Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Assignment 5

"The use of social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter are rapidly being utilized by companies. Research two organizations that are using Facebook and Twitter. Why are they using these services?  How are they using them? Who is their audience? How do they manage relationships? Are there any strategies in place for their use? Develop a report of how two companies use social media.  Use examples and/or references to support your position. Post your report your blog for others to read and comment. Read other student blog posts and make comments to continue the discussion."


Walmart
Gamestop
Both
Why are they using these services?
-
-
To advertise while receiving feedback from their customers.
How are they using them?
To try to prove they are good. (improve image)
To  inform people of release dates and sales

Who is their audience?
Any shopper
Gamers/ parents to buy games for kids.
People with $
How do they manage relationships?


Customer service team/feedback from customers
Are there any strategies for their use?
Using old black and white photos to make them seem like an old all-American company.
Telling customers when the games they want are going t be out and when sales are.
Communicate sales events.

companies use social media tools to advertise sales and interact with their customers. Walmart seems to be trying to improve it's tarnished image by trying to look old-fashioned. As a person who has worked in manufacturing, I'm not fooled. I have heard the stories of how walmart truly gets its low prices direct from supervisors who worked with them. They call up and tell the product manufacturers how much they are going to pay. The manufacturers have to make the product cheaper to make any profit on making the product. This all leads to a cheap product and recalls. 

Summery: It's all advertising. All the advertising in the world doesn't change the facts.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Configuring a Router as a PPPoE Client for DSL Connectivity



Cabling the topology:

1 straight-through cable connecting switch to switch
2 crossover cables between the switches and routers

The basic settings:

Disable DNS lookup "no ip domain-lookup"
Set hostnames "hostname (name)"
encrypt passwords "service password-encryption"
Create a MOTD banner saying "unauthorized access is prohibited"  "banner motd # Unauthorized Access is Prohibited!#"
create passwords for EXEC mode, console, and vty. Then enable login.
set logging synchronous "line con 0" "logging synchronous"
save config "copy running-config startup-config"

I have my routers preconfigured and saved with these settings (minus the passwords) so I typically skip this part. I do set the hostnames to avoid confusion. 

Configuring the ISP router

In global config mode enter the command " username Cust1 password ciscopppoe". This creates a database entry for Cust1 with a password of ciscopppoe. This will allow the Cust1 router to connect with the ISP router using that password later. 

The ISP needs a pool of addresses to hand out to it's DSL customers. Using the command "ip local pool PPPoEPOOL 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.10" creates a range of addresses from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.2 to hand out over PPPoE.

Next we are going to make a Virtual template and connect the F0/1 interface with it. This is done with these commands:
interface virtual-template 1
Creates the Virtual template
ip address 10.0.0.254 255.255.255.0
Assigns it the ip 10.0.0.254/24
mtu 1492
Sets the mtu size to 1492B
peer default ip address pool PPPoEPOOL
Assigns the previously created pool of ip addresses "PPPoEPOOL" to this template
ppp authentication chap callin
Sets the requirement to authenticate using chap to establish a connection.

Now to associate the template to the PPPoE group
bba-group pppoe global
Creates a bba (broadband aggregation) group for PPPoE
virtual-template 1
Assigns virtual-template 1 to the bba group.

Finally link the PPPoE group to the actual f0/1 interface
int f0/1
Moves to int f0/1
pppoe enable group global
Connects the PPPoE group to the interface
no shut
Activates the interface

Configuring the Cust1 router

First configure the f0/1 interface to use PPPoE
int f0/1
Moves to int f0/1
pppoe enable
Enables PPPoE on the interface
pppoe-client dial-pool-number 1
Tells the router is the client and assigns it the dial pool number of 1. The dial pool number corresponds with the dialer interface that will be created next. The dialer and the number assigned here must match to work.

Creating the interface dialer.
int dialer 1
Moves to and creates the dialer interface
mtu 1492
Sets the mtu size to 1492B
ip address negotiated
Tells the interface that the address will be negotiated
encapsulation ppp
Sets the encapsulation to ppp
dialer pool 1
Connects the dialer pool and int f0/1 to the dialer
ppp authentication chap callin
Sets the authentication encryption to chap
ppp chap hostname Cust1
Sets the chap hostname to be used as "Cust1"
ppp chap password ciscopppoe
Sets the chap password to "ciscopppoe"

Set the static default route pointing to dialer 1 and enable some debugging.
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 dialer 1
Sets the static default route to dialer 1
exit
Moves back to privileged mode
debug ppp authentication
Shows PPP events
debug pppoe events
Shows PPPoE events

Lastly enable interface f0/1 with the "no shut" command

To confirm PPPoE is working use "show pppoe session" and "ping 10.0.0.254". there should be an entry in the session table and ping should be successful.




Reflection


Why do ISPs who use DSL, primarily use PPPoE with their customers?


PPPoE allows easy separation of DSL subscribers connections. The means one subscriber cannot see the traffic of another subscriber. PPPoE also allows the ISP to easily track usage by a subscriber. ISP can use deep packet inspection to analyze traffic and limit users connections.