For the exercises you will use a network of real devices, but because of physical access restrictions, you will access those devices wirelessly. The network has 3 parts that are connected in series:
- An access network, consisting of WiFi access through an Access Point, and then access through a network of Ethernet Switches.
- An ISP-like network, containing a firewall and cache. This will not be used this year.
- A server-side network, containing a load balancer and servers
Accessing the equipment[]
To access the network, you will need a device (e.g. laptop) with WiFi and certain Software on your computer . The equipment is physically located in room 319 and can be accessed wirelessly from tutorial rooms 219, 218 and 220 (in order of decreasing signal quality) on the 2nd floor. Since the signal passes through a reinforced concrete floor, it is not strong, but it should be adequate. The testbed has an SSID "Testbed-2" (there is a "Testbed-1" for development, but not class, use in room 343) and you need to provide your student ID and a pass phrase through this form in order to access the testbed. Note that the testbed does not have Internet connectivity, so if/when you want to read this wiki or submit results while using the equipment, then you will probably have to disconnect from the testbed WiFi network and connect to the Internet through Uniwide.
Booking time to use the equipment[]
You can book a 1-hour slot to use the equipment through the scheduler . Be sure to click the "Save my booking" button at the bottom of the list of time slots.
What is booked[]
The booking is for access to the equipment, and comes with no assurance that tutorial rooms 218-220 will be available at the same time.
- You can try checking availability through room timetabling information (specify Teaching Period=T2, Room Usage=Tutorial, Building=Electrical Engineering). As of Jul 30, the rooms were available as follows:
- 218: Mon 1-2, 5-6; Tue 11-1, after 7; Wed after 6; Thur 3-4, 5-6; Fri to 11am, 5-7
- 219: Mon after 5; Tue 5-6; Wed 3-4, after 5; Thur after 5; Fri 4-7
- 220: Mon 1-2, after 5; Tue 12-1 and 5-6; Wed after 5; Thur after 5; Fri 1-2, 3-7
Other students may use the equipment between bookings that you make, so you cannot rely on the equipment to retain state information across bookings, so you should aim to complete each exercise within one slot (though you can complete multiple exercises within a slot), i.e. if you can't finish an exercise in your slot then you must start it again from the beginning in the next slot that you book.
Changing / the-number-of bookings[]
You may only have one future-dated booking at a time. If you make a new booking when you already have one, then the old booking will be released and the new booking will take effect. You can select "Drop my appointments" at the bottom of the time slot list to release an old booking without making a new one. If you cancel a booking in either of these ways, then please do so as early as possible so as to maximise the chance that someone will be aware of the availability and so be able to use it.
Physical equipment[]
The "Equipment in the rack" photo shows (from top to bottom) a firewall and cache (not currently connected; the cache is deep and is supported from beneath by another firewall mounted on the back of the rack, the back of which can be seen in the photo), rack-mounted PC, 3 Ethernet switches, and load balancer.
Equipment in rack
Because there is no physical access to the network, it is not possible to physically change the connectivity of the network. However, the connectivity can be changed through software through the use of Virtual LANs. Each device is connected to a control VLAN through which the device can be controlled (except the Load Balancer which does not support VLANs). Through the control VLAN, other ports of the devices can be configured to be connected in various ways. A separate page documents the physical connectivity though you don't need to know about that. If the equipment should fail (e.g. due to power outage) Tim should be able to fix it on Mondays or Tuesdays, i.e. an outage starting on a Wednesday last until the following Monday. Please notify Tim as soon as you detect any problems, and Tim will announce known outages on the TELE9752 web page .
Device summary[]
| Type | Make | Model | Name | IP address(es) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| computer | - | - | PC0 | assigned by DHCP from the 192.168.200.0/24 network. Use ipconfig (Windows) or ifconfig (Linux) to determine | Provided by student |
| PC1 | 192.168.200.150 |
Holds configuration files for transfer using TFTP Runs Wireshark which can be accessed through TeamViewer Runs a syslog server for receiving syslog notifications | |||
| PC2 |
192.168.200.10 192.168.200.20 |
Second PC for use with Load Balancer | |||
| switch |
Cisco |
Catalyst 3550 |
S1 | 192.168.20.1 | S1 also acts as a router that connects the .20 and .200 networks. The default router for the .200 network is the 192.168.200.1 address of this switch |
| switch | Cisco | Catalyst 3550 | S2 | 192.168.20.2 | |
| switch | Cisco | Catalyst 3550 | S3 | 192.168.20.3 | The enterprise OID for Cisco is .1.3.6.1.4.1.9 |
|
Firewall |
Juniper |
Netscreen |
The enterprise OID for Juniper is 1.3.6.1.4.1.2636 | ||
|
Load Balancer |
Foundry Networks |
ServerIron |
The enterprise OID for Foundry Networks is .1.3.6.1.4.1.1991 | ||
|
cache |
Netapp |
Netcache C1200 |