Host management

• Host
• Servers and nodes
• Workstation
• Protocols
• Client-server environment
• Network OS
• Network services

07/07/2022 1
 Host
• A network host is a computer or other device connected to a computer network.
• A host may work as a server offering information resources, services, and applications to users
or other hosts on the network.
• Hosts are assigned at least one network address.
• A computer participating in networks that use the Internet protocol suite may also be called
an IP host.
• Specifically, computers participating in the Internet are called Internet hosts,
sometimes Internet nodes.
• Internet hosts and other IP hosts have one or more IP addresses assigned to their network
interfaces.
• The addresses are configured either manually by an administrator, automatically at startup by
means of the  DHCP, or by stateless address autoconfiguration methods.
• Network hosts that participate in applications that use the client-server model of computing, are
classified as server or client systems.
• Network hosts may also function as nodes in peer-to-peer applications, in which all nodes share
and consume resources in an equipotent manner.
07/07/2022 2
 Servers and nodes
• All servers are hosts, but not all hosts are servers.
• Any device that has established a connection to a network qualifies as
a host, whereas only hosts that accept connections from other devices
(clients) qualify as servers.
• Every network host is a network node, but not every network node is a
host. 
• Networking hardware such as modems, hubs and network switches are
not necessarily assigned network addresses (except sometimes for
administrative purposes), and consequently may not be considered to
be network hosts.

07/07/2022 3
Workstations
A workstation is a client computer that is used to run applications and is
connected to a server from which it obtains data shared with other computers.

4
Servers: Connecting Computer Systems

5
Network Server Environment

6
Client/Server Environment

7
Server Farm

8
Client-Server Interaction

9
Network Operating Systems

10
TCP/IP Based Services

11
Service Applications and Protocols

• Network services are the foundation of a networked computing environment.

• Generally network services are installed on one or more servers to provide shared
resources to client computers.

07/07/2022 12
A system for converting host names and domain names into IP addresses on the
Internet or on local networks that use the TCP/IP protocol.
for example, when a Web site address is given to
the DNS either by typing a URL in a browser or behind the scenes from one application
to another, DNS servers return the IP address of the server associated with that name.

.
 DNS = Hierarchy of Servers

07/07/2022 14
 DNS Cache
• Because of the large volume of requests generated in the DNS for the public
Internet, the designers wished to provide a mechanism to reduce the load on
individual DNS servers.
• To this end, the DNS resolution process allows for caching of records for a
period of time after an answer.
• This entails the local recording and subsequent consultation of the copy instead
of initiating a new request upstream.
• The time for which a resolver caches a DNS response is determined by a value
called the Time to Live(TTL) associated with every record.
• The TTL is set by the administrator of the DNS server handing out the
authoritative response.
• The period of validity may vary from just seconds to days or even weeks.

07/07/2022 15
07/07/2022 16
07/07/2022 17
DNS ZONES
Forward zone
• Contains mapping between the Host name and Ip address.
• Contains a type resource records that can point out an Ip address for a given host
name.
Reverse zone
• Contains mapping that relates the Ip address to host name
• Contains a PTR records that can point out a host name for the given Ip address.
Local Host
• To supply local clients with host record responses that do not exist in upstream
DNS server.
07/07/2022 18
(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
A function in software that automatically
assigns temporary IP addresses to client
machines logging into an IP network.
Residing in the router or a server, DHCP
eliminates the need to manually assign
permanent "static" IP addresses to devices.
In a home network, the DHCP is typically in
the wireless router or wired router.
07/07/2022 20
• DHCP discovery:
The client broadcasts messages (UDP) on the physical subnet to discover available DHCP servers

• DHCP offer:
 When a DHCP server receives an IP lease request from a client, it reserves an IP address for the client and
extends an IP lease offer by sending a DHCPOFFER message to the client.
 This message contains the client's MAC address, the IP address that the server is offering, the subnet mask,
the lease duration, and the IP address of the DHCP server making the offer.

• DHCP request:
 A client can receive DHCP offers from multiple servers, but it will accept only one DHCP offer and
broadcast a DHCP request message. Based on the Transaction ID field in the request, servers are informed
whose offer the client has accepted. When other DHCP servers receive this message, they withdraw any
offers that they might have made to the client and return the offered address to the pool of available
addresses.
 The DHCP request message is broadcast, instead of being unicast to a particular DHCP server, because the
DHCP client has still not received an IP address.
07/07/2022 21
• DHCP acknowledgement:
 When the DHCP server receives the DHCPREQUEST message from the client, the
configuration process enters its final phase.
 The acknowledgement phase involves sending a DHCPACK packet to the client. This
packet includes the lease duration and any other configuration information that the
client might have requested. At this point, the IP configuration process is completed.
• DHCP releasing:
 The client sends a request to the DHCP server to release the DHCP information and the client
deactivates its IP address.
 As client devices usually do not know when users may unplug them from the network, the
protocol does not mandate the sending of DHCP Release.

07/07/2022 22
 File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network
protocol used to copy a file from one host to
another over a TCP/IP -based network, such as the
Internet . FTP is built on a client-server architecture
and utilizes separate control and data
connections between the client and server
applications, which solves the problem of
different end host configurations (i.e., Operating
System, file names).
FTP is used with user-based password
authentication or with anonymous user access.
A client makes a connection to the server on TCP
port 21. This connection, called the control
connection, remains open for the duration of the
session.
second connection, called the data connection, on
port 20 opened as required to transfer file data.
The control connection is used to send administrative
data (i.e., commands, identification, passwords).
Commands are sent by the client over the control
connection in ASCII and terminated by a carriage return
and line feed.
 The standard e-mail protocol on the Internet
and part of the TCP/IP protocol suite.
SMTP defines the message format and the
message transfer agent (MTA), which stores
and forwards the mail. SMTP was originally
designed for only plain text (ASCII text), but
MIME and other encoding methods enable
executable programs and multimedia files to
be attached to and transported with the e-
mail message.
 A widely used network monitoring and control
protocol. Data are passed from SNMP agents,
which are hardware and/or software processes
reporting activity in each network device (hub,
router, bridge, etc.) to the workstation console
used to oversee the network.

The agents return information contained in a MIB

(Management Information Base), which is a data
structure that defines what is obtainable from the
device and what can be controlled (turned off,
on, etc.). Originating in the Unix community, SNMP
has become widely used on all major platforms.
 Proxy
Proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application
program) that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking
resources from other servers.
A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file,
connection, web page, or other resource, available from a different server.
The proxy server evaluates the request according to its filtering rules. For
example, it may filter traffic by IP address or protocol.

If the request is validated by the filter, the proxy provides the resource by connecting to the
relevant server and requesting the service on behalf of the client.
A proxy server may optionally alter the client's request or the server's response, and sometimes it
may serve the request without contacting the specified server. In this case, it 'caches’ responses
from the remote server, and returns subsequent requests for the same content directly.

07/07/2022 28
A proxy server has a large variety of potential purposes,
including:

To keep machines behind it anonymous (mainly for

security
Tospeed up access to resources (using caching). Web
proxies are commonly used to cache web pages from a
web server.
To apply access policy to network services or content, e.g.
to block undesired sites.
To log / audit usage, i.e. to provide company employee
Internet usage reporting.
To bypass security/ parental controls.
To scan transmitted content for malware before delivery.
To scan outbound content, e.g., for data leak protection.
To circumvent regional restrictions.
 Transparent and non-transparent proxy
server
Suffix proxy
Reverse proxy server
Open proxy server
Tunneling proxy server
Content filter
Web Proxy
 The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW
and commonly known as the Web, is a
system of interlinked hypertext documents
accessed via the Internet . With a web
browser , one can view web pages that
may contain text , images , videos , and
other multimedia and navigate between
them by using hyperlinks .
 A web hosting
A web hosting service is a type of Internet Hosting service that allows individuals and
organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web server they own or
lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center
Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do
not own to be located in their data center, called colocation

07/07/2022 32
VirtualHosting
Collection of several web sites on a single
web server.

Virtually identified.
An active directory is a directory structure used
on Microsoft Windows based computers and
servers to store information and data about
networks and domains. It is primarily used for
online information and was originally created
in 1996. It was first used with Windows 2000.
An active directory (sometimes referred to as
an AD) does a variety of functions including
the ability to provide information on objects,
helps organize these objects for easy retrieval
and access, allows access by end users and
administrators and allows the administrator to
set security up for the directory.
A Microsoft active directory, in simple terms, is like a giant
telephone book that organizes within it all of the
computers and people that have been entered into it. In
our case our active directory is called ADS (for Active
Directory Service). Unlike a telephone book however ADS
is not sorted alphabetically, but rather like the yellow
pages by category, in our case by department. This allows
us to mimic the universities administrative structure for
Academic Support departments.
Administrators use an active directory to apply policies to
objects (computers and users), put people into security
groups (to allow and deny access to resources), and to
better keep track of things in groups (called
Organizational Units). Clients can make use of an active
directory to look up names, phone numbers and any
number of other attributes allowed by administrators.
 Objects Everything that Active Directory tracks is considered an object
is any user, system, computer, resource, or service tracked within Active
Directory. The generic term object is used because Active Directory is capable
of tracking a .variety of items, and many objects can share common attributes.

Sites A Site object in Active Directory represents a geographic

location in that hosts networks. Sites contain objects called
Subnets Sites can be used to assign Group Policy Objects
facilitate the discovery of resources, manage active
directory replication, and manage network link traffic.
Forests, trees, and domains A forest is a collection of Trees; Trees are a collection of
one or more Domains.