Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category
A network monitoring system is vital for the proper functioning of a home or business network. Network monitoring ensures the computer system is working at top performance by constantly checking all elements of the computer network. Being a sub-function of a network managing system, a monitoring software program will constantly check failing or slow connections, possibly crashed servers, whether the servers are being overloaded, and any number of the other system functions that could go wrong.
A network monitoring software system is set up and controlled by the System Administrator. The System Administrator sets the monitoring software to test every part of the computer system. This monitoring is done by sending a test signal to each element of the network to ensure proper functionality. This software can be set to send the test signal anywhere from every minute to every two hours or longer.
The network monitoring system uses a predetermined set of guidelines to evaluate the functioning of the computer network. These guidelines evaluate network up-time, response time, connections, reliability and stability of the network.
If the network monitoring software program, while doing its performance tests, determines if any of the computers are failing or has already failed and will send an alarm. This alarm could be an audio alert, an email sent to the administrator, a text message sent to management or a combination of any of these. If the monitoring program determines the failed element could cause a network system failure can activate a backup system to keep the computers up and running.
In order to better understand how a network monitoring system works, we will give you a typical system test. The program will send a test email to an email server. The monitoring software will than measure the time it takes to get to the server and the server’s response time in replying to the email. If the response time is within the specified limits the system will pass that server and move on to the next server. If the response time is not within proper limits, the monitoring system will follow its protocols. These protocols could include alerting the network administrator, sounding an audible alarm or rerouting the email server to a different system.
A networking monitoring system is extremely important for businesses, whether small or large. Generally, the larger the business, the larger their computer network system will be, and the larger the need for a monitoring system. Having a effective system in place to make sure the network is working properly, will ensure their business has no downtime and no loss of data or revenue.
Network Monitoring is vital for any computer network! For simple straight forward techniques to make sure your network is working properly rush over to http://www.NetworkMonitoringServices.org/ right now!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_McQueen
What is Ethernet?
Ethernet is the single most widely used form of the local area network currently in existence. The original design for Ethernet was created by Xerox, and was based on an earlier design that was known as Alohanet. After the initial creation and success of Ethernet, the product went through further enhancement under the auspices of Xerox, Intel, and DEC.
How Did Ethernet Get Its Name?
Robert Metcalfe, who was one of the developers working on the original design, came up with the name. The designation is based on the idea of light transmitting ether that was at one time thought to be found throughout the universe as a main component of the spread of light. Because cabling also functions as a medium that is somewhat passive, the correlation with ether seemed like a good fit.
How Does Ethernet Work?
Ethernet usually makes use of twisted pair wires or coaxial cable in the basic design of a wired local area network. However, the same general principle applies to wireless Ethernet as well. Various devices are connected to the cable or wires and achieve connectivity to Ethernet through Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection.
In general, Ethernet systems are referred to as 10BASE-T and are capable of producing speeds of up to 10 Mbps.
What Are Some Types of Ethernet?
Along with the standard 10BASE-T, there is also today what is known as Fast Ethernet. Properly designated as 100BASE-T, this form of Ethernet is capable of producing transmission speeds that are up to one hundred megabits per second. Generally, Fast Ethernet is used as a backbone for the LAN system, with the 10BASE-T cards used for the workstations that are supported by the LAN.
Gigabit Ethernet takes the process one step further. This form of Ethernet will provide up to one thousand megabits per second and is an excellent option for large networks that require a great deal of support to manage local and remote work stations.
10-Gigabit Ethernet provides the greatest power currently available. This type of Ethernet offers up to ten billion bits per second, making it the fastest version currently available.
So I was at a clients and btw, forgot my laptop, and I had to configure their Cisco ASA 5505 series router with the new IP address of their satellites office’s ASA router. You see, they had a site-to-site VPN.
Problem was when I telnet into the ASA I get an “Could not open connection to the host, on port 23.Connect failed” error.
I could ping the router’s ip however, and also when I tried to login using the Cisco ASDM Launcher, I would get “Unable to launch ASDM Connection Timed out” error. What the heck?!?!!?!?!?!?
Well, the problem was that the router was never configured to accept any other IP for management. See, the router was set for an IP range of 10.0.X.X. But the router was only configure to allow a range of 192.168.X.X.
It took about 2 hours to figure this out, so I post it here to help relieve you of a future headache, and to remind me as well.
This is how to solve:
You’re going to have to use the console cable to establish a connection to the ASA since it appears that your HTTPS/SSH access lists are not configured correctly.
Use the blue console cable to establish a connection to the ASA and from the command line interface, go to enable mode and issue the following commands:
conf t
http server enable
http 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside - where the IP has to be the inside IP scope assigned.
Once I did this using the 10.0.X.X IP, I was then able to use ASDM to configure the VPN settings.
Hope this helps…. comment if you have any questions.
I was called by a client whom has recently purchased a laptop with XP Media Center 2005. Of course joining the domain on his company’s network was not going to happen because the option was ‘greyed out.’
So what did I do? Google baby…. Found out that there is a single registry key hack that enables and disables this feature. Here are the steps to re-enable, and be able to join a domain.
1. Insert any Windows XP CD.
2. Boot to the CD and choose ‘Recovery Console’
3. Select the installation to log onto (default: 1) and press Enter. (Most likely the administrator password will be blank. If
it is not enter the password you set or contact the manufacturer.)
4. Type cd system32\config and press Enter.
5. Type copy SYSTEM c:\ and press Enter.
6. Type exit and press Enter.
7. Boot the PC back into Windows
8. Start > Run > Type: regedit and press Enter.
9. Click on ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE’.
10. File > Load Hive…
11. Browse and select C:\SYSTEM
12. Specify key name ‘TEMP’ and click OK.
13. Expand: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > TEMP > WPA > MedCtrUpg
14. Change the IsLegacyMCE value to 1 and click ok.(one, not an L)
15. Click on TEMP subkey (under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).
16. File > Unload Hive. Confirm.
17. Reboot the PC.
18. Boot into the Recovery Console using the Windows CD again
19. Select the installation to log onto (default: 1) and press Enter.
20. Type cd\ and press Enter.
21. Type copy SYSTEM C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM and press Enter.(Choose ‘yes’ to overwrite)
22. Type del SYSTEM and press Enter.
23. Type exit and press Enter.
24. Boot up Windows.
25. The ‘Join Domain’ option should no longer be grayed
out.
And you’re done…
I had a little project today where I had to locate all the hosts on a network and identify them. Most of the hosts weren’t workstations so it was not that easy.
I found a nifty little tool online to help me with that… FASTResolver.
FastResolver is a small utility that resolves multiple host names into IP addresses and vice versa. You can simply type the list of IP addresses or host name that you want to resolve, or alternatively, you can specify IP addresses range that you want to scan. FastResolver is a multithreaded application, so it can resolve dozens of addresses within a few seconds.