Instructor

Yan Chen, Assistant Professor
Room 330, 1890 Maple Ave., 491-4946. ychen@cs.northwestern.edu
Office Hours: Thursday. 2-4pm or by appointment, Rm 330, 1890 Maple Ave.

Teaching Assistant

Ashish Gupta
ashish@cs.northwestern.edu
Office Hours: Tu. and Th.11am - noon(12pm), Rm 246, 1890 Maple Ave.

Location and Time

·        Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-10:50am, Room 381, 1890 Maple.

·        Recitation: Wednesday, 4-5pm, Room 381, 1890 Maple.

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to fundamental concepts in the design and implementation of computer communication networks, their protocols, and applications.  Topics to be covered include: overview of  network architectures, applications (HTTP, FTP), network programming interfaces (e.g., sockets), transport (TCP, UDP), flow control, congestion control, IP, routing , IPv6, multicast, data link protocols, error-detection/correction, multiple access, LAN, Ethernet, wireless networks, and network security. Examples will be drawn primarily from the Internet (e.g., TCP, UDP, and IP) protocol suite.  Over the course of the quarter, students program in C++ on UNIX systems to build web clients and servers, and a fully compatible TCP/IP stack that can run them.

Course Prerequisites

  • Required: CS 311 or equivalent data structure course.
  • Required: Knowledge of C and/or C++.
  • Highly recommended: CS 213 or equivalent computer systems course.
  • Highly recommended: CS 343 or equivalent operating systems course.
  • Highly recommended: UNIX programming experience (gcc, gdb, make, etc.)

Course Materials

Grading

There will be a midterm and a final exam. Exams will be in-class, closed-book, and will cover materials from lectures, required readings and projects. The final exam will not be cumulative.

  • Homeworks 10%
  • Projects 50%
  • Midterm 20%
  • Final 20%

Communication

  • Course web site: http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~ychen/classes/cs340/. Check it out regularly for schedule changes, clarifications and corrections to assignments, and other course-related announcements.
  • Recitation, TA will lecture on complementary materials of the lectures, address questions for homeworks and projects, and help to prepare the exams.  We hope it can help students more efficiently than the one-on-one Q&A in office hours.
  • Newsgroup (cs.340.announce and cs.340.discuss) are available for announcement, and posting questions and answers.

Policies

  • Late policy:
    Unless otherwise indicated, homeworks and projects are due by the end of lecture on their due date. If you hand in an assignment late, we will take off 10% for each day (or portion thereof) it is late.
  • Cheating:
    It's OK to ask someone about the concepts, algorithms, or approaches needed to do the project assignments, I encourage you to do so; both giving and taking advice will help you to learn. However, what you turn in must be your own, or for projects, your group's own work; copying other people's code, solution sets, or from any other sources is strictly prohibited. We will punish transgressors severely.