Chapter -6

Managing Network Services

A Network & System Administration

Perspective(with Linux & windows OS)
 Contents:
▪ Basic network service management
– DHCP service
– DNS service
– Mail Service
– File Transfer service
▪ Remote administration
– Telnet
– SSH
▪ Network Printers
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
▪ Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network
protocol that is used to enable host computers to be
automatically assigned IP addresses and related network
configurations from a server.
▪ Here’s a list of the most common types of information a DHCP
server can provide to a DHCP clients:
– IP address
– Subnet mask
– Domain name
– IP address of the default-gateway to use
– IP addresses of the DNS servers to use
▪ Computers configured to be DHCP clients have no control over
the settings they receive from the DHCP server.
 DHCP…
▪ Advantages of using DHCP includes:

– Changes to the network need only be changed at the

DHCP server.
– It is also easier to integrate new computers into the
network.
– It prevents IP address conflict and helps conserve the
use of client IP address on the network
– reduces the complexity and amount of administrative
work by assigning TCP/IP configuration automatically to
the clients.
 DHCP Configuration settings
▪ Scope: specify the ranges of IP addresses
▪ Exclusion range: is a limited sequence of IP addresses within
a scope, excluded from DHCP service offerings.
▪ Address pool: valid remaining addresses from exclusion
▪ Lease: is a length of time that a DHCP server specifies, during
which a client computer can use an assigned IP address.
▪ Reservation: You use a reservation to create a permanent
address lease assignment by the DHCP server.
▪ Option types: other client configuration parameters a DHCP
server can assign when serving leases to DHCP clients. For
example, some commonly used options include IP addresses
for default gateways (routers) and DNS servers.
 Types of DHCP messages
▪ When a host try's to get IP address from DHCP server for the
first time the host has to pass the following processes.
▪ DHCPDISCOVER — from client
– client has no address, asking for a new one
▪ DHCPOFFER — from server
– Offer of address and other parameters
▪ DHCPREQUEST — from client
– Client asks if can use the offered address
▪ DHCPACK — from server
– Server says “yes, go ahead, the address is yours; the lease
starts now.”
 Types of DHCP messages…

▪ DHCPNAK — from server

– “no, you may not have that address; “discover again”
▪ DHCPDECLINE — from client
– Client has detected another machine is using the offered
address
▪ DHCPRELEASE — from client
– Server expires the lease immediately
▪ DHCPINFORM — from client
– Client already has a fixed IP address, but wants other
network settings from the server
 Obtaining an initial configuration

▪ The client is booting, with no IP lease

 Confirming an IP Address when restarting

▪ The client's lease has not expired

 DHCP client failure

▪ When a DHCP client is no longer on the network for a

specified period, the configuration is expired and
released back to the address pool for use by other
DHCP Clients.
 What is DNS (Domain Name System)?
▪ There are two ways to identify a host in a network -- a hostname
and an IP address. People prefer the more mnemonic hostname
identifier, while routers and computers prefer fixed-length,
hierarchically-structured IP addresses.
▪ In order to reconcile these different preferences, we need a
directory service that translates hostnames to IP addresses.
▪ This is the main task of the Internet's Domain Name System
(DNS).
▪ The DNS is (i) a distributed database implemented in a hierarchy
of name servers and (ii) an application-layer protocol that allows
hosts and name servers to communicate in order to provide the
translation service.
 What is DNS?..
▪ The goal of DNS is to resolve a fully qualified domain name
(FQDN) to an IP address.
▪ It eases out remembering the hostname, rather than IP addresses
which are numbers and difficult to remember.
▪ Remembering www.google.com is easy than remembering
“74.125.234.65”
▪ An IP address identifies hosts on a network and the Internet as
well.
▪ However, DNS was designed to make our lives easier. Think about
this: What would happen if you wanted to move your web page
to a different service provider?
▪ The IP address would change and no one would know what the
new one was.
▪ Therefore, DNS server is essential for any org using the Internet.
 What uses DNS?
• Any application that operates over the Internet
• Such as
– email
– WWW
– FTP
– Windows update
– telnet, ssh
 Distributed, Hierarchical Database
▪ The domain name space consists of a tree of domain names.
▪ Each node or leaf in the tree has one or more resource records,
which hold information associated with the domain name.
▪ The tree subdivides into zones. A zone consists of a collection of
connected nodes authoritatively served by an authoritative DNS
name server.
▪ A resolver (DNS server) looks up the information associated with
nodes. A resolver knows how to communicate with name servers
by sending DNS requests, and heeding DNS responses.
 Distributed, Hierarchical Database…
Root DNS Servers

com DNS servers org DNS servers edu DNS servers

pbs.org poly.edu umass.edu

yahoo.com amazon.com
DNS servers DNS servers DNS servers
DNS servers DNS servers

Client wants IP for www.amazon.com; 1st approx:

▪ Client queries a root server to find com DNS server
▪ Client queries com DNS server to get amazon.com DNS server
▪ Client queries amazon.com DNS server to get IP address for
www.amazon.com
 Why do you need to setup your own DNS server?

1. If you are running a web service like web site, Email and you
want to be able to tell the internet that what IP address to
reach your web site.
2. you probably want work on your server or user machines
remotely and to use a host name instead of using IP address
to access the server or user machine.
3. To map our internal computers to IP addresses
How DNS works: Example
DNS Server configuration in windows Server
DNS Server configuration in windows Server…
 DNS Server configuration in Linux Server
• BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is the
default name server for Linux OS.
• Installation and Configuration:
– Update your server and Install BIND on it. Execute the
following commands one by one.
$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install bind9 bind9utils bind9-doc
– Before proceeding you can optionally set bind9 to IPv4
mode.
$sudo nano /etc/default/bind9
– Add "-4" to the OPTIONS variable. Then save and exit. It
should look like the following:
OPTIONS="-4 -u bind"
 Electronic Mail
▪ Making sure that electronic mail gets sent out and delivered is
one of the system administrator’s most important jobs.
▪ E-Mail is a mechanism by which peoples send and receive
electronic message over the Internet.
▪ It gives us the ability to contact any person in the world in a
matter of seconds.
▪ With E-Mail, one can compose a message, attach any necessary
files, and send it to the recipient.
▪ The main components of an e-mail system that facilitate sending
and receiving of e-mails on Internet are :
– An e-mail client
– An e-mail server (SMTP server)
– POP and IMAP servers.
 An E-Mail Client
▪ If you use e-mails for online communication then you would
definitely be using an e-mail client.
▪ An e-mail client provides you with the following capabilities:
▪ Provides a list of messages that people have sent to you. Each
entry in the list contains the name of sender, a subject, a few
words from the message body and the time/date on which it
was received.
▪ Provides the ability to read a complete message, reply to it or
forward it to other people.
▪ Provides the ability to compose a new message and send it to
the desired recipients.
▪ Delete a message.
 An E-Mail Client…

• The e-mail clients could be:

– Standalone (like Microsoft Outlook, Pegasus etc) or
– Could be web based (like gmail, yahoo etc).

• There could be many advanced abilities that e-mail

clients may provide.
– But whatever the type of e-mail client be, the core
abilities described above are provided by all type of
clients.
An E-Mail Client Shots
 An E-Mail Server
• Whenever you send a message from your e-mail client, it goes
to an e-mail server.

• Email servers can be of two types:

1. Incoming Mail Server (POP3, IMAP)
2. Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)
Continued…
Mail Server configuration in windows Server
Mail Server configuration in windows Server…
 Mail Server configuration in windows Server…
▪ Adding MX record to DNS to enable Mail Server
 Mail Administration Basics in Linux
▪ A Linux system administrator can follow the
following basic configuration to configure mail
server:
– Set hostname for the machine
• Edit the file /etc/hostname
• Eg. mail.hru.edu.et
– Set the time zone.
• ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Africa/Addis Ababa /etc/localtime
– Configure /etc/hosts file
• 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
• 213.55.83154 mail.hru.edu.et mail
 What is FTP?
▪ FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol.
▪ It is used to transfer files between an FTP server and another
computer.
▪ FTP also tends to be faster than other contemporary methods
of transferring files because it was designed to do so.
▪ Two roles during file transfer:
– FTP Server: Hosts the service
– FTP Client: uploads/downloads files to/from FTP Server
▪ FTP support Automatic Resume.
 How to connect to FTP Server
• Two approaches exist to connect to FTP Server:
– The first is to make it so anyone can log in anonymously,
otherwise known as anonymous FTP, or
• Example: ftp://movies.hu.edu.et
– Assign user names and passwords to people that they must use
to log in to the server.
• Example: ftp://username:password@movies.hu.edu.et
– It is also possible to use FTP client that is designed specifically
to connect to FTP servers.
• These types of software are generally the best as they have been
streamlined for speed and support a lot of the advanced features
like automatic resume.
• Example: FileZilla, Fire FTP, WinSCP
 Samba: An Introduction
▪ The main essence of computer network is to share
information and resource.
▪ File is among the resource users can share on the network.
– File sharing should be transparent to heterogeneity in
platforms in the network
– Windows, Unix, Mac, …..
▪ Domain based windows network doesn’t communicate with
Linux/Mac machines.
 What is Samba?
▪ Samba is a free software solution to the program of making
Unix file systems available to windows operating systems.
▪ Samba is a free suite of programs that enables flavors of
UNIX to work with other operating systems such as
Windows, as both a server and a client.
▪ As a server, Samba shares Linux files and printers with
Windows systems.
▪ As a client, Samba gives Linux users access to files on
Windows systems.
 Using samba you can…

▪ Share files and printers with a Microsoft clients

▪ Act as a windows domain controller

▪ Linux domain controller using samba ▪ Linux file & print sharing using samba
 Steps to configure samba server on Linux
▪ Update your operating system repository and install samba on
linux , then
▪ Modify /etc/samba/smb.conf(Take backup before you modify the
smb.conf file)
– nano smb.conf
▪ Create smb user
▪ Restart smb
– service smb restart
▪ Then , your windows client will be able to access the shared file
and printer
Install and configure FTP on windows server
Install and configure FTP on windows server…
Install and configure FTP on windows server…
 Steps to Install and configure FTP server on Linux
Step 1: Update System Packages
– sudo apt-get update

Step 2: Install vsftpd Server on Ubuntu

– sudo apt-get install vsftpd

• To launch the service and enable it at startup, run the

commands:
– sudo systemctrl start vsftpd
– sudo systemctrl enable vsftpd

Step 3: Start VSFTPd and set it to start on boot

– sudo systectr start
– sudo systemctrl enable

Step 4: Backup default Configuration Files

– sudo cp /etc/vsftpd.conf etc/vsftpd.conf_default
 Install and configure FTP server on Linux…
Step 5: Configure VSFTPD
• Open the configuration file in your favorite text editor)
– nano etc/vsftpd.conf
• Then, Add the necessary configuration to the file, then save and close the file:
Step 6: Create FTP User(new user)
– sudo useradd –m testuser
– sudo passwd testuser
Step 7: Make an FTP directory and set permissions
– mkdir /home/vsftp/ftp
– chown nobody:nogroup /home/vsftp/ftp
– chmod a-w /home/vsftp/ftp
Step 8: Configure Firewall to Allow FTP Traffic
– sudo ufw allow 20/tcp
– sudo ufw allow 21/tcp
Step 9: Connect to Ubuntu FTP Server
▪ You can now visit ftp://YOUR-SERVER-IP and login using the
username and password you created earlier in order to view
files uploaded.
 Remote Administration & Mgmt
It is an approach being followed to control either a
computer system or a network or an application from a
remote location.
A remote location may refer to a computer in the next
room or on the other side of the world.

Any computer with an Internet connection, TCP/IP or on a

Local Area Network can be remotely administered when it
is difficult or impractical to a person to be physically
present and do administration.
 Common tasks for which remote
administration is used
Shutdown
– Shutting down or rebooting another computer over a
network
Accessing Peripherals
– Using a network device, like printer
– Retrieving streaming data, much like a CCTV system
Modifying
– Editing another computer's registry settings
– Modifying system services
– Installing software on another machine
– Modifying logical groups
 Common tasks for which remote
administration is used..
Viewing
– Remotely assisting others
– Supervising computer or internet usage
Hacking

– Computers infected with malware such as Trojans

sometimes open back doors into computer systems
which allows malicious users to hack into and control
the computer. Such users may then add, delete,
modify or execute files on the computer to their own
ends.
 Popular Software for Remote
Administration
Windows
▪ Windows based devices come with Microsoft's Microsoft
Management Console, Windows Registry Editor and various
command-line utilities that may be used to administrate a
remote machine.
▪ One form of remote administration is remote desktop software,
and Windows includes a Remote Desktop Connection client for
this purpose.
Non-Windows
▪ Linux and UNIX support remote administration via remote login,
typically via SSH (The use of the Telnet protocol has been phased
out due to security concerns).
▪ Apple Remote Desktop provides Macintosh users with remote
administration capabilities.
 Network Printing
The network should be configured for sharing printers to enable network
printing.
Local printer, shared printer, and network printer are the three basic
printing configurations used while designing a network and configuring
printers.
 Local Print Devices
▪ Local print devices provide the most convenient way of
printing from a workstation computer.
▪ It is essential to install the necessary drivers to ensure
proper working of the print device.
▪ Software called printer is required to control the printing
process.
 Shared printer
▪ Sharing a locally attached printer.
▪ Sharing print devices directly connected to the network.

❖ Sharing a Locally Attached Printer

▪ Repeated interruptions by multiple users may affect the
productivity of the user.
▪ There is a reduction in speed and response time, since the
computer’s resources are used for providing the required
output for multiple users.
 Network printer
Network printer has network interface card and it is directly
connected to LAN via Ethernet cable, it has its own IP address
and accessible throughout the subnet.

Network printer is used for large organizations where you need to

visualize and manage the printing activities, independently.