Answer Description

APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing) is a Microsoft Windows feature used when a DHCP server cannot be contacted, the computer will automatically assign itself an address in the 169.254.0.0/16 range. This is known as Link-Local in IPv6.

Wikipedia

In computer networking, a link-local address is a unicast network address that is valid only for communications within the subnetwork that the host is connected to. Link-local addresses are most often assigned automatically with a process known as stateless address autoconfiguration or link-local address autoconfiguration, also known as automatic private IP addressing (APIPA) or auto-IP. Link-local addresses are not guaranteed to be unique beyond their network segment. Therefore, routers do not forward packets with link-local source or destination addresses. IPv4 link-local addresses are assigned from address block 169.254.0.0/16 (169.254.0.0 through 169.254.255.255). In IPv6, they are assigned from the block fe80::/10.: 2.4 

Answer Description

Db (Decibel) levels will decrease, causing errors and loss of data. For CAT cables, the standard maximum is 100 meters, anything beyond that will be unreliable.

Wikipedia

The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a power ratio of 101/10 (approximately 1.26) or root-power ratio of 101⁄20 (approximately 1.12).The unit expresses a relative change or an absolute value. In the latter case, the numeric value expresses the ratio of a value to a fixed reference value; when used in this way, the unit symbol is often suffixed with letter codes that indicate the reference value. For example, for the reference value of 1 volt, a common suffix is "V" (e.g., "20 dBV").Two principal types of scaling of the decibel are in common use. When expressing a power ratio, it is defined as ten times the logarithm in base 10. That is, a change in power by a factor of 10 corresponds to a 10 dB change in level. When expressing root-power quantities, a change in amplitude by a factor of 10 corresponds to a 20 dB change in level. The decibel scales differ by a factor of two, so that the related power and root-power levels change by the same value in linear systems, where power is proportional to the square of amplitude. The definition of the decibel originated in the measurement of transmission loss and power in telephony of the early 20th century in the Bell System in the United States. The bel was named

Answer Description

On WiFi networks the term roaming is used to describe the ability for multiple Wireless Access Points (WAP) on a single network to serve as one seemingly continuous access point. These points will generally share a single SSID and authentication mechanisms, allowing users to move freely without disconnecting or having to reauthenticate.

Answer Description

A switch operates at level 2 of the OSI model, and forwards network traffic based of MAC Addresses.

Wikipedia

A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A network switch is a multiport network bridge that uses MAC addresses to forward data at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model. Some switches can also forward data at the network layer (layer 3) by additionally incorporating routing functionality. Such switches are commonly known as layer-3 switches or multilayer switches.Switches for Ethernet are the most common form of network switch. The first MAC Bridge was invented in 1983 by Mark Kempf, an engineer in the Networking Advanced Development group of Digital Equipment Corporation. The first 2 port Bridge product (LANBridge 100) was introduced by that company shortly after. The company subsequently produced multi-port switches for both Ethernet and FDDI such as GigaSwitch. Digital decided to license its MAC Bridge patent in a royalty-free, non-discriminatory basis that allowed IEEE standardization. This permitted a number of other companies to produce multi-port switches, including Kalpana. Ethernet was initially a shared-access medium, but the introduction of the MAC bridge began its transformation into its most-common point-to-point form without a collision domain. Switches also exist for other types of networks including Fibre Channel, Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and InfiniBand. Unlike repeater hubs, which broadcast the same data out of each port and let the devices pick out the data addressed to them,

Answer Description

Because the router is new, it is likely that the new customer's router has not yet updated it's route table and that would be the best place to look.

Wikipedia

In computer networking, a routing table, or routing information base (RIB), is a data table stored in a router or a network host that lists the routes to particular network destinations, and in some cases, metrics (distances) associated with those routes. The routing table contains information about the topology of the network immediately around it. The construction of routing tables is the primary goal of routing protocols. Static routes are entries that are fixed, rather than resulting from routing protocols and network topology discovery procedures.

Answer Description

IPsec is used for Internet Protocol communications. This means it has to reside on the Network layer.

Wikipedia

In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network. It is used in virtual private networks (VPNs). IPsec includes protocols for establishing mutual authentication between agents at the beginning of a session and negotiation of cryptographic keys to use during the session. IPsec can protect data flows between a pair of hosts (host-to-host), between a pair of security gateways (network-to-network), or between a security gateway and a host (network-to-host). IPsec uses cryptographic security services to protect communications over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It supports network-level peer authentication, data origin authentication, data integrity, data confidentiality (encryption), and replay protection (protection from replay attacks). The initial IPv4 suite was developed with few security provisions. As a part of the IPv4 enhancement, IPsec is a layer 3 OSI model or internet layer end-to-end security scheme. In contrast, while some other Internet security systems in widespread use operate above the network layer, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) that operates above the transport layer and Secure Shell (SSH) that operates at the application layer, IPsec can automatically secure applications at the internet layer.

Answer Description

Cat 6a supports both 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps speeds.

Wikipedia

Category 6 cable (Cat 6) is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 must meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5 and Cat 5e. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 MHz for Cat 5 and Cat 5e.Whereas Category 6 cable has a reduced maximum length of 55 metres (180 ft) when used for 10GBASE-T, Category 6A cable is characterized to 500 MHz and has improved alien crosstalk characteristics, allowing 10GBASE-T to be run for the same 100-metre (330 ft) maximum distance as previous Ethernet variants.

Answer Description

TACACS+ is an open standard protocol developed by Cisco that is used to authenticate users across a network.

Wikipedia

Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System (TACACS, ) refers to a family of related protocols handling remote authentication and related services for network access control through a centralized server. The original TACACS protocol, which dates back to 1984, was used for communicating with an authentication server, common in older UNIX networks including but not limited to the ARPANET, MILNET and BBNNET. It spawned related protocols: Extended TACACS (XTACACS) is a proprietary extension to TACACS introduced by Cisco Systems in 1990 without backwards compatibility to the original protocol. TACACS and XTACACS both allow a remote access server to communicate with an authentication server in order to determine if the user has access to the network. TACACS Plus (TACACS+) is a protocol developed by Cisco and released as an open standard beginning in 1993. Although derived from TACACS, TACACS+ is a separate protocol that handles authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) services. TACACS+ has largely replaced its predecessors.

Answer Description

Nbtstat will query the network for hostnames, while nslookup queries for domain name to IP. Nbtstat is often found only on 64 bit (not 32 bit) Windows Operating Systems.

Wikipedia

NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT, or sometimes NetBT) is a networking protocol that allows legacy computer applications relying on the NetBIOS API to be used on modern TCP/IP networks NetBIOS was developed in the early 1980s, targeting very small networks (about a dozen computers) Some applications still use NetBIOS, and do not scale well in today's networks of hundreds of computers when NetBIOS is run over NBF When properly configured, NBT allows those applications to be run on large TCP/IP networks (including the whole Internet, although that is likely to be subject to security problems) without change NBT is defined by the RFC 1001 and RFC 1002 standard documents

Answer Description

Layer 3, the network layer, is the OSI model layer that uses logical (IP) addressing.

Wikipedia

In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, the network layer is layer 3. The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers.

Answer Description

ifconfig can be used to display or modify all network interfances on Linux. Ipconfig is used for Windows systems.

Answer Description

CAT cables have a distance of 100 meters, after that the signal will diminish and cause errors. Routers, Switches, and other network devices amplify signals, and are required for CAT cables to extend long distances.

Wikipedia

Category 5 cable (Cat 5) is a twisted pair cable for computer networks. Since 2001, the variant commonly in use is the Category 5e specification (Cat 5e). The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for most varieties of Ethernet over twisted pair up to 2.5GBASE-T but more commonly runs at 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet) speeds. Cat 5 is also used to carry other signals such as telephone and video. This cable is commonly connected using punch-down blocks and modular connectors. Most Category 5 cables are unshielded, relying on the balanced line twisted pair design and differential signaling for noise rejection.

Answer Description

A smart jack is a Network Interface Device (NID) placed between two networks to provide diagnostic data. Typically used by Internet Service Providers (ISP) to help troubleshoot issues on a customer's network.

Wikipedia

In telecommunications, a network interface device (NID; also known by several other names) is a device that serves as the demarcation point between the carrier's local loop and the customer's premises wiring. Outdoor telephone NIDs also provide the subscriber with access to the station wiring and serve as a convenient test point for verification of loop integrity and of the subscriber's inside wiring.

Answer Description

Netstat is a Windows command line tool that will show you all current TCP/IP connections. IPCONFIG will show you you're current TCP/IP configuration, not connections.

Wikipedia

In computing, netstat (network statistics) is a command-line network utility that displays network connections for Transmission Control Protocol (both incoming and outgoing), routing tables, and a number of network interface (network interface controller or software-defined network interface) and network protocol statistics. It is available on Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems including macOS, Linux, Solaris and BSD. It is also available on IBM OS/2 and on Microsoft Windows NT-based operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. It is used for finding problems in the network and to determine the amount of traffic on the network as a performance measurement. On Linux this program is mostly obsolete, although still included in many distributions. On Linux, netstat (part of "net-tools") is superseded by ss (part of iproute2). The replacement for netstat -r is ip route, the replacement for netstat -i is ip -s link, and the replacement for netstat -g is ip maddr, all of which are recommended instead.

Answer Description

These are applications hosted over the internet so the user does not have to download them. An example is Google Apps, where you can access something similar to Microsoft Word or Excel, without having to download anything.

Wikipedia

Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.SaaS is considered to be part of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a service (DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), data center as a service (DCaaS), integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).SaaS apps are typically accessed by users of a web browser (a thin client). SaaS became a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, field service management, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), geographic information systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all enterprise software companies.

Answer Description

The switch "-n" will tell Windows to ping a host a certain amount of times. For example, ping google.com -n 10, will ping google.com 10 times.

Wikipedia

ping is a computer network administration software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It is available for virtually all operating systems that have networking capability, including most embedded network administration software. Ping measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer that are echoed back to the source. The name comes from active sonar terminology that sends a pulse of sound and listens for the echo to detect objects under water.Ping operates by means of Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets. Pinging involves sending an ICMP echo request to the target host and waiting for an ICMP echo reply. The program reports errors, packet loss, and a statistical summary of the results, typically including the minimum, maximum, the mean round-trip times, and standard deviation of the mean. The command-line options of the ping utility and its output vary between the numerous implementations. Options may include the size of the payload, count of tests, limits for the number of network hops (TTL) that probes traverse, interval between the requests and time to wait for a response. Many systems provide a companion utility ping6, for testing on Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) networks, which implement ICMPv6.

Answer Description

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) dynamically assigns IP addresses to network devices.

Wikipedia

The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a client–server architecture.The technology eliminates the need for individually configuring network devices manually, and consists of two network components, a centrally installed network DHCP server and client instances of the protocol stack on each computer or device. When connected to the network, and periodically thereafter, a client requests a set of parameters from the server using DHCP. DHCP can be implemented on networks ranging in size from residential networks to large campus networks and regional ISP networks. Many routers and residential gateways have DHCP server capability. Most residential network routers receive a unique IP address within the ISP network. Within a local network, a DHCP server assigns a local IP address to each device. DHCP services exist for networks running Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), as well as version 6 (IPv6). The IPv6 version of the DHCP protocol is commonly called DHCPv6.

Answer Description

Windows remote desktop uses RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) which uses port 3389 as it's default port.

Wikipedia

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose, while the other computer must run RDP server software. Clients exist for most versions of Microsoft Windows (including Windows Mobile), Linux (for example Remmina), Unix, macOS, iOS, Android, and other operating systems. RDP servers are built into Windows operating systems; an RDP server for Unix and OS X also exists (for example xrdp). By default, the server listens on TCP port 3389 and UDP port 3389.Microsoft currently refers to their official RDP client software as Remote Desktop Connection, formerly "Terminal Services Client". The protocol is an extension of the ITU-T T.128 application sharing protocol. Microsoft makes some specifications public on their website.

Answer Description

Arp (Address Resolution Protocol) queries a network to find the MAC Address for an IP Address. The Windows command to use ARP is easy, it's just 'arp'!

Wikipedia

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a communication protocol used for discovering the link layer address, such as a MAC address, associated with a given internet layer address, typically an IPv4 address. This mapping is a critical function in the Internet protocol suite. ARP was defined in 1982 by RFC 826, which is Internet Standard STD 37. ARP has been implemented with many combinations of network and data link layer technologies, such as IPv4, Chaosnet, DECnet and Xerox PARC Universal Packet (PUP) using IEEE 802 standards, FDDI, X.25, Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). In Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) networks, the functionality of ARP is provided by the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP).

Answer Description

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is used to have a secure connection over a public network.

Wikipedia

A virtual private network (VPN) is a mechanism for creating a secure connection between a computing device and a computer network, or between two networks, using an insecure communication medium such as the public Internet. A VPN can extend a private network (one that disallows or restricts public access), enabling users to send and receive data across public networks as if their devices were directly connected to the private network. The benefits of a VPN include security, reduced costs for dedicated communication lines, and greater flexibility for remote workers. VPNs are also used to bypass internet censorship. Encryption is common, although not an inherent part of a VPN connection.A VPN is created by establishing a virtual point-to-point connection through the use of tunneling protocols over existing networks. A VPN available from the public Internet can provide some of the benefits of a wide area network (WAN). From a user perspective, the resources available within the private network can be accessed remotely.