Announcement

**TheCotMan** · February 16, 2006, 20:34

Large campuses (cproporate or educational) often have on-going support needs from their networking and telecommunications staff. Such campuses often have Campus Master Plans for development, new buildings and renovation along with timelines for each.

Consider projects with your campus Networking and telecommunications.
Such projects may include planning for new buildings, or buildings being renovated.

If you live in large city (over 500,000 people) odds are in favor of your city having a convention center. NPO and NFP groups also host conventions, and may have need for networks, build-up and teardown. Such networks require a lot of preplanning, and then following a plan/schedule for delivery, and then a tear-down window. Try contacting local Convention Centers/Halls to find out if they provide Networking/Telecommunication services for convention organizers, or whether they expect the convention organizers to handle that. (Think about all of the various online groups that have little aggregate technical skill, but don't mind spending an extra $5 per person to buy simple equipment to make internet access at their con possible.)

Site audits, fingerprint scans (legal issues): you can have a project be to scan networks for vulnerable services. An arrangement would be needed with the business, to get permission and not worry about criminal charges being filed, or about a civil lawsuit. Network admins are being asked to run site surveys, to look for versions of services that may be at risk to worms, or remote change in ownership. Such a survey may be possible on your campus too, as well as the task of tracking down the owners of the machines aparrently running vulnerable services.

If your campus has any kind of dorm-system, and network access for them, the campus may entertain inclusion of a QoS or traffic shaping solution. Such systems can be wonderful, but analsys of traffic to allow for intelligent rule generation takes time.

Another project for network admins is to "cost-out" different network solutions for new services. Wireless solutions have been hot over the past 5 years, but building a wireless network that is "secure enough" to be compared to wired is difficult (if not impossible.)
Estimates require meetings or exceeding minimum requirements. Yes, this is paperwork, but it is a kind of paperwork that is expected of Network admins.

Hopefully some of these give you ideas.

**astcell** · February 16, 2006, 21:06

Originally posted by SlackJaw

The other class is where I need help! It's an advanced Networking Project Class.

Refer to www.warriorsofthe.net

Originally posted by SlackJaw

The idea is to go out in the community and do free work for businesses; preferrably non-profit because the school doesn't want to infringe on commercial tech businesses.

What about the liability issue? What if they break something?

Originally posted by SlackJaw

What I really want to do are in-class projects and make them fun and educational.

And 100% legal with no doubt as to the intent. Don't tempt them!

Originally posted by SlackJaw

The truth of the matter is...I'm LOST! What can I do? I've googled Net projects, Computer labs, Classroom Net Projects, Etc....

Ask them what THEY wanna do! Then get back to us with their notes. How about summer school and take them to Defcon? ;-)

Originally posted by SlackJaw

We have a private LAN (Not on schools network) About 20 workstations, rack with usual Cisco routing & switching 2003 Domain, Linux DNS server, projector for presentations, printer, etc.....

Have the newbies break it then have the geeks fix it. Change IPs, reset passwords, delete drivers, etc.

Originally posted by SlackJaw

It should be hands-on for the students...any ideas at all???

MCSE For Dummies?

Originally posted by SlackJaw

<private to Astcell> Want to come in and give a lecture? That would be awesome! From Hickory, it's about 45 minutes away....

I am only off this Friday, what the heck would I talk about?

**skroo** · February 17, 2006, 13:35

Originally posted by astcell

What about the liability issue? What if they break something?

Liability aside, I know I'd be pissed if I were still an independent contractor whose clients decided that the volunteers from the local college billing $0/hour were a better bet than me at considerably over that.

Someone once pulled pretty much that exact stunt on me, only with some kid from their church. Sparky the Wonder LAN Gamer turned out to be a complete and utter retard when it came to anything involving the OSI model, and it was my abject pleasure to drop them as a client when they called me up requesting that I fix his fuck-ups (of which there were many - like, say, multihoming the Windows 2000 server the containing confidential client records that the entire office also happened to run off of and putting one of the interfaces out in the DMZ so that he could term serve into it from home).

On the plus side, I still run into that kid occasionally and he makes a point of crossing the street when he sees me coming, so I guess it's not all bad.

**SlackJaw** · February 17, 2006, 13:45

Ok, I went to class today and only two of the five students showed up. One guy handed me a BICSI "On the Job Training" booklet that I'm supposed to sign off on to help him become a certified cable jockey. The other guy, went for breakfast 10 minutes after arriving. We he came back, they BOTH went outside for a smoke.

OK, I'm sensing there's a motivation issue here....

When they came back...I began a dialogue:

I'll paraphrase...

Me: What type of projects would interest you?

Breakfast Guy: Let's go wire my house!

Me: Maybe, can you get a box of CAT5, a router, RJ-45 ends, wall plates, etc...?

Breakfast Guy: I thought the school paid for that.

Me: Uh, no.

Breakfast Guy: (His exact words...) "Well Fuck it."

Cable Jockey: I could steal the cable from work, but who wants to wire YOUR house - that sucks.

It turns out these two are cousins. They then go into a story about their grandpa - pulling a breach colt out of the mothers vaginia, when he gave them their first chewing tobacco, and his eating and farting habits.

I gave them the questionaire I made. One heading was: "What project would most interest you during this course?"

Cable Jockey wrote: "Open for anything."

Breakfast Guy Wrote: " Cabling, Hardware, Software."

I ask him, "What type of software did he have in mind?"

He said: "You know, whatever..."

I said, "Would you be interested in installing a linux distro, and learning basic linux commands?"

Breakfast Guy: "I HATE linux! All the command line stuff. I need a GUI. It's handy to write batch files."

Cable Jockey: I need to learn some linux.

Me: Why?

CJ: Uh, we might use it where I work...and Microsoft sucks.

Me: why do they suck?

CJ: Shit man, you know. Hey, do you know anything about home stereo systems?

yadda, yadda.....

I sent them home, and told them to be on time next Friday and ready to learn something. This puts me back to the question...what are some cool, fun projects I can set up forr them?

Cotman, our town is small, but the convention center idea might pan out.

Astcell - I have a copy of the "Warriors of the Net" movie but had forgotten about it. We will certainly watch it next week.

Both responses were appreciated, and I'm open to more...May is a LONG way off.

Skroo, THat's what I'm trying to avoid - stepping on any toes. Besides, these guys are not ready to be turned out into the wild.

I'm beginning to think I'll just buy them all an "uber leet" t shirt, give them a B grade, and let them play spider solitare for the rest of the semester. However, I have more pride than that.

Tommy.

**TheCotMan** · February 17, 2006, 16:57

Originally posted by SlackJaw

Cotman, our town is small, but the convention center idea might pan out.

It was suggested for cases where the renter of the convention center space must make their own deals for network access. It is a good suggestion, because there is no long-term support requirement, and if your students screw it up, you can fix it. (You can also oversee the planning phase to work out problems before they even touch any hardware.
If there is an existing technical group that covers convention center networking, then obviously, it would not be such a good idea.

Skroo, THat's what I'm trying to avoid - stepping on any toes. Besides, these guys are not ready to be turned out into the wild.

Having them organize a network for a convention center sounds less and less like a good idea. They sound like stereotypical gamers, and many of the ideas I suggested might be beyond their grasp.

Something easier? Have them sniff various protocol sessions and report specific pieces of data. Maybe you can have them build something in the lab, like an LDAP authentication system through which Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X servers use for password and access checking. (In this way they will have to work together on Windows and Linux, and perhaps other OS to deal with network service interoperability like central authentication.

A smaller project? Integrate a Samba Server into a Domain and play with fine tuning controls to optimize performace for throughput/speed/latency/*.

Have them build a network of machines using VLAN, VPN, DHCP, routers, switches, and bridges. Have simple tests be to have certain machines be able to talk to other machines, but not all machine.

Have each present on a topic like use of portscanning tools and advantages of specific flags. Maybe Network/Host-based/hybrid IDS, setup, config and evaluation by running known exploits.

A session could be on upgrade of IOS/firmware for various network devices. Perhaps configuration of a Cisco router or switch from the command line.

Testing cables for failure, and determining cause.

It sounds like your class of two is not up for the tasks found in the professional world.

**Thorn** · February 17, 2006, 17:55

skroo, been there, done that. It's a bitch losing a client, but not that much of a loss when they stab you in the back in the first place.

SlackJaw, if they are gamers as TheCotMan thinks, what about setting up a gaming network and start capturing packets and analyzing traffic, etc. Many distros of Linux still have the free version of Doom. It might motivate them to actually learn a little about the OSI model from one end to the other while having fun. Plus a little bit of deathmatch at the end of the class might be both a goal and a stress reliever. Then the t-shirt could be "I fragged my networking instructor!"

**astcell** · February 17, 2006, 17:58

Sounds like you need to have some Type X leadership with them. Tell them what to do, have them do it, and watch them every step of the way. Have them explain why they did things. In writing. Give them small assignments, like 10-15 minutes long and have them complete that then move on. Give them a 10 question quiz, if they whine, make it 20 questions. You need to grab those two by the horns, and fast.

Humble them. Give them an idea of just how big the world is. Myabe get them to read a paragraph out of a cisco router manual and explain to you what they read.

Microsoft has a lot of examples with Conseco in many of their products. You may want to run Virtual Server and have them config a half dozen computers that way.

They sound like Script Kiddies to me, if that. Do not get them a T-shirt, and if you do, they do not deserve a black one. Not yet.

**SlackJaw** · February 17, 2006, 18:09

It seems I can always depend on you guys...thanks a ton. I've let your words speak for me on the wireless ISP saga (but I gave due credit) I'll just have to be careful not to let this forum be a crutch. Nonetheless, these are FANTASTIC projects that I know I should have come up with on my own, but my mind is in neutra because I still can't believe I'm teaching on a college level, even if I am adjunct.

I intend to use these ideas and if the local DC sends a speaker (Freeze, you listening?) this should take me through the semester with educational and fun projects.

I promise, I won't direct these guys to the DC forum...Cot would have them banned in less than 45 seconds.

I do have one student - he's older (about 45) and he runs a linux web server at home and seems to be advanced in the tech field. He was moving today. The other two students are girls, I've yet to meet.

Thanks Thorn, Cot, and Astcell.....

tommyl

**Thorn** · February 17, 2006, 18:24

Originally posted by SlackJaw

It seems I can always depend on you guys...thanks a ton. I've let your words speak for me on the wireless ISP saga (but I gave due credit) I'll just have to be careful not to let this forum be a crutch. Nonetheless, these are FANTASTIC projects that I know I should have come up with on my own, but my mind is in neutra because I still can't believe I'm teaching on a college level, even if I am adjunct.

I intend to use these ideas and if the local DC sends a speaker (Freeze, you listening?) this should take me through the semester with educational and fun projects.

I promise, I won't direct these guys to the DC forum...Cot would have them banned in less than 45 seconds.

I do have one student - he's older (about 45) and he runs a linux web server at home and seems to be advanced in the tech field. He was moving today. The other two students are girls, I've yet to meet.

Thanks Thorn, Cot, and Astcell.....

tommyl

You're welcome. By the way, what happened with the WISP endeavor?

**SlackJaw** · February 17, 2006, 22:48

Originally posted by Thorn

You're welcome. By the way, what happened with the WISP endeavor?

Well first, you'll have to get a picture of our geographical setting...very rural with many small towns or 'incorporations."

The ISP, which is basically a disabled husband and his wife, along with one employee, my friend, the local linux guru, was established to provide dial up to the outlying folks. Broadband is now seriously threatening them.

They have permission to put antennas on 3 water towers, in three different towns. Keep in mind, these town often are less then 10 miles across. So it looks like it will be a "line of sight" config. The hold up right now is money, but how much can these antennas cost?

After hearing my friend talk about it, and getting info from you, I believe it is doable. I hope so, because it looks like their only chance. They want to bring me in so I've been reading everything I can get my hands on. Only I'm aprehensive because we're talking about people's livelyhoods and frankly, there are no Frank Thorntons around here and this is a new endeavor for everyone.

I'll keep you posted as this things moves forward and I really do appreciate you asking.

Tommy

**klepto** · February 18, 2006, 01:24

I would suggest grabbing 4 popular linux distributions and show them how to set up a connection in the scenario where they are behind a router, and the scenario where they are setting up adsl or dial up on the linux distributions. Even if you DO select distros where there is a graphical interface, it is still good. In the corporate world, RHEL is the dominating distribution. However, just on RHEL/Fedora, I would concentrate on setting it up by command line as well.

Since there is obviously no reason to SPEND money on RHEL, then just grab a copy of Fedora. SuSe would be another good choice as it's coming up in the working world as well. Slackware and Debian would probably be my other two choices as they are also popular.

However if you are stressed for time and/or hard drive space, then I would recommend to at least pick Fedora/RHEL.

Setting up networking with the BSDs would also be good, focus on FreeBSD, since it is the most popular when it exists in the working world.

**astcell** · February 18, 2006, 07:13

If one sniffs the traffic on broadband vs. dial-up, would they be the same? I wonder if we are not getting to a point were, if they differ, modems may one day offer security by obscurity, like if I kept all my secret data on 8" floppy disks.

**TheCotMan** · February 18, 2006, 12:36

Originally posted by astcell

If one sniffs the traffic on broadband vs. dial-up, would they be the same? I wonder if we are not getting to a point were, if they differ, modems may one day offer security by obscurity, like if I kept all my secret data on 8" floppy disks.

A majority of layer 1 is different, (includes not only "wires" and volts & amps, but also signaling of bits, and definitions of one's and zero's.)
Layer 2 is mostly different (PPP/SLIP vs DSL/Ethernet/PPPoE/ATM/*)
From Layer 3 on up, the protocols are mostly the same. The kind of traffic may be different, and DSL may include protocols at higher levels that modems do not (e.g. DHCP), but because of models that permit separation of duties into discrete layers/modules, we have interchangeability of Layer 3-7 protocols.

So, sniffing a dialup connection would require an extra piece of hardware that could demodulate the Tx and Rx on a line and the sniffer would need to know about SLIP/PPP, but most everything else from that point up would be like the protocols that run on top of ethernet. Sniffing a *DSL session may also require extra hardware to do something similar, while sniffing ethernet, requires a NIC.

If the dialup user were just using the modem to dialup BBS and not use PPP/SLIP, they would be using it like a serial line extention with terminal software to a BBS. Then the "sniffer" need only have terminal emulation software to "watch" the user, and see what they see. Such terminal emulation would best support Kermit as well as x,y, and z modem download/upload to make it easier to copy files moved to/from each host.

Announcement

Help With Projects

Help With Projects

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment