CS/ECE 438 : Fall 2026 : Tue/Thu 3:30pm : Room 1404 Siebel
First day information
📅 Course Calendar (subject to change)
| Lec |
Date |
Module |
Topics |
Notes |
Video |
HW |
MP |
Optional readings |
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Aug 25 |
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| Tue |
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| Overview |
Course logistics and overview |
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- The whats and whys of computer networking | | | | | - Video: How does the Internet work |
| 2 | Aug 27
Thu | | Why packets?
- Circuit vs packet switching
- Performance metrics | | | | 🟢 MP0 released
(won’t be graded) |
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| 3 | Sep 1
Tue | | Internet end-to-end overview
- Naming & addressing
- Routing & forwarding
- Reliability | | | | 🟢 MP1 released
(Socket Prog.) | - A brief history of the Internet
- Design philosophy of the Internet protocols |
| 4 | Sep 3
Thu
| | Sockets and Network Programming
- Sockets, ports and headers
- Socket programming in Linux | | | 🟢 HW1 released | | Beej’s guide to network programming |
| 5 | Sep 8
Tue
| | Internet architectural principles
- Layering
- End-to-end principle
- Fate-sharing | | | | | - End-to-end argument in systems design
- Tussle in the Internet |
| 6 | Sep 10
Thu | Application Layer | Application layer
- Client-server & peer-to-peer architecture
- HTTP, web caching, DNS | | | | | - CHORD paper |
| 7 | Sep 15
Tue | Transport Layer | Reliable transport: introduction
- Reliability on top of best-effort delivery
- Goals and correctness conditions for reliable transport | | | | 🔴 MP1 due
(Socket Prog.) | |
| 8 | Sep 17
Thu | | Reliable transport: Design principles
- Designing a correct reliable transport
- ACKs, window-based protocols, BDP | | | 🔴 HW 1 due | 🟢 MP2 release
(TCP) | |
| 9 | Sep 22
Wed | | Reliable transport: More design principles
- Cumulative ACKs
- Go-back-N protocol
- Selective ACK protocol | | | 🟢 HW2 release | | |
| 10 | Sep 24
Thu | | TCP: Introduction
- In-order “stream-of-bytes” delivery
- Connections, sequence numbers, dupACKs, RTO
- Congestion control and flow control basics | | | | | |
| 11 | Sep 29
Tue | | TCP: Congestion Control
- Flow control window, congestion window
- Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease
- TCP Sawtooth, Slow Start | | | | | |
| 12 | Oct 1
Thu
| | TCP: More Congestion Control
- Fast recovery
- TCP state transition overview
- TCP fairness
- TCP flavors | | | 🔴 HW2 due
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| 13 | Oct 6
Tue | Network Layer | Link State Routing
- Routing tables
- Dijkstra’s algorithm
- Loops, disruptions, convergence… | | | 🟢 HW3 release | | |
| 14 | Oct 8
Thu | | Distance Vector Routing
- Bellman-Ford algorithm
- Count-to-infinity problem | | | | | |
| 15 | Oct 13
Tue | | IP addressing
- Hierarchical addressing, subnets
- IP datagram
- DHCP
- NAT, Tunnelling, IPv6 | | | | | |
| 16 | Oct 15
Thu | | BGP: Introduction and Policies
- Autonomous Systems (AS), intra-AS & inter-AS routing
- BGP and path vector routing | | | | | |
| 17 | Oct 20
Tue | | BGP: Details and Issues
- BGP policies - BGP sessions, eBGP, iBGP
- Reachability, security, convergence with BGP | | | 🔴 HW3 due
| 🔴 MP2 due
(TCP) | |
| 18 | Oct 22
Thu | | Router Architecture
- Input/Output Queueing
- Longest Prefix Matching | | | | | |
| | Oct 27
Tue | | MIDTERM | | | | | |
| 19 | Oct 29
Thu | Link Layer | Link layer
- Reliability
- Addressing
- Error detection and correction | | | 🟢 HW4 release | 🟢 MP3 release (Routing) | |
| 20 | Nov 3
Tue | | Medium access control
- MAC protocols: partition, random, taking turns
- CSMA/CD | | | | | |
| 21 | Nov 5
Thu | | Switching in Link Layer
- Switched Ethernet
- Spanning Tree Protocol | | | | | |
| 22 | Nov 10
Tue | | Putting everything together!
- ARP, DHCP
- Life of a packet in a network | | | | Mini Project Release | |
| 23 | Nov 12
Thu
| Beyond the Internet | Datacenter (DC) Networking
- DC Topologies
- Network protocols in DCs
- Transport protocols in DCs | | | | | |
| 24 | Nov 17
Tue
| | Intra-host Networking
- NIC-to-CPU hardware datapath
- Lossy vs lossless data transfer protocols, credit-based flow control
- PCIe, DRAM, SSDs, GPUs, NVLink | | | | 🔴 MP3 due
🟢 MP4 release
(CSMA/CD) | |
| 25 | Nov 19
Thu | | Host Network Stack
- Linux network stack datapath
- Segmentation, polling vs interrupts, request steering
- Hardware offloads, RDMA | | | | | |
| | Nov 24
Tue
| | 404 class not found!
Fall break | | | | | |
| | Nov 26
Thu
| | 404 class not found!
Fall break | | | | | |
| 26 | Dec 1
Tue | | Wireless networking
- Dispersive medium
- CSMA/CA
- Hidden and exposed terminals
- WiFi protocol | | | 🔴 HW4 due | | |
| 27 | Dec 3
Thu | | Network security
- Confidentiality, cryptography
- Man in the middle attack, spoofing, Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack, firewalls | | | | 🔴 MP4 due | |
| 28 | Dec 8
Tue | | Course wrap-up & Review
- Final exam logistics,
- Future of computer networking
- Follow-up courses, feedback
- Recap & QnA | | | | | |
| | TBD | | FINAL | | | | | |