Networking Setup and Communications: Cisco IOS, IP Addressing, VLANs

This report comprehensively explores the critical aspects of network setup and communication, encompassing routing protocols, IP addressing, subnetting, and other configuration mechanisms. It begins with an introduction to network building, followed by detailed explanations of various configuration mechanisms. The report delves into IP addressing, subnet calculations, and the roles of Cisco IOS, networking protocols, and Ethernet. It covers the OSI and TCP/IP models, network and transport layers, and application layer protocols like DNS and DHCP. The report further discusses IPv6 addressing, static routes, RIPv2 routing, switch virtual interfaces, port security, VLAN switchport modes, ACL, DHCP, and NAT configurations. It also examines routing concepts, including static and dynamic routing, and concludes with a summary of key knowledge points. The report is a valuable resource for understanding network infrastructure and configuration.

Running head: NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Networking Set Up and Communications
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Summary
As per numerous studies on networking the different routing protocols, IP addressing,
subnetting and other configuration mechanisms like ACL and NAT play a critical role in
setting up networks. First the report introduces to building networks after which it explains
the different configuration mechanisms of networking. The report after discussing the IP
addressing and configuration mechanisms ends with concluding notes.

2NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Introduction to Networking........................................................................................................4
Cisco IOS...................................................................................................................................4
Networking Protocols.................................................................................................................5
Access........................................................................................................................................5
Ethernet......................................................................................................................................6
Network Layer...........................................................................................................................6
IP Addressing.............................................................................................................................6
Comparison............................................................................................................................7
Subnet Classification..................................................................................................................7
Transport Layer..........................................................................................................................8
Application Layer.......................................................................................................................8
Small Network...........................................................................................................................9
IPv6 Address and Troubleshoot...............................................................................................12
Static Routes in Routers...........................................................................................................13
RIPv2 Routing..........................................................................................................................15
Switch Virtual Interface...........................................................................................................18
Port Security to Restrict...........................................................................................................19
VLAN Switchport Modes........................................................................................................20
ACL..........................................................................................................................................22
DHCP.......................................................................................................................................24
NAT Configuration..................................................................................................................26

3NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Routing Concepts.....................................................................................................................26
Static Routing...........................................................................................................................27
Advantage............................................................................................................................27
Disadvantage........................................................................................................................27
Types and Purpose...............................................................................................................27
Dynamic Routing.....................................................................................................................27
VLAN.......................................................................................................................................28
ACL..........................................................................................................................................28
DHCPv4...................................................................................................................................28
NAT..........................................................................................................................................28
Conclusion................................................................................................................................29
References................................................................................................................................30

4NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Introduction to Networking
For organizations to set up their network infrastructure, the most essential devices are
always the routers and switches that make the network connection accessible. The IP network
available must be broken into smaller subnets to efficiently distribute the connections among
the different segments of the organization’s network. This involves IP addressing and subnet
calculations to be made to specifically meet the requirements of the particular network
segment. To operate effectively, networks must follow standard models of network
communications.
Cisco IOS
The Cisco IOS version of routers and switches of a network can be viewed by
entering the IOS terminal of these network devices and inserting commands for viewing the
make, model and specifications of the network device using ‘show version’ command in
privileged access mode (Hlyne, Zavarsky and Butakov 2015). For example, IOS version
Cisco 2811 routers from Cisco Packet Tracer is found to be 12.4.

5NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Networking Protocols
The key protocols that are used in networks to facilitate LAN communications in
small and medium sized networks are Internet IP, TCP and DNS (Shang et al. 2016). They
share many common characteristics like identifying source and destination. The protocols
also define how messages are transmitted like message encoding, formatting and
encapsulation, specifying size, timings and delivery.
Access
Data Link Layer functions as the most reliable data delivery from one node to
another. This formats the frames with L3 packets that are to be used in a different media and

6NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
might require different protocols. After every hop down the route, devices receive these
frames from a medium, performs de-encapsulation and then forwards it to packets in next
frame. Headers of these frames get formatted according to the media they are to cover.
Ethernet
Ethernet works by separating the Data Link layer functionalities to distinct sub layers
namely the LLC (Logical Link Control) and the MAC (Media Access Control). As per OSI
model, the functions of the Data Link layer get assigned to the sub layers like LLC or MAC.
The address values of MAC have resulted from IEEE rules of vendors for ensuring
addresses that are globally unique for all Ethernet devices.
Major fields of the Ethernet frame are preamble, start of frame delimiter (SFD),
destination address, source address, length, data and cyclic redundancy check or CRC
Network Layer
Protocols in the network layer are a set of rules that govern communications over the
network. They can be rules for various services like transmission of data, sessions for
initialization and termination of communications, IP addressing and even routing,
authentication services and credential verifications, encryption techniques as also message
compression and error corrections.
IPX, RIP, RTMP are among the different network layer or layer 3 protocols generally
used for routing practises. RIP involves periodic broadcasting of routing table information
across the networks.
IP Addressing
The three different types of IPv6 network addresses are unicast, broadcast and multicast.

7NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Comparison
Unicast refers to communications where point to point data transfer is happening
between a sender and a receiver.
Broadcast refers to the communication where point to point data exchange takes place
among one sender and multiple receivers.
Multicast refers to point to point data transfers among multiple senders and multiple
receivers.
Subnet Classification
In the classification of subnet A, the IP addressing is performed by dividing the
network 192.168.1.0/24 into a subnet with smaller available address space (Syed 2017). Here,
the network address is always the first IP address of the subnet - 192.168.1.0 and broadcast
address - 192.168.1.63. Host addresses constitute rest of the IPs - 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.62.
The VLSM calculation of network 192.168.1.0 with mask /24 is given below for
subnet-A requiring connections for 35 hosts and the address space allocated is 62 hosts.
Subne
t
Siz
e
Allocate
d
Network
CID
R
Mask IP Range Broadcast
A 35 62
192.168.1.
0
/26
255.255.255.1
92
192.168.1.1
-
192.168.1.6
2
192.168.1.6
3

8NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Transport Layer
The role of the Transport layer is about accepting data from above layers, to split
them into smaller ones, send them over to Network layer and ensure all the units have arrived
in the specified order.
A key difference between TCP and UDP protocols is that TCP guarantees data
delivery to router of destination. Data delivery to destination is not guaranteed by UDP. TCP
also performs sequencing of data which is not done by UDP.
TCP protocol is appropriate for sizeable data transfers (> 1 kB) while UDP is
favourable in tunnelling or VPN based connections where tunnelled protocols deal with the
lost packets.
Application Layer
The presentation layer formats and converts data and ensures the data remains
presentable for applications throughout the network. The session layer ensures coordination
of communications among the applications. Application layer allows applications as well as
users to transfer data files across the network and throughout the internetwork.
Both DNS and DHCP operate on client-server architecture yet are very different in
the way they function (Satam et al. 2015). DNS works by mapping domain names with IP
addresses while the DHCP protocol serves in automatically assigning IPs to hosts connected
to the network.

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Small Network

10NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Above screenshot shows IPv4 addressing in serial interface.

11NETWORKING SET UP AND COMMUNICATIONS
Ping between devices of same network and different networks. Networks 192.168.10.0 and
192.168.20.0 communicate through static routing while 192.168.10.0 and 192.168.30.0
communicate with RIP routing.