6.829 Computer Networks Schedule (Fall 2004)

All notes are Copyright © Hari Balakrishnan (1998-2003) Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that the copyright notice appears on the first page. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for classroom use requires prior specific permission and should include the copyright notice on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.

6.829 students -- Please note:

  1. The course is structured in four modules: 1) Internetworking and routing; 2) Resource management; 3) Wireless networking, and 4) Network attacks and countermeasures. The modules are inter-related.
  2. Lecture numbers (L1, L2, etc.) are linked to corresponding lecture notes. Generally, these will appear on this page soon after the lecture. Not all notes are in flowing text; usually they are in bullet form and highlight things we consider important about each paper or the area being discussed.
  3. For all lectures, you MUST try and read the assigned papers BEFORE lecture. we will not repeat a lot of detail of what's in the paper, but instead focus only on a few important pieces, and give you a flavor of other work in the area as well. You're likely to get the most out of each lecture if you read the material beforehand.
  4. Pay attention to the due dates for problem sets, project proposal, project interim status, and other deadlines. All deadlines are hard.
  5. The paper codes refer to papers found on the course reading list. They are also linked to the ps/pdf copy of the paper, in cases when an online version is available. All other papers will be handed out in class.
  6. Paper codes in parentheses (e.g., (RJ90)) are optional reading. Read some of these if you have time, or if you’re especially interested in the corresponding material. You'll learn a great deal and may find it useful for your project.

Date Topics Readings Optional reading; remarks
L1 9/9 Th Part I: Internetworking & Routing
Packet switching concepts. A simple switched network. 		L0 for background Read L0 notes.
L2 9/14 Tu The internetworking problem. The IP/TCP split. Internet architecture. The IP forwarding path.
PS 1 assigned (due 9/21) 		Cla88,
Hin96 (skim) 		(CK74) is the seminal TCP/IP paper.  Note that today’s TCP/IP looks quite different.
L3 9/16 Th Scaling IP. Coping with best effort: TCP functions; Application-level framing (ALF). L3 notes (skim before class), CT90 (BCDP97) gives a slick method for fast longest prefix matching of IP addresses.
L4 9/21 Tu Unicast Internet routing: Intra and Inter-domain routing.
PS 1 due, PS 2 assigned (due 10/8) 		L4 notes
(Hari's 2003) L4 notes 		Note: For intra-domain routing background, see any undergraduate text's routing chapter to learn about distance-vector and link-state routing.
9/23 Th Project meetings (brainstorming) to discuss proposal. All day.    
L5 9/28 Tu More Internet routing. Internet routing in-the-wild. Pax97  
L6 9/30 Th Router design and implementation.
** Project proposals due. 		P+98 , McK96  
L7 10/5 Tu Part II: Resource management
End-to-end congestion control. 		JK88 , CJ89  
L8 10/7 Th Other end-to-end c.c. ideas. Router-assisted congestion control I: Active Queue Management. FJ93 (BB01)
10/8 Fr PS 2 due, Midnight by Email    
L9 10/12 Tu Router-assisted congestion control II: Fair queueing & variants. DKS90, SSZ98 (KHR02): you are responsible for only parts of XCP covered in lecture.
(SV95) is a paper on deficit round robin, an efficient way to implement fair queueing.
L10 10/14 Th More about Congestion Control.   She95, CF98, (CSZ92 optional) RSVP (Z+95), (RFC 2205-2209)
10/19 Tu Project Meetings.    
L1110/21 Th Part III: Wireless networking
Wireless MAC and channel access protocols. 		BDSZ94, Li+01 (She96)
L12 10/26 Tu Wireless Routing and path selection. DABM03 (BMJ+98) has more details on mobile ad hoc routing.
L13 10/28 Th Sensor Networks IGE00 Compare directed diffusion (IGE00) to IP multicast routing, (MFHW02)
11/2 Tu Quiz #1 in class. All material covered so far  
L14 11/4 Th Part IV: Network services
Overlays 		ABKM01 (Chu+03), (LBK02), (RD01)
L15 11/9 Tu DHTs.
Project Interim Status Reports Due 		Sto+01, Cha+03 (Cla00) is the Freenet paper.
11/11 Th Institute holiday; no class    
L16 11/16 Tu Multicast services -- Application-layer multicast. Reliable multicast. BBK02, Fl+97  
11/18 Th Project Meetings.    
L18 11/23 Tu Security I.    
11/25 Th Happy thanksgiving! Institute holiday; no class    
L19 11/30 Tu Security II.    
L20 12/2 Th Quiz #2 in class.    
12/7 Tu No Class - Prepare for Presentations    
12/9 Th Project presentations in class
Slides to staff before 9am 		   
12/10 Fri Project papers due at **midnight**
 Two copies of 8-10 page conference-style paper, >=10-point font, single-spaced , single- or double-column. Page count includes everything -- figures, tables, etc. 		   
Questions: Email 6.829