Assignment 5

The Internet is a vast array of computers; literally, a "network of networks". Most users understand how to connect to their local ISP and run applications like a web browser or send e-mail, but what is the actual structure of the Internet?

Questions from the reading:

1. What is a client/server network?
   
   
2. How did the Internet originate?
   
   
3. What type of cable is generally used for cable television?
   
   
4. The Internet is the WWW (T/F).
   
   
5. What is a computer communications protocol, and why is it important?
   
   
6. What is the difference between a Minicomputer and a personal computer?
   
   
7. What is FTP?
   
   
8. What is an ISP?
   
   
9. What is a router?
   
   
10. What is the measure for bandwidth?
    
    

A view from Unix

It's time to log into your Unix account again. There are a number of utilities available at the Unix command line that enable you to retrieve information about network activity.

Once you've logged in to gaia, run the command netstat | more for a snapshot of all current network activity. The vertical bar is called the "pipe" command. In Unix it allows you to pipe the output of one command into another. "more" is a command that will display one page at a time allowing you to use the spacebar to scroll to the next page.

11. There are a lot of connections to gaia on its telnet port. Can you guess which of those are you?

Continue pressing the space bar or type the letter "q" to return to the shell prompt. Now type the command nslookup. This command presents you with a new prompt, ">". nslookup is a program that allows you to query the domain name service. Type set query=any so that you can see all records associated with a host. Now type gaia.ecs.csus.edu

12. Based on the results from that command, what is gaia's IP address?

You can type the name of any Internet host, and you should get back information about its Internet address and services. (e.g. yahoo.com)

Type exit to terminate the nslookup program, and then you can log out of gaia.

One interesting site is http://www.cybergeography.org/. Take a visit to this site. Check out the "Atlas of Cyberspaces" and click on the link to "Traceroutes".

The traceroute command is available on gaia by using the command traceroute <host>.

13. Use the traceroute command from your gaia account to saclink.csus.edu. List the servers your traceroute outputs, the date, and the time you ran the traceroute.