COMP2410 Guest Lecture 2015

• 2 "war stories" from CECS IT Teaching systems networks
• More about networking than Networked Information Systems
• Will be some interactive Q&A

Engineering Maker Lab

Scenario

• Lab of 12 Windows PCs in old Chemistry lab in old Chemistry building
• almost no network infrastructure (layer 1) in lab
• "Lab" network (layer 2) in Engineering and other CECS building
• How can we connect the Maker Lab machines to "Lab" network

ANU Infrastructure

• Network Services run a layer2/layer3 network around campus
• use Enterasys SecureStack C3 C3G124-48P (Specs) at the "edge"
• can trunk the "Lab" network VLAN across to Chemistry building

Problems

• Structured cabling (layer1) is relatively expensive
• Network services policy is to only allow a max. of 2 MAC addresses per switch port
• Windows software deployment system (MDT and SCCM) require client machines to have individual IP addresses

Solution

(to be drawn on whiteboard)

Live CSIT Lab Archive

Scenario

• In 2014, used Ubuntu 12.04 on servers and lab machines
• no automatic install, so software packages "rolled-over" from year to year
• In 2015, switching to Ubuntu 14.04
• using scripts for all installation
• want to preserve some of the 2014 setup for reference etc. - a "live" archive

Initial solution

• renamed the "key" servers ("partch", "varese" and "challender") and allocated new IP addresses
• implemented using VirtualBox and Linux Containers
• created a virtual lab network using Linux Ethernet Bridge (a virtual switch implementation)

Problems

• want the new IPs back
• prefer not to change server configurations (changing IP address)
• want to "hide" old servers (no longer maintained) "away"

Solution

(to be drawn on whiteboard)