47
votes
Accepted
What happens when an internet connection is faster than the storage write speed?
Many protocols, including TCP which is most widely used protocol on the Internet, use something called flow control. Flow control simply means that TCP will ensure that a sender is not overwhelming a ...
- 685
45
votes
Accepted
Why are so many internet protocols text-based?
When the world was younger, and computers weren't all glorified PCs, word sizes varied (a DEC 2020 we had around here had 36 bit words), format of binary data was a contentious issue (big endian vs ...
- 13.9k
24
votes
Why are so many internet protocols text-based?
One advantage that might be overlooked is the ability to experiment. If you're shoving bits down the tube, you're going to need to write some utility that translates ...
- 349
14
votes
Accepted
TCP Connection Termination - FIN, FIN ACK, ACK
A TCP implementation might send a standalone FIN in the first closing segment. However, it can also send a FIN ACK, instead.
The latter is strictly better: the implementation can bundle a "free" ACK ...
- 14.4k
13
votes
What happens when an internet connection is faster than the storage write speed?
what would happen?
The bytes that cannot be written to the HDD in time would be buffered temporarily somewhere; very likely some of them would be buffered in the application that "converts" the ...
- 1,273
9
votes
Why are so many internet protocols text-based?
It's not that many internet protocols are text based. In fact, if I were to guess I'd say that text based protocols are in the minority. For almost every text based protocol you see on the internet ...
- 669
7
votes
Accepted
How internet speed is manipulated at the physical level
This is a very wide topic indeed.
Basically, there are two ways to measure and control the speed of a connection: physical speed and logical speed.
Physical speed is determined by the technology, ...
- 186
6
votes
Why is TCP known as reliable protocol?
TCP is said to be reliable because when an application receives data, it knows that this is exactly the data that the sender sent. No part of the data was lost, reordered, etc.
Error control is the ...
5
votes
How would I add 0.0.15.255. to 172.1.6.255.?
You don't. Adding IP addresses makes no sense. It's like asking "How would I add an apple to a kiwi?" (Sounds like a setup for some bad joke, I know.) Not all things can be added. There's no ...
D.W.♦
- 156k
5
votes
Accepted
Why arrival process of packets at a switch is not a Poisson Process?
"new flow arrivals" means "arrivals of new flows". A flow is a TCP connection (roughly); each individual TCP connection is a separate "flow". So, this is talking about new TCP connections, and the ...
D.W.♦
- 156k
5
votes
If the two generals problem is unsolvable how can we human beings agree on things?
Because we don't need guaranteed assurance that something will happen when we have sufficient experience that tells us what is likely to happen. For example, let's say that a friend wants to meet up ...
- 151
5
votes
Accepted
Go Back N ARQ Question
1-2-3 is correctly sent and acknowledged so the sender's window is now over 4-5-6.
4 is ...
- 1,304
5
votes
How does Server know window size for TCP Header?
The Window Size field in the TCP packet header is the number of bytes the sender will buffer for the response. Basically, during the handshake each side will say how large its receive window is. That ...
5
votes
Accepted
How to distinguish between bits?
If the computer starts in the middle of the stream, it has no way to know—it will be completely confused.
Fortunately, that's not how the protocol works. The computer and terminal have to sync up ...
- 7,048
5
votes
How do web browsers find out the MAC address?
So, how does the computer find out the MAC address of the server?
It doesn't. The MAC address only has validity inside a local area network (LAN), which, as the name says, is local. Unless the ...
- 4,979
5
votes
Accepted
What are the underlying mechanisms allowing us to unsend an email?
The e-mail system has no way of manipulating already sent e-mails, no.
The only services I've seen which allow you to "unsend" an e-mail simply delay the e-mail being sent for a user-determined ...
- 66
5
votes
Accepted
ip/tcp packet decoding without wireshark
My guess is that what you are seeing is a Level 2 Ethernet frame and therefore the preamble is missing. Also the Ethernet checksum seems to be missing. In this case everything seems to line up (the ...
- 28.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Why is the vulnerable time in pure aloha twice the frame time?
This is because in pure ALOHA, even if a bit of a frame collides with a bit of another frame, both the frames get discarded. Also, in pure ALOHA, a station doesn't listen to the medium before ...
- 123
4
votes
how applications send tcp data to internet?
Applications don't deal with TCP packets at all. The operating system presents an interface somewhat similar to the file system and the application just writes data to that interface. The OS deals ...
- 81.4k
4
votes
Accepted
How come Datagram Packets between same source-destination pair may take different routes?
Packets are routed individually: each time a router receives a packet, it decides what to do with that packet. It doesn't necessarily make the same decision each time it receives packets for a ...
- 81.4k
4
votes
Does UDP always deliver packets inorder to the application layer
No. While UDP does deliver packets reliably 98-99% of the time, without duplicating packets 99.9% of the time, and in-order 99.9% of the time, there is absolutely no guarantee for either of these (in ...
- 161
4
votes
Accepted
Can we improve internet speed by serializing timestamps?
If we restrict ourselves to the 52 letters from the Latin alphabet that are commonly used in English (i.e. we exclude letters like ï as seen in words like naïve), then we need 6 bits to encode each ...
- 5,860
3
votes
Why are so many internet protocols text-based?
Your question can be interpreted in three ways:
Why is numerical data transmitted in textual representation, as if it had been printed with e.g. printf()?
Why do ...
3
votes
Why are so many internet protocols text-based?
Structured binary also has limitations in expanding it. It my days of working with FidoNet and building a gateway between it and UUCP/USNET, Fidonet's message headers were a structured binary. ...
- 31
3
votes
Benes (Fat Tree) Network for number of inputs/outputs that is not 2^n
Wasting ports to achieve an exact number of terminals is a common attribute of staged networks (butterfly, benes, folded-clos, etc.). The mesh, torus, and flattened butterfly topologies are a bit ...
- 206
3
votes
Algorithm for executing a command against a million hosts
Assuming the hosts and network are reliable, and that the cost of sending a message from any machine to any other machine is the same, then you would use some sort of broadcast tree. For example, if ...
- 17.7k
3
votes
Hamming code -- identical parity bits for different errors
When we say that a Hamming code detects (up to) 2 errors and can correct 1, we mean just that:
There is an error-detection algorithm that returns NO if there are no errors and returns YES if there ...
- 275k
3
votes
Accepted
Difference between 2f+1, 2f and 3f+1
$2f$ and $2f + 1$ are just numbers. A set of $2f + 1$ nodes has a majority of non-faulty nodes, as you say; a set of $2f$ nodes can be deadlocked between the non-faulty and faulty nodes. A total of $...
- 865
3
votes
What is the difference between transmission delay, queuing delay, and processing delay?
There's some similarity. In the end, they all get bundled up into one big "delay" factor, but the size of the delays depends on different factors so it makes sense to break them apart.
Transmission ...
- 3,241
3
votes
Accepted
What exactly would stop me from registering a domain from my own nameserver?
Nothing stops you from setting up such a nameserver. However, this wouldn't be of any use to you, because no one is going to contact your nameserver to ask whether domainexample.com exists: they're ...
D.W.♦
- 156k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible