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.
.$$\scriptsize{\overset{{\large{\textbf{Mark Distribution in Previous GATE}}}}{\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline
\textbf{Year}& \textbf{2024-1} & \textbf{2024-2} & \textbf{2023}& \textbf{2022} & \textbf{2021-1}&\textbf{2021-2}&\textbf{Minimum}&\textbf{Average}&\textbf{Maximum}
\\\hline\textbf{1 Mark Count} & 3&3&2& 2 &1&1&1&2&3
\\\hline\textbf{2 Marks Count} & 3&3&3& 4 &4&3&3&3.33&4
\\\hline\textbf{Total Marks} & 9&9&8& 10 &9&7&\bf{7}&\bf{8.67}&\bf{10}\\\hline
\end{array}}}$$