Computer Networks

In this assignment you will use the skills learned from the networking lectures and readings.

For this assignment, you will place all answers and screenshots in a Google Document. The steps below will tell you what to put in the assignment document.

1. Get Computer's Network Parameters.
   
   1. Provide the following information for the computer that you are working on:
      • IP address
      • Gateway IP address
      • DNS server IP address
      • MAC (physical) address
   2. For each of the four addresses from part 1A, write a sentence or two stating what the address is and why it is important.
   3. Place a screenshot of the window that displays the addresses in your document.
   
   Windows: The Networks lab lecture demonstrates how to get this information on a Windows computer.
   Mac: View this tutorial on How to find Network Info on a Mac (or this tutorial for Mac OS Lion).
   Chromebook: Follow these instructions on How to View Network Properties *Note that the MAC address is reported at SISID



2. Domain Name Lookup. Follow the instructions from the associated video lecture to perform a WhoIs lookup on networksolutions.com. The information for the following questions will come from the domain yourname.com where yourname is your first name or your last name (e.g. george.com or washington.com) If yourname.com is not registered or does not have a live web server, try a variation of your first and/or last name until you find one that is registered and has a web server.
   
   
   1. Provide the owner of yourname.com Note: You can list either the "Registrant" or the "Administrative Contact" as the owner. "Registrant" lists the company that owns the domain, and "Administrative Contact" lists an actual individual who is part of the company. The "Registrar" is the service that provided the domain name, such as Network Solutions LLC or GoDaddy.com, etc.
   2. Provide the mailing address of yourname.com
   3. Provide the expiration date of yourname.com
   4. Provide the IP address of yourname.com
      Note: If the IP addres is not provided in the WhoIs lookup results, try finding it at http://whatismyipaddress.com/hostname-ip
   5. Place a screenshot in your assignment document showing the WhoIS lookup for yourname.com.
   
   
   
3. Create a Web Page using cPanel's File Manager. Upon registering for this course, a hosting account has been created for each student. The hosting account gives each student access to their own web space on a remote server. This is where you will ultimately host the website that you will create for your Computing Innovations project. You will use cPanel's File Manager to access your web space and create your web page.
   
   
   1. Access your cPanel Account. "cPanel" is a control panel that provides a graphical user interface to help you create and host your website. You will need to login to your cPanel account before getting started, by following the Accessing cPanel Tutorial.
      
      Provide your Domain Name, Username, and Password in your assignment document.
   
   
   2. Access cPanel's File Manager. Once you have logged into your cPanel account, under the "Files" heading, choose the "File Manager" icon.
      
   
   
   3. Create a Basic Web Page. Follow the Basic Web Page Tutorial to create an HTML web page using cPanel's File Manager. The tutorial will instruct you on how to create a new file, what to name your web page file, how to create some simple web page content, and how to save your file. Be sure to follow the tutorial carefully.
   
   
   4. Provide the URL to your web page in your assignment document.



4. Network Trace. Perform a trace of sending a packet to the web page's hosting server that you used in the Domain Name Lookup from step 2 above (i.e. yourname.com).
   • Go to http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert/
   • On this web page, choose to do a proxy trace on yourname.com where yourname is replaced with your own name. This sends a packet from your computer to the server at yougetsignal.com, which then sends it to the server you enter in the box labeled Remote Address.
   • The trace may take up to a minute to show on the map.
   • Answer the following questions in your assignment document:
     1. Place a screenshot of the trace map in your document.
     2. How many hops did it take?
     3. What is the first IP address that you can find that it hopped to? This is found by clicking the listed hops, in order, until one shows an IP address.
     4. Place a screenshot in your assignment document showing the number of hops and the IP address bubble that resulted from you clicking the hop that had the first IP address.
     5. How long did it take to go from your computer to your server (via the yougetsignal server)? This is found by clicking the last hop in the list (if unknown see below). The time is usually displayed in ms - which is miliseconds (thousandths of a second). Note that the time is not the time shown for how long it took to display the map (which is located at the top, usually 20-60 seconds).
        Note for Unknown as last hop: Sometimes the trace's last hop is "unknown". If this is the case for you, answer this question by stating that it it unknown so you could not determine the time. Also state how you would have found the time if the last hop was identified.
     6. Place a screenshot in your assignment document showing the time from question 4.e. If time is "unknown", provide a screenshot showing the last hop as "unknown".



5. Trace an email back to its original sender. For this part of the assignment you will receive an email from the instructor with the subject "Networks Trace Email" (note: if you do not receive the email at least two days before the due date, email your instructor).
   
   Complete the following steps:
   • Log into your email.
     Note: You must access the trace email by logging directly into your email account; if your email is forwarded to another account, and you trace the email from the other account, you may not get the correct IP address.
     
   • Open the message from the instructor.
   • Click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message pane.
   • Select Show original.
   • The full headers will appear in a new window.
   • Take a screen shot of the expanded header. Place the screenshot in your assignment document.
   • With the email still open, find the location from where the email was sent. In order to find the location, copy the IP address of the sender as demonstrated in the video lecture (and shown in the image below) and insert it at http://geobytes.com/iplocator.htm.
     
   • Answer the following questions:
     1. What IP address did you search for?
     2. What city was the email sent from?
     3. What is the latitude and longitude of the location?