Fall 2008 NAD710 Weekly Schedule

The tentative weekly schedule shown here is subject to change.

Week 1 (Sept 1) - Intro to Networking / IP Network Basics

Lecture

• Program Introduction - by Prof. John Selmys
• Course Introduction - by Prof. Raymond Chan
  • Lectures and Labs
• Introduction to Networking
  • Network Types
  • Network Models
    • OSI Reference Model
    • TCP/IP Network Model
• IP Networking Basics
  • The Client-Server Model
  • Request for Comment
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • The Internet, TCP/IP, and other protocol stacks

Lab 1

Discover Linux system information and network settings

Week 2 (Sept 8) - Manual network configuration

Lecture

• Network drivers and loadable kernel modules
• Identify the network device name - ifconfig/ip
• IP Address, Broadcast Address and Network Mask
• IP Address Class
• Private IP address space
• Display the kernel's address resolution table
• Check the network connectivity to other machines
• Display kernel routing table

Lab 2

Lab 2107 Settings

Manual Network configuration and Network Traffic Monitoring

Week 3 (Sept 15) - Sysconfig network configuration

Reading

Ethernet Hub

A network hub or repeater hub is a device for connecting multiple twisted pair or fiber optic Ethernet devices together, making them act as a single network segment. Hubs work at the physical layer (layer 1) of the OSI model. The device is thus a form of multiport repeater. Repeater hubs also participate in collision detection, forwarding a jam signal to all ports if it detects a collision.

Hubs also often come with a BNC and/or AUI connector to allow connection to legacy 10BASE2 or 10BASE5 network segments. The availability of low-priced network switches has largely rendered hubs obsolete but they are still seen in older installations and more specialized applications. More on Wikipedia...

Network Switch

A network switch is a broad and imprecise marketing term for a computer networking device that connects network segments.

The term commonly refers to a Network bridge that processes and routes data at the Data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model. Switches that additionally process data at the Network layer (layer 3) (and above) are often referred to as Layer 3 switches or Multilayer switches.

The term Network switch does not generally encompass unintelligent or passive network devices such as hubs and repeaters.

The first Ethernet switch was introduced by Kalpana in 1989. More on Wikipedia ...

Network Router

A router (pronounced /'rautər/ in the USA, pronounced /'ru:tər/ in the UK, or either pronunciation in Australia) is a computer whose software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information. More on Wikipedia ...

Lecture

• Network Communication by Name - /etc/hosts, /etc/resolv.conf
• Configure Network Name services - nsswitch.conf (Name Service Switch configuration)
• Using DNS servers: how and why
• Check the network connectivity to other machines
• Show active sockets, interfaces, and routing information
• Connect to hosts on your local network
• Connect to hosts on different networks with specific routes/gateways
• Connect to the Internet - Default Gateway

Sysconfig network configuration

• To start the the program:
  • click on the menu bar "system->Administration->Network"
  • type at the command line "system-config-network"

Lab 3

Monitor and Analyse Network Activities

Week 4 (Sept 22) - NetworkManager

Lecture

Red Hat Article on NetworkManager

• Note that the repository for the NetworkManager source code has been moved from cvs to subversion (svn). Details can be found here.

NetworkManager

• • A service daemon that attempts to keep an active network connection available at all times.
  • makes networking configuration and setup painless and automatics as possible.

• NetworkManagerDispatcher

• nm-tool - provides information about NetworkManager, device, and wireless networks.

 [rchan@rh9 ~]$ nm-tool
 
 NetworkManager Tool
 
 State: connected
 
 - Device: eth0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
   Type:              Wired
   Driver:            r8169
   State:             connected
   HW Address:        00:1B:38:12:E2:33
 
   Capabilities:
     Supported:       yes
     Carrier Detect:  yes
     Speed:           100 Mb/s
 
   Wired Settings
 
   IP Settings:
     IP Address:      192.168.0.200
     Subnet Mask:     255.255.255.0
     Broadcast:       192.168.0.255
     Gateway:         192.168.0.1
     DNS:             192.168.0.1
 
 
 - Device: wlan0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
   Type:              802.11 Wireless
   Driver:            iwl4965
   State:             disconnected
   HW Address:        00:00:00:00:00:00
 
   Capabilities:
     Supported:       yes
 
   Wireless Settings
     WEP Encryption:  yes
     WPA Encryption:  yes
     WPA2 Encryption: yes
 
   Wireless Access Points

• NetworkManager Administration
  • Check the service daemon status

  [root@fc9 ~]# service NetworkManager status
  NetworkManager (pid 2239) is running...

• • Stop the service daemon (Don't do this if you are connected to the system remotely. If you do, you will get cut off.)

  [root@fc9 ~]# service NetworkManager Stop
  Stopping NetworkManager daemon:                             [  OK  ]

• • Start he service daemon

  [root@fc9 ~]# service NetworkManager Start
  Setting network parameters...                               [  OK  ]
  Starting NetworkManager daemon:                             [  OK  ]

Lab 4

Sysconfig Network Configuration

Week 5 (Sept 29) - Nameserver configuration

Lecture

Theory

DNS Slides (pdf format)

Practical

• Different type of Domain Name Servers
  • Caching only Name Server
  • Primary Name Server
  • Secondary Name Server
• Free and Open Source Software for running a DNS - BIND
  • BIND source codes and Binary
    • Source code can be download from the ISC web site
  • Installation
    • Standard/Normal installation
    • Chroot installation
  • BIND Configuration file(s)
    • Main configuration file - named.conf
    • zone file(s) - depends on the setup in named.conf
      • Forward lookup zone file(s)
      • Reverse lookup zone file(s)
  • Starting and Stopping a BIND DNS
  • BIND DNS maintanence
• Basic Operation of the Internet Domain Name System
  • Name Server and Resolver
  • Name Server Configuration
  • Resolve Configuration
  • DNS queries and responses
    • Recursive and non-recursive queries
    • Authoritative and non-authoritative responses

Lab

Caching only Name Server

Authoritative Name Server

Week 6 (Oct 6) - NFS I

Lecture

Resources

• Remote Procedure Call
• NFS Overview and Gotchas
• Linux NFS Overview
• CITI NFSv4 Project Page
• NFSv4 Wiki Page

Theory

RPC and Portmapper Slides (pdf format)

Introduction to NFS Slides (pdf format)

Practical

• Enable NFS
  • Kernel Module
  • Portmapper - the rpcinfo command
  • server daemons:
    • NFS services
    • NFS quotas
    • NFS daemon
    • NFS mountd
• NFS Server configuration file /etc/exports
  • syntax
  • options: ro/rw, root_squash/no_root_squash/all_squash
  • exportfs command
  • showmount command
• NFS Client configuration file /etc/fstab
  • syntax
  • mount options: ro/rw, soft/hard, intr, rsize/wsize, proto, nfsvers
• NFS security issues

Lab

Authoritative Name Server

Week 7 (Oct 13) - NFS II

NFS Lab

Week 8 (Oct 27) - Midterm Test and Samba I

Midterm Test 1 (10% of final grade): October 28, 2008

• All material covered from week 1 to week 5
• Lab 1 to Lab 5
• Close Book
• There will be multiple choice questions, matching questions and 5 short answer questions.

Week 11 (Nov 17) - IPv6 and the Future of Networking

Midterm Test 2: November 18, 2008

• All material covered from week 1 to week 9
• Lab 1 to Lab 8
• Close Book