Concept of layering.OSI and TCP/IP Protocol Stacks; Basics of packet, circuit and virtual circuit-switching; Data link layer: framing, error detection, Medium Access Control, Ethernet bridging; Routing protocols: shortest path, flooding, distance vector and link state routing; Fragmentation and IP addressing, IPv4, CIDR notation, Basics of IP support protocols (ARP, DHCP, ICMP), Network Address Translation (NAT); Transport layer: flow control and congestion control, UDP, TCP, sockets; Application layer protocols: DNS, SMTP, HTTP, FTP, Email.
.$$\scriptsize{\overset{{\large{\textbf{Mark Distribution in Previous GATE}}}}{\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline
\textbf{Year}& \textbf{2022} & \textbf{2021-1}&\textbf{2021-2}&\textbf{2020}&\textbf{2019}&\textbf{2018}&\textbf{2017-1}&\textbf{2017-2}&\textbf{2016-1}&\textbf{2016-2}&\textbf{Minimum}&\textbf{Average}&\textbf{Maximum}
\\\hline\textbf{1 Mark Count} & 2 &1&1&2&1&3&2&3&2&3&1&2&3
\\\hline\textbf{2 Marks Count} & 4 &4&3&2&4&2&3&1&4&3&1&3&4
\\\hline\textbf{Total Marks} & 10 &9&7&6&9&7&8&5&10&9&\bf{5}&\bf{8}&\bf{10}\\\hline
\end{array}}}$$