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Introduction:-
A local area network (LAN) supplies networking capability to a group of computers in close proximity to each other such as in an office building, a school, or a home. A LAN is useful for sharing resources like files, printers, games or other applications. A LAN in turn often connects to other LANs, and to the Internet or other WAN. Most local area networks are built with relatively inexpensive hardware such as Ethernet cables, network adapters, and hubs. Wireless LAN and other more advanced LAN hardware options also exist. Specialized operating system software may be used to configure a local area network. For example, most flavors of Microsoft Windows provide a software package called Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) that supports controlled access to LAN resources. The term LAN party refers to a multiplayer gaming event where participants bring their own computers and build a temporary LAN. The most common type of local area network is an Ethernet LAN. The smallest home LAN can have exactly two computers; a large LAN can accommodate many thousands of computers. Many LANs are divided into logical groups called subnets. An Internet Protocol (IP) "Class A" LAN can in theory accommodate more than 16 million devices organized into subnets.
A local area network may serve as few as two or three users (for example, in a home network) or as many as thousands of users (for example, in an FDDI network).
Major local area network technologies are:
Ethernet
Token Ring
FDDI
Ethernet is by far the most commonly used LAN technology. A number of corporations use the Token Ring technology. FDDI is sometimes used as a backbone LAN interconnecting Ethernet or Token Ring LANs. Another LAN technology, ARCNET, once the most commonly installed LAN technology, is still used in the industrial automation industry. Typically, a suite of application programs can be kept on the LAN server. Users who need an application frequently can download it once and then run it from their local hard disk. Users can order printing and other services as needed through applications run on the LAN server. A user can share files with others at the LAN server; read and write access is maintained by a LAN administrator. A LAN server may also be used as a Web server if safeguards are taken to secure internal applications and data from outside access. In some situations, a wireless LAN may be preferable to a wired LAN because it is cheaper to install and maintain.
1.1 Need for the New System:-
DHCP's purpose is to enable individual computers on an IP network to extract their configurations from a server (the 'DHCP server') or servers, in particular, servers that have no exact information about the individual computers until they request the information. The overall purpose of this is to reduce the work necessary to administer a large IP network. The most significant piece of information distributed in this manner is the IP address.
It is theoretically possible to develop software for client-machines that finds an unused address by picking them out of the blue and broadcasting a request of all the other client machines to see if they are using them. Appletalk is designed around this idea, and Apple's MacTCP can be configured to do this for IP. However, this method of IP address assignment has disadvantages.
1. A computer that needs a permanently-assigned IP number might be turned off and lose its number to a machine coming up. This has problems both for finding services and for security.
2. A network might be temporarily divided into two non-communicating networks while a network component is not functioning. During this time, two different client-machines might end up claiming the same IP number. When the network comes back, they start malfunctioning.
3. If such dynamic assignment is to be confined to ranges of IP addresses, then the ranges are configured in each desktop machine rather than being centrally administered. This can lead both to hidden configuration errors and to difficulty in changing the range. Another problem with the use of such ranges is keeping it easy to move a computer from one subnet to another.
1.2 Detailed Problem Definition:-
The purpose of the “Lan configuration using DHCP server and DNS ” is to facilitate mantainence and management of a network in an college environment. Separate record is maintained to handle all the details required for the correct statement calculation and generation.
• This project intends to introduce more user friendliness in various activities such as network updating, maintain, ip registration dynamically.
• The searching of networkhas been made quite simple as all the details of the network can be obtained by simply keying in the identification of that ip address.
• Similarly, searching and updating can also be accomplished by using the identification of the ip with all the details being automatically generated. These details are also being promptly automatically updated in the master file thus keeping the record absolutely up-to-date.
• The entire information on server has been maintained in the database and whosoever wants to retrieve can’t access; only authorized user which is administrator can retrieve the necessary information which can easily be accessible from the file.
• The main objective of the entire activity is to maintain and handle the process of day to day activities of college function like:
a) Server management,
b) Linksys router,
c) Switch configuration,
d) Dynamically allocating IP addresses,
e) Maintaining college site,
f) User friendly services,WI-FI
This project is used by three types of users
i. Network Administrator
ii. College faculty
iii. Students
Students can see the required information of their college and can download and upload the study contents. Admin can maintain the entire operations that are being taking place within the system. Admin is an authorized user. He can further change the password. There is facility for password recovery, logout etc. The project comprises of all the features that are needed for the efficient handling of the networking facilities that are required in today’s era.
1.3 Presently Available Systems for the Same
Presently when designing large or mid size network for institutions or organizations configuring ip addresses is a big headache and a large amount of time consumed in it.
Without the use of DHCP we cannot automate the ip address configuration process and it increase the time and money needed for setting of network .so for creating we use DHCP so that all the devices connected to the server after basic configuration automatically receive ip address, gateway, subnet mask etc.
So it speeds up the network process. The DNS used in the system is like the basis of any network who want have their own website and identity as we know dns resolves the name to ip and vise-versa.
1.4 Modules of the System
This system comprises of the following modules:
1.4.1 Module server configuration:
This module provides the facility of creation of a server and helps to handle the required information of the network It contains the information such as ip addresses of the network devices and maintains the website of college. It helps to collect the detailed information of the student so as to maintain the college in an efficient manner.
1.4.2 Linksys Router:
This module helps us to know how a Linksys router is established and how it is configured so that it works as the access point for Wi-Fi to work in a required manner. In this ip address and other network information for the host devices connecting to Wi-Fi is automated and we can easily access the network without much effort and get a smooth and efficient network.
1.4.3 Switch configuration :
This module helps us to configure the switch so as to maintain the network switches are used to divide the network in a manner that it is not a complex network and networking facilities are provided as and when and where they are needed. For the college environment the network use switches to provide different needs of college as different labs that have a lot of other devices in the and they need to access the network also so as the diagram describes the switches are an essential part of setting up a lan
1.4.4 Dynamically allotting IP addresses:
This module helps us to dynamically allocate the ip address to the devices that enter the network so that we don’t have to manually configure ip addresses each time a new device is added to the network
This important work of dynamically allocating ip address is done by DHCP server that is now configured in the server itself. In the server the DHCP is configured by making it know the ip classes that are available with the network either it is purchased by the college or allotted to it by the government .
1.4.5 Maintaining the college website:
In this module we create a college website on the server. For creation of college website the programmer just makes the code available to college or itself develops the website and host server that host it and with this anyone with an internet connection can access the website
The dns is also configured on the server so that the website can easily be developed and hosted by the server admin.
1.5 Future Prospects
This project can be used by any organization and some more useful modules may be added in the system for which organization is providing services. It is flexible and can be improved at any point when needed Utmost care and back-up procedures is to be established to ensure successful implementation of the Complete college networking system. In case of system failure, the organization should be in a position to process the transaction with another organization or if the worst comes, it should be in a position to complete it manually.
The need of today’s network establishment is to be competent in a GUI based front-end tool, which can connect to Relational Database engines. This gives the programmer the opportunity to develop client-server based commercial applications. These applications give users the power and ease of a GUI with the multi-user capabilities of UNIX or WinNT based RDBMS engines such as SQL server. This project has been developed using hardware devices and for simulation it uses the cisco packet tracer software provided by the cisco networking academy worldwide to students who are interested in studying networking.