Case study Physical Layer and LANs



Case study Physical Layer and LANs

Problem Statement

Leonard Cooper Charter School is a K-12 school with approximately 1,000 students. The school wants to develop a local area network that meets the needs of the school now and is scalable for the future. There have been numerous complaints about the speed and reliability of the network, especially since a new addition to the building was added a few years back.

Solution

Steps

Steps 1 (physical LAN connections) will be different between exercises A and B. The steps from 2 on should be the same.

Step 1 - Check Local Area Network (LAN) Connections

Verify that students are using the right type of cable.

A single CAT 5 crossover cable will be used to connect two workstations together. Refer to figure 1

Each work station will connect to the switch using a straight through cable. Refer to figure 1

(Figure 1)

Step 2 - Identifying NICs and Windows Networking Options

Right click on the lowest-numbered NIC and choose properties from the shortcut menu. Check to be sure that students have the following networking Components installed:

Client for Microsoft Networks.

The NIC adapter (small NIC icon).

The TCP/IP Protocol (small network cable connection icon).

File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft

Step 3 - Change the NetBIOS Name

Right-click my computer icon and choose properties. Select the network identification tab. Click the properties button. In the computer name textbox, change the name to Station# (where # could be anything from 1-24 depending on the location of the PC).Leave the default workgroup name as WORKGROUP.

Step 4 - TCP/IP Protocol Settings

For this proposal, use the Class C network address of 200.150.100.0 and set the value of the last octet to equal that of the PC #. Set the default subnet mask on each workstation to 255.255.255.0. Make sure that students are configuring the lowest-numbered NIC



Step 5 - Check the TCP/IP Settings with the Ipconfig /all Utility

Click on Start, Programs and then select the MS-DOS Prompt. Enter theipconfig /all command to see all TCP/IP related settings for your workstation.

Fill in the blanks below using the results of the IPCONFIG command from your workstation:

Host name___________________

MAC Address________________

IP address____________________

Subnet Mask_________________

Step 6 - Check the network connection with the Ping Utility

Click on Start, Programs and then the MS-DOS Prompt. Enter the Ping command followed by the IP address of the other workstation(Example - ping 200.150.100.1).

Explanation: This will verify that students have a good OSI Layers 1 through 3 connection.

Was the Ping successful? ______________________



Step 7 - Creating and Sharing File Folders

Right-click on my computer icon and choose explore from the short-cut menu.

Select local disk (C:)

From the file menu select new then folder. When the new folder Will be created, name it using your first initial and your last name.

Right-click on the folder and select share

Select the share this folder option button

Click on the Permissions button and change Everyone's permission to read only.

Open notepad and create a new file. Name the file using your NetBIOS name_Test. Save the file in the shared folder.

Step 8 - Finding Other Computers and ...