Subject: Assignment 2

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> I would like to know the typical bit-rate on a loopback address, also is
> it correct to assume that drops will start to occur once the sender fills
> up the recv buffer and continues to overwhelm it(on a loopback address)?

The max rate depends strongly upon the speed of the machine.. for an old,
feeble machine like netlab-gw probably a few hundred Mbps..

Actually, you will virtually NEVER see ANY drops running on loopback
or even running on a 100 Mbps ethernet connection to another host
on a 100 Mbps ethernet connection!!!

The only way to get drops is to go to a host with a slower connection
than what you are using. For now going to one of the solaris "blade"
machines (blade11, blade12, etc) should work.

However, be careful not to leave a udp client sending to one of these
machines for hours at a time as it could look like a DoS attack!!

>> Can a condition occur where bursts of <<very>> large sizes also get consumed
>> without any drops (loopback address again), if this happens is it a sign
>> that the sender is not sending fast enough, and hence a buggy sender?

As stated above you want get any drops at all on loopback.