Local City Sites Configuration Paper Example

Springfield Site Configuration

Regarding the Springfield site, some of the implementations that are needed include device hostnames, passwords that cannot be hacked, spanning tree protocol and appropriate effective banners.

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Configuration of Devices

The first step involves the implementation of device hostnames to ensure that they match with the labels of xACME education topologies. A template should then be provided, the MOTD banner requires a sample configuration together with a login banner (for this to work effectively, one of the switches will require wording and implementation) [1]. It is important to ensure that the configurations are generic in nature since they will be implemented and used by all the switches present in the education topology of the xACME. The last step involves including all the configuration steps used in the implementation of device passwords on the VTY (Telnet/in-band communications) port and the console port as well. The console ports are responsible for the out-of-band communications. It is important to ensure that there is an encryption on all passwords so that they are safe.

Required Implementation

• The configuration of the hostnames of the devices in accordance with the xACME topology
• The configuration of the encrypted passwords in the ports and consoles for all the devices
• The configuration of the login and the message-of-the-day banner in at least of the switches
• Creation of Administrative VLANs, Server VLANs, Instructional VLANs and Faculty VLANs for all the switches
• Assignation of ports to the different VLANs and ensure that they are present on all switches
• Ensure that all the VLANs are assigned different modes of access
• Ensure that between the existing switches, trunks are configured properly
• Since there has to be a primary root bridge for all the existing VLANs, switch1 should be selected for that role

Regarding local area networks (LANs), each computer tries to use the existing telecommunication paths every time. However, the overall performance of the network can be adversely affected if there are many computers each attempting to send data. Additionally, this may lead to jamming of the traffic and the entire process may halt. To ensure that this does not happen, all the LANs should be divided into several network segments. These segments should be connected using bridges. Before any message/frame reaches its destination, it has to pass through the bridge. The purpose of the bridge is to analyze the message, its intended destination and then forwarding it to its respective network segment. One main advantage of having segmented networks is that the network path does not gets congested and jamming cannot take place.

When networks are being built, several bridges or switches have to be used to connect segments. This is to ensure that when the primary fails, the process is not interrupted. The bridges have to be aware of the primary bridge and the network's layout, this should be the case even when only a single bridge is responsible for message forwarding. Crucially, bridges should have different connection paths where information is exchanged using BPDUs.

The primary function of the spanning tree algorithm is to let the bridge know ways through which they will avoid bridge loops. This is a situation where every port forwards broadcast messages while the switches receiving the messages rebroadcast the messages resulting in a situation where the network is flooded. The purpose of the time to live (TTL) value on the Layer 2 header is to ensure that messages can easily loop. The spanning tree algorithm, which is responsible for determining the network path through which the message should be routed, does so in two main steps [2]. The first step involves evaluation of the configuration of the received messages and then selecting the most appropriate bridge the message can be routed

When the bridge is chosen, the spanning tree algorithm does a comparison of that particular choice with several other potential configuration messages from non-root-connections. If the spanning tree algorithm finds a more appropriate option, it uses that option and sends the message through that particular port.

References

Cisco, Configuring Switch-Based Authentication, 2015.

Rouse, M., TechTarget, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) definition, 2016.

Worchester Site Sub Netting Implementation

Regarding the Worchester site subnetting, there will need to implement a subnet that will accommodate the site. As per the instructions, the addressing range for the site will be 10.20.0.0/16 (this is in accordance with the educational topology diagram of xACME). The focus of the implementation should be developing an addressing scheme that is balanced and ensure that the designs are not very large (this will make the distribution to be wasteful) and at the same time, they should not be very little (this is because they will not have adequate coverage not only for the current system but also for any expansion in the future).

• Instructional VLAN of 215 The most appropriate mask values are/23, /24
• Administrative VLAN of 30 The most appropriate mast values are /23, /24, /25 /26
• Server VLAN of 24 The most appropriate mask values are /23, /24, /25, /26
• Faculty VLAN for 19 devices The most appropriate mask values are /23, /24, /25, /26, /27

The table subnet will be as follows:

Boston Site Routing Protocol, Improvements of existing Topology, and the Summarization of the Route

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) is owned by Cisco. It is viewed as a combination between distance vector and link-state. Enhanced interior gateway routing protocol is mostly viewed as an advanced distance vector protocol [1]. One of the benefits of this routing protocol is that it can perform what open shortest path first (OSPF) protocol and routing information protocol (RIP) can do. Moreover, EIGRP is able to bring together these two protocols and form algorithms. It then selects the most appropriate route for the respective subnets.

When it comes to RIP, the maximum limit of Hop that it allows is fifteen (15). Additionally, it also ensures that routing loops does not take place from the source to the main destination. Of all the three routing protocols, routing information protocol is the poorest and is mostly used for small networks because of its small limit size. The enhanced interior gateway routing protocol saves all the routes thus ensuring that the convergence process is not slowed down. Other than that, EIGRP ensures that the neighboring routing cables remain intact and does not share any information that its neighbor already has. Another advantage of this routing protocol is that it can be used for large networks [2]. Whenever a topology exchange takes place, an update will be required. The selected route is determined by the metric. Some of the factors taken into consideration by the EIGRP metric include the size of the load, the bandwidth, the delay, the maximum transmission unit, and the reliability.

References

Cisco Systems, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), 2013.

Kalamani, P., et. al, Comparison of RIP, EIGRP, OSPF, IGRP Routing Protocols in Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) by using OPNET Simulator tool - A Practical Approach, 2014.

Sacramento Site

Regarding the Sacramento site, some of the things that need to be implemented include routing on a stick (ROS) topology, VLANs, and the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP). The solution will involve configuration database vlans and the assignation of interfaces. At the Sacramento site, there will be four database vlans.

This will be followed by the assignation of ports to VLAN

Regarding the management of unused ports, there will need to establish a dummy VLAN while the unused ports will have to be assigned either black hole VLAN or dummy vlans.

Configuration of ROS

There are four vlans on the current site. The main issue involves the configuration of the inter-VLAN routing present in the switch and the router. It is important to ensure that communication among the devices is present at the site [1]. The topology will have an Ip addressing scheme that is as indicated below:

There are five main steps involved in this process.

First, the interface that is connected to the router has to be defined as a trunk link (this is present on switch1). The link enables the flow of traffic to the router from the VLANs through the interface. This will necessitate the creation of a command on Switch1. The command will be as follows:

Secondly, the inter-VLAN routing will have to be configured on the router. Subinterfaces will have to be used in the configuration of the ROS. A command will have to be created which will be used in the creation of a subinterface used in routing the VLAN 14. The command will be as follows:

The command will allow shifting to a subinterface configuration mode. It is possible to provide a linkage between the VLAN ID and the interface while in this mode [2]. Additionally, it is also possible to provide a subnet mask and an IP address to the interface as well.

Thirdly, a command will have to be used to ensure linkage of the specific VLAN to the subinterface. The command will be as follows:

The above command specifies that the interface will receive traffic from a specific VLAN. The VLAN 14 will be linked to the subinterface. The command required to provide a linkage between the subinterface and the VLAN 14 will be:

Fourth, the `subinterface has to be assigned an IP address and since the VLAN 14 requires a subnet mask, this is will need to be assigned to the subinterface as well. There will be a default gateway on the VLAN 14 that will act as the interface address. It will be:

The fifth and last step involves activation of the LAN interfaces and ensures that they are fully created. This will be achieved by creating a shutdown command that is shown below:

The configuration of the other vlans can be used by reciprocating the five steps.

References

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, "Computer Networks", Pearson Education International, New Jersey, 2003.

Pankaj Rakheja, Prabhjot Kaur, Anjali Gupta, Aditi Sharma, "Performance Analysis of RIP, OSPF, IGRP and EIGRP Routing Protocols in a Network", 2015.

Los Angeles Site

Regarding the Los Angeles site, two main requirements are needed. First, a remote IOS storage will have to be implemented and secondly, all the switches in the site will need a management access. To ensure that the different departments do not have access to the resources of the other departments, an access control list will have to be implemented [1]. All the different departments can only access their serves rather than those of others and internet access as well. A network time protocol needs to be implemented to ensure that the logging of network events and records is done accurately and that the devices do not show conflicting times. The recommended solutions and technologies are as presented below:

TFTP Server-This has to be implemented to ensure that the IOS images are stored properly.

Remote Access-This will ensure that all the switches are managed remotely

Access List Controls- This will ensure that only authorized personnel can access the system

Network Time Protocol-This will ensure that the time shown by the respective network devices is synchronized and reads something similar. The IOS Storage has to be configured as follows:

Remote Management of the Router

The secure shell (SSH) will be used in the remote access. One advantage of the SSH is that it ensures that the network router is and more secure.

Implementation of the ACL

Access to the devices has to be restricted and protected only to the server VLAN. To ensure that the administrators are aware of what ACL does, it is important to ensure that an extended named ACL is used

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