Any Network Professionals, Please help me to slve the following question.

[admin_2]

a local university is bout to implement an information kiosk for students to view their contact details, and update them. the system will invlove 5 terminals installed around the campus, from which students will access the kiosk. These terminals will be based upon popular web-browsing sofwtare such as netscape and explorer. They are not required to access the WWW but only the kiosk system should be accessible.

The campus is large and the distance between the terminals may be upto 1000 mtrs.

a) describe wit a diagram or network model u will use to solve the problem. Indicate the network technologies that will be used and why.

b) describe all standards and protocols that would be used in implementing this system.like TCP/IP

c) mayb the university want to extend this system so students at 2 other campuses could use it. Discuss wat changes in infrastructure would require.?

[Craig Norborg]

Wow, talk about a vague question. Not nearly enough info to even being. I would really recommend bringing in a consultant if you don't have any idea where to begin.

Questions that would need to be answered include:

- Assuming that the kiosk's need to talk to a system other than eachother, what network is this system on and how will they gain access into this network?

- What existing infrastructure on the campus might be able to help you in gaining access to this network?

- What type of security will need to be in place between the kiosks and the network their traffic is destined for? (Assuming that the kiosks should be considered very insecure and any system with student records on it would need to be extremely secure)

No way you can even come close to naming a network model or technologies to use without better defining the project. For instance, if you decide to go ahead and use wireless to accomplish this without checking with the local networking group, your wireless could be rendered useless by interference from them deploying a campus-wide wireless network.

You really need alot more help than you will probably get in this forum for a project such as this. Good luck though!!

[#3]

Hey thanx for ur comments. Well this is a simple brief of the question. I just need an answer like what we can use here either a DSL,or a Wireless? If we use a DSL through Internet how can we stop the students from accessing the Internet and only to the KIOSK system? Well assume the infrastructure should be done in DSL with a server in Uni and 5 other terminals located 1000 mtrs away for students. What IP addresses can we give? Please if you could answer me this I would be grateful to you. Thank You

[Craig Norborg]

Still not nearly enough answers. You could use DSL or wireless or wired or fiber or pretty much anything you want that might be available. How would you protect it and/or prevent the students from accessing the internet? Anything from software on the Kiosk, a firewall or a VPN appliance could do it.

If you want to establish a completely new network to do this and not utilize any existing infrastructure the university might have, here are some pluses and or drawbacks.

DSL - usually operated by telco's for internet or vpn applications, fairly low monthly cost, potentially low availability in the area your at. To operate your own on campus? Lots of wiring and fairly expensive equipment.

Wireless - what equipment you would need to go with would depend on distance, what line-of-sight is available. Potential high startup costs, reliability might not be where you want it. It would be best if you could use this as an extension to an existing network infrastructure.

Wired- high availability/reliability, high speeds, somewhat longer distances. Very difficult to do that much private wiring (like DSL). Some potential problems with distances.

In other words, there is no "right" answer to this question, it depends on alot of other factors. Aren't there any IT people on campus that could help you with this?

[#5]

hi craig....thanx once again for ur suggestions. Actually am a student doing my Masters in IT here in Australia. SO this question was given by my lecturer to solve it. Actually I have a less experience in Networking.

I really apreciate your help. If I put this KIOSK on the web, Is it possible that those 5 terminals can access only to that and not to any other web sites through IP addresses or something?

Lets say this KIOSK is residing in a server in the UNI and with the help of DSL can we give connections to those 5 terminals? I just need a rough idea and not a real one as I am not going to implement it.

I hope you can help me by giving an answer. I dont want to implement it Just I need a rough Answer for this by assigning some Class C IP addresses. Thank You and am sorry for wasting your time.

[lgijssel]

Sounds more like a design issue. The challenge is in the large distances involved. You have not given any hints on what cabling is available. Long Reach Ethernet is a possible solution. Using a switch like the 2950-24-LRE enables you to use telephone cabling to get speeds up-to 15Mb. For your case, this is adeqate. You can use the uplink-ports to connect the Campus network or a router to any external location. You can still use IP as the network protocol and it would integrate seemless with any existing Ethernet LAN.

Regards,

Leo

[#7]

Hi leo...

well cabling is not given....well say we use a DSL connection..how can we assign IP address and how can we stop the students from accessing other website and only to the KIOSk system. I just need a possible answer because am not gonna implement this. With router and IP protocols through DSL how can we implement this.? Thank You...Regards Jabi

[Craig Norborg]

Still not much info on the desitination system. Lets assume that the students need to access a single website that is available via the Internet and that all security is handled at that end. The easiest way to accomplish this is to connect the terminals via whatever method to the internet (DSL/Wireless) and slap a router on it at each kiosk (lets say a small 800 series router). You would set up the router for NAT and then put an ACL on the router preventing its clients from getting anywhere but the destination website...

HTH!

[axys180]

Hi Jabi,

I guess your main concern is restricting internet access on the kiosk machine, We have a similar setup , we use a software called "netkey" this controls Url restrictions. ( www.netkey.com ) , I guess you could use DSL connections to the kiosk machines and if your kiosk apllication/site is not directly accesible over the internet you could use vpn connections into the network where the app is.

[axys180]

Hi Jabi,

I guess your main concern is restricting internet access on the kiosk machine, We have a similar setup , we use a software called "netkey" this controls Url restrictions. ( www.netkey.com ) , I guess you could use DSL connections to the kiosk machines and if your kiosk apllication/site is not directly accesible over the internet you could use vpn connections into the network where the app is.

using netkey you can prevent endusers from seeing anything but the intented application/page, that way they dont resort to using your kiosk for freecell/pinball. Hope this helps

[ziutek]

You could always use an access-list (ACL) to limit the traffic. For example you could open a non-standard port to access the server, and setup an ACL to limit just the combination of specific source IP address to specific IP address/port combinations.

I would say that LRE wold be a very viable solution, and possbly the cheapest. Definitely the easiest to maintain. It would also give you more control over outages, etc.; no dependency on the local telco to provide DSL and lines.

You could also just use a standard dedicated dialup connection, If the students are only getting limited info, and the format is not garphic intensive, dial up would probably be sufficient. But then again you have to have the Telco instal the lines.

As already mentioedn, wireless is limited by distance and line-of-sight in most cases. Wireless is also security intensive meaning that it takes quite a bit of admin to make a wireless netowrk truly secure.

A VPN would be a great way to conenct other campuses to the application server.

Good luck,

Joe

[swittner]

Another thought - how about Long Reach Ethernet. By utilizing this technology you could build a seperate network - totaly under your control and no recuring cost - such as DSL.

This seperate network could then have access only to the Webserver you want it to have -either have that webserver on that segment, or put this new segment into a fairewall interface and restrict access there.

Just another thought.

[swittner]

Another thought - how about Long Reach Ethernet. By utilizing this technology you could build a seperate network - totaly under your control and no recuring cost - such as DSL.

This seperate network could then have access only to the Webserver you want it to have -either have that webserver on that segment, or put this new segment into a fairewall interface and restrict access there.

Just another thought.