UNIT - V

The Application Layer

Contents
Application Layer-
• Introduction
• Providing services
• Applications layer paradigms: Client
server model, HTTP, E-mail, WWW, TELNET, DNS
•RSA algorithm
 Application Layer

• The application layer is responsible for providing services to

the user.

• The application layer enables the user, whether human or

software, to access the network. It provides user interfaces
and support for services such as electronic mail, file access
and transfer, access to system resources, surfing the world
wide web, and network management.
Application Layer Services
1. Mail Services: This layer provides the basis for E-mail
forwarding and storage.
2.Network Virtual Terminal: It allows a user to log on to a remote
host. The application creates software emulation of a terminal at
the remote host. User's computer talks to the software terminal
which in turn talks to the host and vice versa. Then the remote host
believes it is communicating with one of its own terminals and
allows user to log on.
3. Directory Services: This layer provides access for global
information about various services.
4.File Transfer, Access and Management (FTAM): It is a
standard mechanism to access files and manages it. Users can
access files in a remote computer and manage it. They can also
retrieve files from a remote computer.
Client-Server Model:
Two remote application processes can communicate mainly in
two different fashions:
• Peer-to-peer: Both remote processes are executing at same
level and they exchange data using some shared resource.
•Client-Server: One remote process acts as a Client and
requests some resource from another application process acting
as Server.

In client-server model, any process can act as Server or Client.

It is not the type of machine, size of the machine, or its
computing power which makes it server; it is the ability of
serving request that makes a machine a server.
The WWW today is a distributed client/server service, in
which a client using a browser can access a service using a
server. However, the service provided is distributed over
many locations called sites as shown in fig.
 Client(Browser)

• A variety of vendors offer commercial browsers that interpret

and display a Web document ,and all use nearly the same
architecture.
• Each browser usually consists of three parts: a controller,
client protocol, and interpreters.
• The controller receives input from the keyboard or the mouse
and uses the client programs to access the document.
• After the document has been accessed, the controller uses
one of the interpreters to display the document on the
screen. The interpreter can be HTML, Java, or JavaScript,
depending on the type of document
The client protocol can be one of the protocols
described previously such as FTP or HTTP.

Server
The Web page is stored at the server. Each time a client
request arrives, the corresponding document is sent to the
client. To improve efficiency, servers normally store
requested files in a cache in memory; memory is faster to
access than disk. A server can also become more efficient
through multithreading or multiprocessing. In this case, a
server can answer more than one
Browser
Uniform Resource Locator
• A client that wants to access a Web page needs the
address. To facilitate the access of documents distributed
throughout the world, HTTP uses locators. The uniform
resource locator (URL) is a standard for specifying any
kind of information on the Internet. The URL defines
four things: protocol, host computer, port, and path.
• The protocol is the client/server program used to
retrieve the document. Many different protocols can
retrieve a document; among them are FTP or HTTP. The
most common today is HTTP.
• The host is the computer on which the information is
located, although the name of the computer can be an alias.
Web pages are usually stored in computers, and computers
are given alias names that usually begin with the characters
"www".
• The URL can optionally contain the port number of the
server. If the port is included, it is inserted between the host
and the path, and it is separated from the host by a colon.
• Path is the pathname of the file where the information is
located. Note that the path can itself contain slashes
that, in the UNIX operating system, separate the
directories from the subdirectories and files.
Web Documents

The documents in the WWW can be grouped into three broad

categories: static, dynamic, and active. The category is based
on the time at which the contents of the document are
determined.
Static Documents
Static documents are fixed-content documents that are created and
stored in a server. The client can get only a copy of the
document. When a client accesses the document, a copy of the
document is sent. The user can then use a browsing program to
display the document.
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a language for
creating Web pages.
 Dynamic Documents
• A dynamic document is created by a Web server whenever a
browser requests the document. When a request arrives, the Web
server runs an application program or a script that creates the
dynamic document. The server returns the output of the program or
script as a response to the browser that requested the document.

• A very simple example of a dynamic document is the retrieval of

the time and date from a server. Time and date are kinds of
information that are dynamic in that they change from moment to
moment. The client can ask the server to run a program such as the
date program in UNIX and send the result of the program to the
client.
Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
• The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a technology that
creates and handles dynamic documents.

Dynamic document using CGI

Dynamic document using server-site script

Dynamic documents are sometimes referred to as server-site

dynamic documents.
Active Documents
For many applications, we need a program or a script to be run
at the client site. These are called active documents
 Active document using client-site script

Active documents are sometimes referred to as client-site dynamic

documents.
 HyperText Transfer Protocol
The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is used to define how
the client-server programs can be written to retrieve web pages
from the Web. An HTTP client sends a request; an HTTP server
returns a response. The server uses the port number 80; the
client uses a temporary port number. HTTP uses the services of
TCP, which, as discussed before, is a connection - oriented and
reliable protocol.

HTTP versions
•HTTP 1.0 uses non persistent HTTP. At most one object can be
sent over a single TCP connection.
•HTTP 1.1 uses persistent HTTP. In this version, multiple
objects can be sent over a single TCP connection.
 Example
Below figure shows an example of a nonpersistent connection. The client needs to
access a file that contains one link to an image. The text file and image are located
on the same server. Here we need two connections. For each connection, TCP
requires at least three handshake messages to establish the connection, but the
request can be sent with the third one. After the connection is established, the object
can be transferred. After receiving an object, another three handshake messages are
needed to terminate the connection.

Figure:
 using a persistent connection only one connection establishment and
connection termination is used, but the request for the image is sent
separately.
Figure : Formats of the request and response messages
Table: Methods
Table : Request Header Names
Table : Response Header Names
 Example
This example retrieves a document (see below figure). We use the GET method to
retrieve an image with the path /usr/bin/image26. The request line shows the method
(GET), the URL, and the HTTP version (26.1). The header has two lines that show that
the client can accept images in the GIF or JPEG format. The request does not have a
body. The response message contains the status line and four lines of header. The
header lines define the date, server, content encoding (MIME version, which will be
described in electronic mail), and length of the document. The body of the document
follows the header..
ELECTRONIC MAIL

Electronic mail (or e-mail) allows users to exchange messages.

The nature of this application is different from other applications
discussed so far. This means that the idea of client/server
programming should be implemented in another way: using some
intermediate computers (servers).

Architecture
To explain the architecture of e-mail, we give a common scenario,
as shown in below figure Another possibility is the case in which
Alice or Bob is directly connected to the corresponding mail
server, in which LAN or WAN connection is not required, but this
variation in the scenario does not affect our discussion.
Figure : Common scenario

1 9
2
8

3 7

4 5 6
Figure : Format of an e-mail
Figure : E-mail address

Figure : Protocols used in electronic mail

POP3 downloads the email from a server to a single computer, then deletes
the email from the server. On the other hand, IMAP stores the message on a
server and synchronizes the message across multiple devices.
MIME(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension)

• MIME is a standard which was proposed by Bell Communications in 1991

in order to expand limited capabilities of email.

• MIME is a kind of add on or a supplementary protocol which allows non-

ASCII data to be sent through SMTP. It allows the users to exchange
different kinds of data files on the Internet: audio, video, images, application
programs as well.

Why do we need MIME?

Limitations of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP):

• SMTP has a very simple structure

• It only send messages in NVT 7-bit ASCII format.
• It cannot be used for languages that do not support 7-bit ASCII format
such as- French, German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, etc. so it
cannot be transmitted using SMTP. So, in order to make SMTP more
broad we use MIME.
• It cannot be used to send binary files or video or audio data.
45
Figure : MIME

Working of MIME –
Suppose a user wants to send an email through user agent and it is in a
non-ASCII format so there is a MIME protocol which converts it into
7-bit NVT ASCII format. Message is transferred through e-mail system
to the other side in 7-bit format now MIME protocol again converts it
back into non-ASCII code and now the user agent of receiver side
reads it and then information is finally read by the receiver.
MIME header is basically inserted at the beginning of any e-mail transfer.

MIME Version – Defines version of MIME protocol.

Content Type – Type of data used in the body of message. They are of
different types like text data (plain, HTML), audio content or video content.
Content Type Encoding – It defines the method used for encoding the
message. Like 7-bit encoding, 8-bit encoding, etc.
Content Id – It is used for uniquely identifying the message.
Content description – It defines whether the body is actually image, video or
audio.
DNS (Domain Name System)
To identify an entity, TCP/IP protocols use the IP address, which
uniquely identifies the connection of a host to the Internet.
However, people prefer to use names instead of numeric
addresses. Therefore, we need a system that can map a name to
an address or an address to a name.
NAME SPACE
A name space that maps each address to a unique name can be
organized in two ways: flat or hierarchical.
Flat Name Space
In a flat name space, a name is assigned to an address. A name in
this space is a sequence of characters without structure.

Hierarchical Name Space

In a hierarchical name space, each name is made of several parts.
The first part can define the nature of the organization, the second
part can define the name of an organization, the third part can
define departments in the organization, and so on.

Example: challenger.jhda.edu, challenger.berkeley.edu, and

challenger.smart.com
DOMAIN NAME SPACE
To have a hierarchical name space, a domain name space was
designed. In this design the names are defined in an inverted-
tree structure with the root at the top. The tree can have only
128 levels: level 0 (root) to level 127.
Label
Each node in the tree has a label, which is a string with a maximum
of 63 characters. The root label is a null string (empty string). DNS
requires that children of a node (nodes that branch from the same
node) have different labels, which guarantees the uniqueness of the
domain names.
Domain Name
Each node in the tree has a domain name. A full domain name
is a sequence of labels separated by dots (.). The domain names are
always read from the node up to the root. The last label is the label
of the root (null). This means that a full domain name always ends in
a null label, which means the last character is a dot because the null
string is nothing. Below Figure shows some domain names
Domain names and labels
DISTRIBUTION OF NAME SPACE:
The information contained in the domain name space must be stored.
However, it is very inefficient and also unreliable to have just one
computer store such a huge amount of information. In this section, we
discuss the distribution of the domain name space
1 Hierarchy of Name Servers
distribute the information among many computers called DNS
servers. we let the root stand alone and create as many domains
(subtrees) as there are first-level nodes
2 Zone
Since the complete domain name hierarchy cannot be stored on a
single server, it is divided among many servers. What a server is
responsible for or has authority over is called a zone. We can define
a zone as a contiguous part of the entire tree
3 Root Server
A root server is a server whose zone consists of the whole tree. A root
server usually does not store any information about domains but
delegates its authority to other servers, keeping references to those
servers. There are several root servers, each covering the whole
domain name space. The servers are distributed all around the world.

4 Primary and Secondary Servers

A primary server is a server that stores a file about the zone for which
it is an authority. It is responsible for creating, maintaining, and
updating the zone file. It stores the zone file on a local disk

A secondary server is a server that transfers the complete information

about a zone from another server (primary or secondary) and stores the
file on its local disk. The secondary server neither creates nor updates
the zone files
DNS IN THE INTERNET
DNS is a protocol that can be used in different platforms. In the Internet,
the domain name space (tree) is divided into three different sections:
generic domains, country domains, and the inverse domain
1 Generic Domains
The generic domains define registered hosts according to their
generic behavior. Each node in the tree defines a domain, which
is an index to the domain name space database
2 Country Domains
The country domains section uses two-character country
abbreviations (e.g., us for United States). Second labels can be
organizational, or they can be more specific, national designations.
The United States, for example, uses state abbreviations as a
subdivision of us (e.g., ca.us.).
3 Inverse Domain
The inverse domain is used to map an address to a name.

When the server has

received a request from the
client, and the server
contains the files of only
authorized clients. To
determine whether the
client is on the authorized
list or not, it sends a query
to the DNS server and ask
for mapping an address to
the name.
Introduction to TELNET

• TELNET stands for TErminaL NETwork. It is a type of protocol

that enables one computer to connect to local computer.

• It is a used as a standard TCP/IP protocol for virtual terminal

service which is given by ISO.

• Computer which starts connection known as the local computer.

• Computer which is being connected to i.e. which accepts the

connection known as remote computer.
RSA algorithm (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) Algorithm

• RSA algorithm is a public key encryption technique and is

considered as the most secure way of encryption. It was invented by
Rivest, Shamir and Adleman in year 1978 and hence name RSA
algorithm.

• RSA algorithm is asymmetric cryptography algorithm. Asymmetric

actually means that it works on two different keys i.e. Public
Key and Private Key. As the name describes that the Public Key is
given to everyone and Private key is kept private.

• If the public key is used at encryption we have to use the private key
of the same user in the decryption process.
• Encryption is the process of converting normal message (plaintext)
into meaningless message (Ciphertext). Whereas Decryption is the
process of converting meaningless message (Ciphertext) into its
original form (Plaintext).
RSAAlgorithm

Here we need to find out both public and private keys

• The initial procedure begins with selection of two prime numbers

namely p and q, and then calculating their product n, as shown −

n=p*q

• Then calculate ϕ(n) = (p-1)*(q-1)

• Assume e and d as Public and Private Keys.

• Assume e such that gcd(e, ϕ(n)) = 1

• Assume d such that d*e mod ϕ(n) = 1

• Public Key. = {e,n}
• Private key = {d,n}
• After finding public and private keys, Encryption process starts
i.e converting plain text to cipher text.
• Here we must consider the plain text must be less than n

Encryption Formula
Consider a sender who sends the plain text message to someone whose
public key is (e,n). To encrypt the plain text message in the given
scenario, use the following syntax -
C = Pe mod n
Decryption Formula
P = Cd mod n
RSA Algorithm – Example

• If p=3 , q=5
• n = p*q = 3*5 = 15
• ϕ(n) = (p-1)*(q-1) = (3-1) * (5-1) = 8
• Generating public key that is e
gcd(e, ϕ(n)) = 1
3,5,7
e=3
• Generating private key that is d

d*e mod ϕ(n) = 1

3*3 mod 8 = 1
d=3
• Public Key. = {e,n} = {3,15}
• Private key = {d,n} = {3,15}

ENCRYPTION – plain text must be less than n - > 4<15

C = Pe mod n
= 43 mod 15
= 64 mod 15

Cipher text = 4
DECRYPTION
P = Ce mod n
= 43 mod 15
= 64 mod 15
Plain text = 4
 File Transfer Protocol

• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the standard mechanism provided

by TCP/IP for copying a file from one host to another.
• Although transferring files from one system to another seems
simple and straightforward.
• Before transferring, some problems must be dealt with first, such
as:
1) Two systems may use different file name conventions.
2) Two systems may have different ways to represent text
and data.
3) Two systems may have different directory structures.
• All of these problems have been solved by FTP in a very simple
and elegant approach.
 FILE TRANSFER

• FTP doesn’t not really move, it copies files from one

computer to another

• FTP differs from other client-server applications in that it

establishes two connections between the hosts.

• One connection is used for data transfer, the other for

control information (commands and responses).

• Separation of commands and data transfer makes FTP more

efficient.

• We need to transfer only a line of command or a line of

response at a time.
 FILE TRANSFER

• The control connection uses very simple rules of

communication.
• The data connection, on the other hand, needs more complex
rules due to the variety of data types transferred.
• FTP uses two well-known TCP ports:

Port 21 is used for the control connection,

port 20 is used for the data connection.
Control Connection
There are two steps:

•The server issues a passive open on the well-known port 21 and waits
for a client.
•The client uses an ephemeral port and issues an active open.The
connection remains open during the entire process.
•The service type, used by the IP protocol, is minimize delay because
this is an interactive connection between a user (human) and a server.
•The user types commands and expects to receive responses without
significant delay.
Data Connection
•The data connection uses the well-known port 20 at the server site.
•The following shows how FTP creates a data connection:

1) The client, not the server, issues a passive open using an

ephemeral port.
2) The client sends this port number to the server using the
PORT command.
3) The server receives the port number and issues an active
open using the well known port 20 and the received
ephemeral port number.
Data Connection
•The data connection is opened and then closed for each file
transferred.

•It opens each time , commands that involve transferring files are
used, and it closes when the file is transferred.

•While the control connection is open, the data connection can be

opened and closed multiple times if several files are transferred.
Communication over Control Connection :

•FTP uses the same approach as SMTP to communicate across the

control connection.
•It uses the 7-bit ASCII character set.
•Communication is achieved through commands and responses.
•Each command or response is only one short line, so we need not worry
about file format or file structure.
Communication over Data Connection :
•File transfer occurs over the data connection under the control of the
commands sent over the control connection.
•We prepare for transmission through the control connection.
•The heterogeneity problem is resolved by defining three attributes of
communication before sending the file through the data connection :
file type
data structure
transmission mode
FTP can transfer one of the following file types across the data connection:
ASCII file. - default format for transferring text files.
EBCDIC file - used If one or both ends of the connection use EBCDIC
encoding (the file format used by IBM).
image file - default format for transferring binary files. The file is sent
as continuous streams of bits without any interpretation or
encoding.

FTP can transfer a file across the data connection by using one of the
following interpretations about the structure of the data:

file structure: the file is a continuous stream of bytes.

record structure: the file is divided into records. This can be used only
with text files.
page structure: the file is divided into pages, with each page having a page
number and a page header. The pages can be stored and accessed randomly
or sequentially.
FTP can transfer a file across the data connection using one of the
following three transmission modes:

Stream mode:
This is the default mode. Data are delivered from FTP to TCP as a
continuous stream of bytes.
TCP is responsible for chopping data into segments of appropriate
size.

Block mode:
Data can be delivered from FTP to TCP in blocks.
Each block is preceded by a 3-byte header. The first byte is called the
block descriptor; the next two bytes define the size of the block in
bytes.

Compressed mode:
If the file is big, the data can be compressed.
The compression method normally used is run-length encoding.