CH 2

Application Layer

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Application Layer 2-1

CH 2: outline
2.1 principles of network
applications
2.2 Web and HTTP

Application Layer 2-2

CH 2: application layer

our goals:  learn about protocols by

 conceptual,
examining popular
implementation aspects application-level
of network application protocols
protocols  HTTP
 transport-layer
service models
 client-server
paradigm
 peer-to-peer
paradigm

Application Layer 2-3

Some network apps
 e-mail  voice over IP (e.g., Skype)
 web  real-time video
 text messaging conferencing
 remote login  social networking
 P2P file sharing  search
 multi-user network games  …
 streaming stored video  …
(YouTube, Hulu, Netflix)

Application Layer 2-4

Creating a network app
write programs that: application
transport
 run on (different) end systems network
data link
 communicate over network physical

 e.g., web server software

communicates with browser
software
no need to write software for
network-core devices
 network-core devices do not
run user applications application
 applications on end systems transport
network
allows for rapid app data link
physical
application
transport

development, propagation network

data link
physical

Application Layer 2-5

Application architectures
possible structure of applications:
 client-server
 peer-to-peer (P2P)

Application Layer 2-6

 Client-server architecture
server:
 always-on host
 permanent IP address
 data centers for scaling

clients:
 communicate with server
client/server
 may be intermittently
connected
 may have dynamic IP
addresses
 do not communicate directly
with each other

Application Layer 2-7

P2P architecture
 no always-on server peer-peer
 arbitrary end systems
directly communicate
 peers request service from
other peers, provide service
in return to other peers
 self scalability – new
peers bring new service
capacity, as well as new
service demands
 peers are intermittently
connected and change IP
addresses
 complex management

Application Layer 2-8

Processes communicating
process: program running clients, servers
within a host client process: process that
 within same host, two initiates communication
processes communicate server process: process
using inter-process that waits to be contacted
communication (defined by
OS)
 processes in different hosts
communicate by  aside: applications with P2P
exchanging messages architectures have client
processes & server
processes

Application Layer 2-9

Sockets
 process sends/receives messages to/from its socket
 socket analogous to door
 sending process shoves message out door
 sending process relies on transport infrastructure on other
side of door to deliver message to socket at receiving
process

application application
socket controlled by
process process app developer

transport transport
network network controlled
link
by OS
link Internet
physical physical

Application Layer 2-10

Addressing processes
 to receive messages, process  identifier includes both IP
must have identifier address and port numbers
 host device has unique 32- associated with process on
bit IP address host.
 Q: does IP address of host  example port numbers:
on which process runs  HTTP server: 80
suffice for identifying the  mail server: 25
process?  to send HTTP message to
gaia.cs.umass.edu web
server:
 A: no, many processes  IP address: 128.119.245.12
can be running on same  port number: 80
host  more shortly…

Application Layer 2-11

App-layer protocol defines
 types of messages open protocols:
exchanged,  defined in RFCs
 e.g., request, response  allows for interoperability
 message syntax:  e.g., HTTP, SMTP
 what fields in messages proprietary protocols:
& how fields are  e.g., Skype
delineated
 message semantics
 meaning of information
in fields
 rules for when and how
processes send & respond
to messages

Application Layer 2-12

What transport service does an app need?

data integrity throughput

 some apps (e.g., file transfer,  some apps (e.g.,
web transactions) require multimedia) require
100% reliable data transfer minimum amount of
 other apps (e.g., audio) can throughput to be
tolerate some loss “effective”
 other apps (“elastic apps”)
make use of whatever
timing throughput they get
 some apps (e.g., Internet
telephony, interactive security
games) require low delay  encryption, data integrity,
to be “effective” …
Application Layer 2-13
 Transport service requirements: common apps

application data loss throughput time sensitive

file transfer no loss elastic no

e-mail no loss elastic no
Web documents no loss elastic no
real-time audio/video loss-tolerant audio: 5kbps-1Mbps yes, 100’s msec
video:10kbps-5Mbps
stored audio/video loss-tolerant same as above yes, few secs
interactive games loss-tolerant few kbps up yes, 100’s msec
text messaging no loss elastic yes and no

Application Layer 2-14

Internet transport protocols services

TCP service: UDP service:

 reliable transport between  unreliable data transfer
sending and receiving between sending and
process receiving process
 flow control: sender won’t  does not provide:
overwhelm receiver
reliability, flow control,
 congestion control: throttle congestion control,
sender when network
overloaded timing, throughput
 does not provide: timing, guarantee, security,
minimum throughput orconnection setup,
guarantee, security
 connection-oriented: setup Q: why bother? Why is
required between client and there a UDP?
server processes

Application Layer 2-15

Internet apps: application, transport protocols

application underlying
application layer protocol transport protocol

e-mail SMTP [RFC 5321] TCP

remote terminal access Telnet [RFC 854] TCP
Web HTTP 1.1 [RFC 7320] TCP
file transfer FTP [RFC 959] TCP
streaming multimedia HTTP (e.g., YouTube), TCP or UDP
RTP [RFC 1889]
Internet telephony SIP [RFC 3261], RTP
[RFC 3550], or proprietary TCP or UDP

Application Layer 2-16

CH 2: outline
2.1 principles of network
applications
 app architectures
 app requirements
2.2 Web and HTTP

Application Layer 2-17

Web and HTTP

First, a review…
 web page consists of objects
 object can be HTML file, JPEG image, Java
applet, audio file,…
 web page consists of base HTML-file which
includes several referenced objects
 each object is addressable by a URL, e.g.,

www.someschool.edu/someDept/pic.gif

host name path name

Application Layer 2-18

HTTP overview
HTTP: hypertext transfer
protocol HT
 Web’s application layer TP
req
protocol PC running ues
HT t
Firefox browser TPr
 client/server model esp
ons
 client: browser that e
requests, receives, t
(using HTTP protocol) u es
req server
and “displays” Web T P nse
HT po running
objects P res
Apache Web
T
 server: Web server HT server
sends (using HTTP
protocol) objects in iphone running
response to requests Safari browser

Application Layer 2-19

HTTP overview (continued)
uses TCP: HTTP is “stateless”
 client initiates TCP  server maintains no
connection (creates socket) information about
to server, port 80 past client requests
 server accepts TCP
connection from client aside
 HTTP messages protocols that maintain
(application-layer protocol “state” are complex!
messages) exchanged
 past history (state) must be
maintained
between browser (HTTP  if server/client crashes, their
client) and Web server views of “state” may be
(HTTP server) inconsistent, must be
 TCP connection closed reconciled

Application Layer 2-20

HTTP connections
non-persistent HTTP persistent HTTP
 at most one object sent over
 multiple
TCP connection
objects can
 connection then closed be sent over single
 downloading multiple objectsTCP connection
required multiple
connections between client, server

Application Layer 2-21

 Non-persistent HTTP
suppose user enters URL: (contains text,
www.someSchool.edu/someDepartment/home.index references to 10
jpeg images)
1a. HTTP client initiates TCP
connection to HTTP server
(process) at 1b. HTTP server at host
www.someSchool.edu on port 80 www.someSchool.edu waiting
for TCP connection at port 80.
“accepts” connection, notifying
2. HTTP client sends HTTP
client
request message (containing
URL) into TCP connection
socket. Message indicates that 3. HTTP server receives request
client wants object message, forms response
someDepartment/home.index message containing requested
object, and sends message into
time its socket

Application Layer 2-22

 Non-persistent HTTP (cont.)
4. HTTP server closes TCP
connection.
5. HTTP client receives response
message containing html file,
displays html. Parsing html file,
finds 10 referenced jpeg objects

time
6. Steps 1-5 repeated for each of 10
jpeg objects

Application Layer 2-23

Non-persistent HTTP: response time
RTT (definition): time for a
small packet to travel from
client to server and back
HTTP response time: initiate TCP
 one RTT to initiate TCP connection
connection RTT
 one RTT for HTTP request request
file
and first few bytes of HTTP time to
RTT
response to return transmit
file
 file transmission time
file
 non-persistent HTTP received

response time =
2RTT+ file transmission time time
time

Application Layer 2-24

Persistent HTTP
non-persistent HTTP persistent HTTP:
issues:  server leaves connection
open after sending
 requires 2 RTTs per object response
 OS overhead for each TCP  subsequent HTTP
connection messages between same
 browsers often open client/server sent over
parallel TCP connections to open connection
fetch referenced objects  client sends requests as
soon as it encounters a
referenced object
 as little as one RTT for all
the referenced objects

Application Layer 2-25

 HTTP request message
 two types of HTTP messages: request, response
 HTTP request message:
 ASCII (human-readable format)
carriage return character
line-feed character
request line
(GET, POST, GET /index.html HTTP/1.1\r\n
HEAD commands) Host: www-net.cs.umass.edu\r\n
User-Agent: Firefox/3.6.10\r\n
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml\r\n
headerAccept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5\r\n
linesAccept-Encoding: gzip,deflate\r\n
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7\r\n
carriage return, Keep-Alive: 115\r\n
line feed at start Connection: keep-alive\r\n
\r\n
of line indicates
end of header lines
Application Layer 2-26
HTTP request message: general format

method sp URL sp version cr lf request

line
header field name value cr lf
header
~
~ ~
~ lines

header field name value cr lf

cr lf

~
~ entity body ~
~ body

Application Layer 2-27

Uploading form input
POST method:
 web page often includes
form input
 input is uploaded to server
in entity body

URL method:
 uses GET method
 input is uploaded in URL
field of request line:
www.somesite.com/animalsearch?monkeys&banana

Application Layer 2-28

Method types

HTTP/1.0: HTTP/1.1:
 GET
 GET, POST, HEAD
 POST
 PUT
 HEAD  uploads file in entity
body to path specified
 asks server to leave in URL field
requested object out of
response
 DELETE
 deletes file specified in
the URL field

Application Layer 2-29

 HTTP response message
status line
(protocol
status code HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n
status phrase) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:09:20 GMT\r\n
Server: Apache/2.0.52 (CentOS)\r\n
Last-Modified: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:00:02
GMT\r\n
header ETag: "17dc6-a5c-bf716880"\r\n
Accept-Ranges: bytes\r\n
lines Content-Length: 2652\r\n
Keep-Alive: timeout=10, max=100\r\n
Connection: Keep-Alive\r\n
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1\
r\n
\r\n
data, e.g., data data data data data ...
requested
HTML file
Application Layer 2-30
HTTP response status codes
 status code appears in 1st line in server-to-
client response message.
 some sample codes:
200 OK
 request succeeded, requested object later in this msg
301 Moved Permanently
 requested object moved, new location specified later in this msg
(Location:)
400 Bad Request
 request msg not understood by server
404 Not Found
 requested document not found on this server
505 HTTP Version Not Supported

Application Layer 2-31

User-server state: cookies [RFC 6265]
example:
Many Web sites use cookies  Susan always access
four components: Internet from PC
1) cookie header line of  visits specific e-commerce
HTTP response site for first time
message  when initial HTTP requests
2) cookie header line in arrives at site, site creates:
next HTTP request  unique ID
message  entry in backend
3) cookie file kept on database for ID
user’s host, managed
by user’s browser
4) back-end database at
Web site
Application Layer 2-32
 Cookies: keeping “state” (cont.)
client server

ebay 8734
usual http request msg Amazon server
cookie file creates ID
usual http response
1678 for user create backend
ebay 8734
set-cookie: 1678 entry database
amazon 1678
usual http request msg
cookie: 1678 cookie- access
specific
usual http response msg action

one week later:

access
ebay 8734 usual http request msg
amazon 1678 cookie: 1678 cookie-
specific
usual http response msg action
Application Layer 2-33
Cookies (continued)
aside
what cookies can be used cookies and privacy:
for:  cookies permit sites to
 authorization learn a lot about you
 shopping carts  you may supply name and
 recommendations
e-mail to sites
 user session state (Web e-
mail)

how to keep “state”:

 protocol endpoints: maintain state at
sender/receiver over multiple transactions
 cookies: http messages carry state

Application Layer 2-34