CST 311 Computer Networks - Week 4

Week 4 Overview:

This week expanded on TCP and UDP concepts through both theory and programming practice. We learned how TCP ensures reliable communication using sequence numbers, acknowledgments, retransmissions, and congestion control. These ideas connected directly to Programming Assignment 2, which focused on developing two UDP-based client-server applications in Python.

In Part 1, we built a UDP Ping Service to simulate sending and receiving packets while handling timeouts and calculating round-trip times. The server introduced artificial packet loss to show the unreliability of UDP, while the client measured packet loss rates and RTT statistics. In Part 2, we created a UDP Heartbeat Service, where the client periodically sent heartbeat messages with sequence numbers and timestamps. The server logged missing or received messages to track reliability. Running both applications in Mininet reinforced how real-world networking handles packet transmission, timing, and loss across unreliable channels.

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