Learning objectives
Obiettivo del
The aim of the course is to provide an understanding of the mechanisms on which communications and applications of common use in everyday life run. In particular:
• techniques involved in e-mail;
• issues and protocols of the Web;
• structures and inner workings of GSM and PSTN networks.
The knowledge acquired is intended to provide basic skills to manage and maintain telecommunications systems, both for personal purposes in the enterprise. For example:
• tracking of e-mail messages;
• Configuring a Web server;
• preparation of simple HTML pages, also of the dynamic type.
Prerequisites
- - -
Course unit content
• General principles of communications in computer networks and integrated systems.
• International regulations and documentation.
• Coding of writing systems.
• Main application protocols in the Internet world, with particular reference to the Web
• Voice applications in the TCP / IP environment.
Full programme
• Reminders on layered OSI reference models, ISDN, and the Internet. Connection-oriented and connectionless protocols and communication.
• Transport protocols and client / server interworking in TCP / IP.
• The international standardS: OSI and ITU, documentation on the Internet: the RFC.
• Encoding of written texts: ASCII, extensions to 8-bit: the family ISO8859 and codepages Windows. Extension techniques in more bytes. Unicode and its encodings.
• The Domain Name System. Concepts and Protocol.
• Historical application protocols: TELNET, FTP, SMTP. Using the TELNET client as a diagnostic tool.
• E-mail and POP3/IMAP protocols. Formatting email: RFC2821, MIME extension, internationalization.
• The WorldWideWeb and its standards. Addressing: URIs and URLs.
• The HTTP protocol. Versions, connection management, methods, authentication, security.
• Intermediate systems: proxy, gateway, tunnel.
• Managing sessions and recognition of the client using HTTP cookies.
• The Web robot. Aims and related issues.
• Telephone/mobile network and its interaction with TCP / IP: VoIP and Internet telephony.
• Problems associated with the packaging of the item, the RTP protocol.
• Aspects of signaling, the SIP protocol.
• Exercises on use of utilities for network analysis, textual analysis of protocols using TELNET client, use the nslookup for DNS queries, composing e-mail messages, configuration http server.
Bibliography
• D. Gourley and B. Totty: HTTP-The definitive guide, O'REILLY
• W. Stevens: TCP/IP Illustrated, vol. 3, Addison-Wesley
Teaching methods
Lectures and tutorials on computer.
Assessment methods and criteria
Two in-course tests and a final workout (possibly to be delivered in a group).
At request an oral examination
Other information
The teaching material (notes and technical notes relating to the exercises) is made available on the Lea system.
