p h x /pb

k p h /b

p h x /pb
p h k /b p fi
p hx / k .
44. A
B C B C B C

45.

46.
10

47.

48.

49.

50. A B C

51. fi
m
S T Si Ti
m i

T i
Ti
m m
S T Si T i Si Ti
m i m i

52.

53.
 11

A D B C
54.

55.

56.

fi
57.

58.

SOLUTIONS TO CHAPTER 3 PROBLEMS

1.

p
i i
E ip p p i p
i i

fi

i
S

i
S i
i
12

p E /p

2.

3. fi
4. fl
fl

fl
5.
6.
fi

fi

7.

8.

9.
fi fi
fi
10.
 13

11.

12.

13. n k

nk fi nk

nk nk nk nk

x y x <k y <n
p q
k p n q
p q

k n
k p n q
p q
nk nk nk nk

14. x x .
15.

16.

—
14

17. fi

fi
18. fi

fi

fi

fi
19.

20. ’ Sl Su ’ Rl Ru .
W.
Su Sl W
Ru Rl W
Sl Rl Su
21.

A
B
A –
B
A r.ack
AckExpected r.ack NextFrameToSend .
fi between true A

22.

fi
 15

23.

24.

25. A B B
A B
A

26.
–

27. A B
fi A B

FrameExpected

28. MaxSeq NrBufs .

– ’

arrived true FrameArrival

MaxSeq

29. t t fi
t fi
t fi
t
k
fi k/
k fi
k fi
k fi
16

30.

/
31. t t /
t
t

fi

fi t

32.
fi

33. next frame to send

frame expected

34. fi
 17

35.

B E
BE C
A D

36.

37. fl
fi

SOLUTIONS TO CHAPTER 4 PROBLEMS

1.
T / C C
T / lambda

/ C
2.
N /
18

3.

4.
G / / .
5. G e .
e G ke G k
.
eG .
G
6. P e G P .
G G
S Ge G e S .
G>
7. E e G. E E
eG .
G
S Ge .
G. G fi

8. s
N N d
N N d
s
s N
N N
N d N
9.

10.
 19

11.
fi
n
n
n
n
n
m
n
n i
m n i
i

fi
n
n n i
m n i
i

12.

13.

14.
A B E F
15. fl fi
fl

i j
i j

16.
20

17.

18.
19.

20. i
i i
i .
fi k k

k
k i
Pk
i

fi
k k k /
Pk

kPk .
21.

22.
fi
fi

23.
24.
fi
 21

25. fi

26.

27.
fi

28. C A
D A’

29.
24

6. k
k

fi

7. ABCD ABCF ABEF ABEG

AGHD AGHF AGEB AGEF
8.

fi

fl
9. B
D
E
C
B B – D E B
10.

11.

12.

13.
fi