COMP247 Practical

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COMP247 Data Communications Laboratory

Section 1 Introduction to Networking

Objective
1. Understand the importance of documentation in practical networking 2. Understand the importance of network cabling and how to work with network cables 3. Be able to construct and test a simple network

Exercise1. Introduction
Welcome to the laboratories for COMP247. The work you will undertake in these laboratories is an important part of the unit. It will provide you with practical skills corresponding to the concepts and theory from lectures. We intend that it will give you a solid grounding in the practice of networking. In support of that you will be working with commercial network hard ware throughout this part of the unit. While it wont, by itself, turn you into a network professional (no one unit could) it will cover essential material. Important Notes Each week you will work on a particular practical section for that week. The practical sections have a lot of detailed information, and can take a long time to read. You should carefully read through the practical section before coming to class. Try to picture yourself working through the steps, and make sure that you understand the theory that is explained in the lab section. If you dont, you wont be able to complete the practical work in the 2 hour session. There are 11 practical sections, and 12 weeks of practical classes. You need to complete 10 practical sections in the semester to get full marks for the practicals, so you can still get full marks if you miss one or two because of illness or other problems. If you are forced to miss more than two practical sections because of misadventure, please contact the convenor we may be able to accommodate you to complete the missed sections on your own during another lab class time. While there are many individual skills that a network professional need, two are important and general enough to highlight right at the start: 1. Configuration. Network hardware is mass produced. The factory does not know the network structure, addresses, etc., that the end user will need. That means the network hardware has to be set up individually for the end user. A network professional needs to know how to do this. So many of the practical exercises in this course will involve network configuration. 2. Documentation. If you set something up, you need to leave records so that other people can understand what youve done, fix it if something goes wrong or change it. Documentation involves both writing down the records and appropriately labeling the components. You also need to document the steps you took to achieve a task, so that you can save time next time you do it, or even possibly automate it in a workflow or script. For these practical sessions you need to follow 1

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this discipline so you can revise what you did later. Our demonstrators mark this work to make sure you have done a sufficient and correct effort on this for your own benefit. To make it easier for you and for marking, please use the documentation template for each weeks practical session that is available on iLearn. The template includes each documentation task, so you can insert your answers after the relevant task. 3. Groups. We have to share the equipment and also we are setting up networks for many parties to communicate. For each week you should work in groups of two to four. It is good to have the same team each week, but this is not necessary. You can submit just one set of documentation per team, but make sure you each get a copy of this file once it is checked for your own revision. A group of two is good. Large groups tend to exclude some people you may feel reticent to plug things in when there are experts in the group. The point of the practicals is that YOU get experience and gain confidence in using this equipment. It is good if you gain help from other students often you might have to wait for a demonstrator. If a demonstrator has already shown you how to plug something in and you see another group waiting for the same information, please help out by passing on the information. The sessions will go a lot faster if everyone helps each other out. In each practical section there will be a number of documentation tasks (such as the following). These are what you have to report on and what your practical demonstrator will mark. In many of the practical sections there will be step by step instructions. These are written for people with limited (or no) previous experience of networks. We know some of you have more than that. If you know how to get the results without reading each step, thats fine. But you still need to produce the results. We need you to show us how much you know. So look for the documentation tasks to see what you need to do. DocumentationTask1 Include in your documentation the name and email address of your practical demonstrator. Demonstrators name: Demonstrators email:

There are some rules in addition to the normal university rules for these practical sessions: For Occupational Health and Safety reasons you will not be allowed admittance to the laboratory unless you are wearing enclosed footwear. Please make it easy on your demonstrator by following this rule. It is not pleasant having to deny students access to the class, especially when our focus is to help you get through the sessions as smoothly as possible. The room for all practical sessions, E6A261 is within the secure section of the building. The door to the room is normally locked. You must not enter this room when the practical demonstrator is not there. For those of you that have a class that begins at 6pm or later, if you do not turn up on time to your class (or at least within a few minutes of the scheduled time) you may not be able to get access to the room. You must bring your student photo identification card with you to your practical session. Most of the practical sessions in this unit will involve special equipment. If you do not have your 2

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student photo ID, your practical demonstrator will not issue you with the necessary equipment. Your practical demonstrator will collect your ID card from you when the equipment is issued, and return it to you when you return the equipment . Such equipment is allocated to you for the duration of your practical session only. You must return it before you leave the room. DocumentationTask2 Include in your session documentation a statement that you have read and understood these rules.

Many of the practical exercises in future sessions will require you to work in groups of two to four. You want to use this session to start to get to know some of your fellow students. Doing so now will make future group work that much easier. You practical demonstrator will show you the computers and perhaps some of the other equipment that you will be using and the basic procedure for inserting and removing Ethernet cables. While some of you will already be very familiar with this, it will be useful for those who do not. Its quite easy. Make sure that you can log in to the computers. If you cant, you have a week to sort out any account problems, as you may find it useful to access information on line in the practical next week.

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Exercise2. Familiarisation
Find the small panel at your work space that has six sockets for inserting network cables. Each socket is connected to somewhere - where do these connections go?

On top, at the end of each bench you will see a large locked black cabinet. Have a look in the cabinet. At the top you will see a patch panel.

Patch in this sense means temporary telephone or electrical connection. In this hardware sense the cabinet can be configured. We will mainly be doing software configuration, in which case such connection patches are made by software, along with many other options. An operating network controls patches automatically, maybe connecting and disconnecting millions of patches per second. Dont even try to think about it! Below that is a router, then four switches, and at the bottom another router. We will be using the routers in later practicals.

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Patch Panel Router (C1) Switch (C2) Switch (C3) Switch (C4) Switch (C5) Router (C6)

Note: You will never need to change the cabling at the back of the cabinet. For now, just note how the console connectors connect to C1 to C6 on the patch panel. Patch panels have fixed connections between their outlets and corresponding outlets on your desk (thats the cables you should be able to see plugged into the back of the patch panels). The outlets on the front of the patch panel allow a cable to be plugged in, and the other end of that cable can then be 5

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plugged into any of the ports on the switches in the cabinet. This method of cabling allows great flexibility, as we can change the port into which a particular desk outlet is plugged very quickly. Note that the red sockets 1-6 connect to red sockets 1-6 in the cabinet. The green sockets go to the corresponding green sockets in the cabinet at the other end of the desk. The sockets C1-C6 are connected to the consoles of the routers and switches. The console connections are used for configuring and controlling the equipment as an administrative function. You will use a special flat ribbon cable to connect your laptops USB port to the console and use a terminal-like program called Hyperterminal. C1 is the top routers console, and C6 the bottom router. C2-C5 are the consoles of the switches from top to bottom. Because everything is connected to the patch panel like this you never have to change anything at the rear of the cabinet. If you suspect anything is not working as it should, please ask your demonstrator. Rotate tool Computing principle: you may have heard the expression every problem can be solved by one more level of indirection. Patch panels provide a physical example of such indirection. A patch panel keeps things tidy and flexible and thus maintainable. When a network change is needed, all an administrator needs to do is to change plugs in the central panel, rather than chase around the building finding where things are connected. Indirection is also an important principle is software development and systems configuration. Indirection can add a little inefficiency but the upside is much cleaner implementations that are flexible. DocumentationTask3. Document clearly the numbers of the outlets on your desk and which patch panel those outlets are connected to. Can you easily determine which panel in the switch you connection is patched to? If so, document that as well. If not, note that you cant. Both ends of the cables should be labeled, so you can easily tell which patch panel socket is connected to which switch port. This is useful for a number of reasons including: 1. You can tell what goes where 2. If the setup is properly documented, you can easily put things back together if cables are accidentally pulled out 3. If something goes wrong its easier to find out whats wrong, what ports are dead and shouldnt be used, etc. Make sure you document your findings for this task (either the switch port or the lack of cable labeling).

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Exercise3. SimpleCableTesting
Networks use a lot of cables. If the cable doesnt work, the network doesnt work. A large part of network administration is troubleshooting which is why keeping things tidy and thorough documentation is important. There are a lot of places that things can wrong in a network. One of those is the cabling one faulty cable can disable an entire network or at least a significant portion of it. So its useful for a network professional to know how to check if a cable is working. This exercise will introduce you to the basics of cable testing. For this exercise you will need: One Cable Tester One CAT5e cable

First, take some time to familiarise yourself with the cable tester. This device tells you which pin on one end of a cable is connected to which pin on the other end (if any). Off On turns the tester. Pretty simple Auto/Manual Auto sets the tester to repeatedly checking the pins in order. It runs through them pretty quickly though, so you may want to set it to manual Test If Auto/manual is set to Manual you press this button to step through the pins. Send Cable Connection- insert one end of the cable to be tested here. Receive Cable Connection- insert the other end of the cable to be tested here. Send Indicator Lights The light indicates which pin on the sending end is currently being tested Receive Indicator Lights The light indicates which pin in the receiving end is connected to the sending pin which has its light currently lit. Plug the cable into the tester. Turn it on. For this cable you are probably better off setting the tester to manual. Use the test button to test each pin. The results should be as follows if your cable is a crossover cable. 7

COMP247 Practical
When Send Pin # is lit Receive Pin # should be lit 1 3 2 6 3 1 4 4 5 5 6 2 7 7 8 8

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If your cable is a straight-through cable, the results should be as follows.

When Send Pin # is lit Receive Pin # should be lit 1 3 2 6 3 1 4 4 5 5 6 2 7 7 8 8

What is the difference between a cross-over cable and a straightthrough cable? If you are interested to find out, a little Google research should provide the answer.

DocumentationTask4 In your documentation put a table similar to the above giving the results of your testing.

Exercise4. CableConstruction
The purpose of this exercise is to give you some experience with the gritty details of cabling. The best way to learn about something is to do it. Cables come in many forms. Even with the same cabling media there are a number of ways they be used. Today you will make what is known as an Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Ethernet straightthrough cable (also known as a patch cable or patch cord). These cables are constructed from CAT 5 or CAT 5e cable. CAT5 and CAT5e cable has eight wires, arranged in four pairs. This sort of cable is usually terminated by RJ-45 connectors (named after the standard in which their design is defined). Straight-through cables are typically used to connect computers to wall-mounted Ethernet connections (commonly called patch panels). Have a look at the components. CAT 5 cable has eight wires, arranged in four pairs. Each wire has a separate colour. It is important in constructing a cable to make sure the correct wires are put in the correct place in the connectors. Even for CAT 5 straight-through cables there is more than one way to make them. We are going to make use the EIA/TIA T568-B specification. This is the most common standard for ethernet cabling. EIA/TIA T568-A is typically used for voice & data connections. 8

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Cabling Pin-out Information for T568-B Pin# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pair# 2 2 3 1 1 3 4 4 Function Transmit Transmit Receive Not used Not used Receive Not used Not used Wire Colour White/Orange Orange White/Green Blue White/Blue Green White/Brown Brown Used with 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No

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Used with 100 Base-T4 and 1000 BASE-T Ethernet Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

If you have problems with any of the following ask your demonstrator for assistance. It is sometimes difficult to understand instructions about physical operations just from the words. 1. Strip approximately three centimetres of the outer blue/green insulation (the jacket) from the end of the cable. Use the round cable stripping part of the crimping tool or use the stripping tool on the side of the yellow push down tool. Spin the tool around the wire to cut the jacket, then remove it by hand. Do not use the pair of straight cutting blades on the crimping tool as these are designed for a flat cable and they will damage the insulation of the wires inside the round cable. Be careful not to damage the insulation on the individual wires they do not need to have their insulation removed.

Stripping with push down tool

Stripping with crimping tool

Stripped wire

2. Arrange the pairs of wires with the orange pair to the left, the brown pair to the right and the green and blue pairs in the centre. 3. Untwist the green pair, all the way to the jacket, straighten and separate the two wires so that they lie around the blue pair with the green-and-white wire to the left, the solid green wire to the right. 4. Untwist the remaining pairs of wires and straighten them. Arrange the wires so that they are flat and lie next to each other. Put them in the order of the following diagram, which is standard for networking in Australia. Trim the end of the wires so that they are even and extend approximately 12mm past the end of the jacket use the single cutting blade that cuts against the body of the tool (do not use the pair of blades) to trim the wires. Do not damage the insulation of the individual wires as this can cause a short (an unintentional connection between different wires).

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Wiring diagram

The wires arranged

Trimmed

5. Hold your RJ 45 plug with the pins facing up. Hold the wires in their correct arrangement and push them into the plug with the brown wire at the right side. Check that all the wires have reached the end of the plug and that they are in the right order. Also make sure the jacket reaches inside the plug as shown. You dont need to strip insulation off the individual wires the connectors are designed to penetrate the insulation. Insert the plug into the crimping tool where it is labelled 8P and squeeze firmly two or three times.

Holding the plug

Inserting the wire

The wires reach the end

Crimping the plug onto the cable

6. Repeat the above procedure for the other end of the cable. How to test your cable 1. Insert one end of the cable in the tester socket labelled send and the other end in the socket labelled receive. Turn the cable tester on.

2. If the auto button is depressed, the tester will scan the cable. 3. If the auto button is up (in the manual position), you can press the test button to test each wire in turn. 4. If the wire is correctly connected, the corresponding LEDs above and below will be on. If the wire is disconnected, the LED above will be on but the LED below will be off. If the wire is incorrectly connected to the wrong pin at one end, then there will be different numbered LEDs on in the top row and the bottom row. If more than one LED comes on then you have a short in your wire. (If you are making a cross-over cable, pin 1 should connect to pin 3 at the other end, pin 2 should connect to pin 6, pin 3 should connect to pin 1 and pin 6 should connect to pin 2.)

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Correct connection

Non-connected

Wrong connection

Note that the cables we are making do not have a ground wire so when the very last top LED is on, the corresponding bottom LED will be off.

Ground is not part of our cable

If your cable does not pass the test 1. Look at it carefully to try to determine what is wrong. Here are some possibilities: One or more of the pins may not be fully squeezed down. Look carefully at the end of the plug. The pins should all be even and they should all be below the plastic separators between the pins. You may be able to fix this problem by giving the plug another squeeze in the crimping tool.

The pins properly squeezed down with the plastic separators between them.

One or more of the wires may not reach the end of the plug. You can check this by looking at the backside of the plug (the side with the little plastic clip). The order of the wires may not be correct. You can check the wires by looking at the plug from the top (the side with the pins). You should see the wires in the correct order. Pay special attention to the blue and green wires as these are easily confused and note carefully that the green and green-white wires are not next to each other. You may have damaged the insulation on the individual wires. This may appear as a kink in one or more of the wires. 2. If there is a problem with one of your plugs, cut it off and put on a new plug. 3. You can keep your cable. If you dont want it, please cut it in half and discard it. DocumentationTask5 In your session documentation record the results of your cable construction, including a table (or tables) showing the results of your cable testing.

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Exercise5. WindowsNetworking
In this exercise we are going to create a very simple network. It will consist of two machines connected by a CAT5e cable. The result should allow the two computers, and programs on them, to communicate. You will need to work in pairs (or perhaps a group of three if there are an odd number if students in the class) Step1 Equipmentrequired Each group of students will require

2 laptops 1 network cable

Step2 Start the machinesandopenthe controlpanel Each student should turn on their laptop and log-in. If you are given a choice of operating system choose Microsoft Windows XP Professional or just wait and the computer will do this by itself Log-in to the account mlab-admin using the password MLabAdmin. Be careful to get the capitalization correct. Please remember the account and password for future labs and always remember to log in using mlab-admin. From the Start menu open the control panel.

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COMP247 Practical Step3 Accessthe networkconnections

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Double click on Network Connections (you may need to select Classic View to get the control panel to look like the one in the image).

This window has an icon for each interface to a network the computer possesses. You should see two. We are going to use the wired network connection for the computer. Double click on the Local Area Connection icon to enable it (or Right-click on it and select Properties). Scroll down through the list to Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). It should be the last on the list. Select it then click on the Properties button.

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COMP247 Practical Step 4 Manually Set the IP addresses

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We are now going to tell the computers what the addresses they are going to have for the little network you are going to create. In most real networks you would select the first option Obtain an IP address automatically. However, in this exercise we simply connecting the machines to each other, so they have nowhere they can obtain an address, so we have to set it manually. You now should see the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties dialog box Here we can tell the machine its IP address, what sort of subnet it is in and how it can communicate with the internet (not the last is relevant for this exercise). Give one machine the IP address 10.0.0.1 and the other the IP address 10.0.0.2. If we gave them the same address it would cause a lot of confusion. Make the Subnet mask on both 255.0.0.0. We could actually leave the subnet mask alone, but the addresses weve given the machine are class A IP addresses, so lets do this properly. Leave all the other fields alone (they are probably blank). Click OK on the TCP/IP properties dialog box and then Close on the local area connection properties box. You can also try giving both machines the IP address 10.0.0.1. What

happens when you connect the two machines that both have the same IP address? If you can observe what happens in abnormal situations, it will help troubleshoot real network problems later. This is a lab its OK to make mistakes and experiment.

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COMP247 Practical Step5 Connectthe Machines

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Connect the two machines using the network cable. The cable goes into a socket on the right-hand side of the machines. Make sure you use the correct socket and that the cable goes in with the clip on the bottom. Make sure the connector clicks home. If you are having trouble, please ask the demonstrator. With luck youll get see that the information next to the Local Area Connection icon has changed as shown in the image. If not, check the cable is properly in place and click on the Local Area Connection icon. If the information still doesnt change and the next part of the exercise does not seem to work properly, please check with your demonstrator.

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COMP247 Practical Step6 Ping

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Now we are going to check that these machines can communicate. Ping is a very common network program, used to check whether a working connection exists between two computers (the one on which ping is run and the one whose IP address is given). It simply sends a message to the other machine and waits to see if there is a response From the Start menu select Run. Type cmd into the Run dialog box that pops up. Hit enter to get a command window. You can also get to this via Command Prompt under Accessories under Programs in the Start menu.

In the command window type ping followed by the IP address of the other computer (10.0.0.1 or 10.0.0.2). You should get a response something like that shown You might also want to try typing ipconfig /all. See how much of the information you get makes sense to you. When working with networks, you will need to get used to the command-

line interface on both Windows and Unix (OS X and Linux) platforms. This level of computing changes so quickly and has so many options that it is impossible to provide GUIs for everything. We are also working at a level that is below what the average user needs. Command-line applications such as ping and traceroute can help troubleshoot networks.

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COMP247 Practical Step7 File Sharing

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Now lets try getting these computers to do something a little more useful. We are going to let each computer be used to access a folder on the other. From the Control Panel double-click on the System icon. You should see something like what is shown in the following image.

Now click on the Computer Name tag. You should see something like the following.

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Your computer should have a full computer name and a workgroup. If not, let your practical demonstrator know. If you were doing this at home you may need to set the name yourself. Make sure each computer in the network has a unique name. For most LAN purposes (including home networking) you put all the machines the same workgroup. To change or set the name click the Change button and enter the names. You would then have to reboot the machine. Hopefully the machines you are using here have the correct names and you will not have to do this in this practical session. If everything is as it should be, simply note the full computer name for each machine (it should match the label on the back of the screen if not let your practical demonstrator know) and click OK. Now go back to the Local Area Connection Properties . Remember you get to through the Network Connections in the Control Panel. Make sure that Client for Microsoft Networks and File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks are turned on (ie they have a tick in the box to their left. Client for Microsoft Networks enables the Microsoft Windows protocol to allow a Windows machine to access resources on other such computers. It should be on the top of the list. You may need to scroll through the list to find File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks. This one allows resources on this computer to be accessed by other computers. Once everything is correct click OK. Now open the windows explorer and locate a folder (such as My Pictures). Right-click on the folder and select Sharing and Security. Select the sharing tag and select the Share this folder on the network option. Hit OK. This will enable it to be seen by other computers on the network.

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When this has been done on both computers type something like the following into the address bar on windows explorer: \\E6A265-NB22\My Pictures Note that you will have to change the first part to the name of the other of the pair of computers you are not using (ie not the one on which you are typing) and the second part to whatever folder you have made accessible on the other machine. Note that you can, of course, make as many folders as you like shareable on any given machine. Try putting a file in the folder on one machine to make sure you can access it on the other. You could also locate the shared folder by using the folder sub-window of the explorer window. If you wish to try this and your window does not look like the following, select View->Explorer Bar -> Folders.

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Click on My Network Places. You should see the shared folders. If you click through Entire Network you should be able to see both machines on our little network. You can find some more ways to access the shared folders if you look around, but Ill leave that to you. DocumentationTask6 Document your progress in getting the machines to share files include any relevant information (such as the names of the machines) and any problems you encountered.

Step8 Runningan applicationacrossthe two machines Ping is pretty simplistic. Now you are going to try getting a more sophisticated application running. The laptops have Quake installed. Quake is a rather well-known, if a little, old computer game a first person shooter to be precise. Weve installed Quake rather than a newer game as the laptops graphics capability is rather limited. Today you are going to use Quake to make sure your network is working. In future weeks we will use this game to generate network traffic across other networks that you build. Youll find Quake in the folder C:\QUAKE_SW. WINQUAKE.EXE. Choose one machine to be the server, the other to be the client. On the server, get to Quakes main menu and select Multiplayer, then New Game. It should be pretty obvious from there how you start the game. Start it up by double-clicking on

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On the other machine get to Quakes main menu and select Multiplayer, then Join Game. When you are given the option choose Search for Local Games If everything is working it should be pretty obvious what to do from this point. Have fun shooting each other. If you have problems you may need to disable the wireless network interface on the machines and try again. If you cant get work out how to do this, or still have trouble getting the game to work, ask your practical demonstrator.

DocumentationTask7 Document your progress in getting the machines to run Quake across your network include any relevant information (such as which machine was hosting the game) and any problems you encountered.

You have now finished this exercise. Note that the above doesnt actually cover everything about getting two windows machines to talk to each other, I left out some steps. These are mainly to do with some steps that are partially automated, and should be very apparent if you try to do this with some other machines. Part of the reason we left them out is that they only need to be done once and so would only arise for the first class doing this exercise. Shut down both machines and remove the cable. When removing the red cable, make sure you press the clip down before attempting to withdraw the cable. If you have any difficulty, do not force the cable ask your demonstrator! We dont want the cables damaged.

Marking
Each week you should have your documentation marked by the practical demonstrator show him your documentation on the screen. You should also keep a copy for yourself, either by saving it to a USB stick or by emailing it to yourself.

Followup
Not only should you prepare for the lab session beforehand, but you should revise the lab material afterwards. The two hours in the lab go very fast, and subsequent labs build on previous labs. So treat the lab time as a scarce resource and prepare for it beforehand, and revise what was done in the lab afterwards. It is essential that you have good understanding of what went on in previous labs. So spend some time in follow up after the lab.

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