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EyeOS | Jenzabar | Library | Moodle | Perseus | TuxedoMail | Wiki | WWW
Home | About | Academics | Administration | College Centers | News | Student Services | Webdesigners
Brett Bump, Network Systems Administrator, Blog, HomePage, Phone
The Network Systems Administrator is responsible for the design and operation of the Oglala Lakota College (hereinafter referenced as OLC) Wide Area Network (hereinafter referenced as WAN). The WAN is composed of twelve (12) Intranet Local Area Networks (LANs) and three (3) Internet LANs. The Network Administrator is also responsible for the design and operation of the Internet Network Servers that carry all of the OLC content to and from the Internet. These servers include (but are not limited to), DNS, Email, Firewalls, Academic Content Servers (Currently Moodle), Proxy Caching, and the World Wide Web. The task of creating and managing academic content requires the Network Systems Administrator to work closely with all academic departments.
A Brief History
--------------------
When I inherited the OLC Network 8 years ago, it was a tangled mess of 5 disparate network topologies which
could barely talk to the Internet, let alone with each other. If you were to reboot a computer, you had no
idea if you were going to get a dhcp address that was on the inside of the network, an Internet address, or
if you would have more luck communicating using a string and 2 paper cups. Compounding these problems were
the interruptions in electrical services which still sometimes plagues us today. It was obvious that nobody
had ever designed a network for the college and I was told the router configurations were setup by someone's
friends they knew in Arizona, some years back.
The first thing to do was to design a simple and efficient network topology for the college that would give each college center access to the administrative center as well as firewall access to the Internet. This is accomplished via redundant Internet pipes which can balance the load between the 2 networks, or give all users access to 1 pipe should the other network fail. This was a major concern of mine as the very first month I was consulting for the college, the BIA network was disabled at the federal level and the college was without stable Internet or any email access for over 2 weeks, even though it had another Internet pipe.
The OLC WAN
--------------------
The OLC WAN I designed for the college is the traditional hub and spoke topology that is common in many
commercial organizations around the world. I have used this design for over a decade with many commercial
organizations in Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. For most of those
financial organizations I prefer to design the network as a fully meshed frame relay network, as financial
WAN networks will typically need the redundancy to communicate with branch offices in case the hub network
fails. This is not the case with an educational network and as such, when the hub at Piya Wiconi suffers
from an electrical problem, the entire network will suffer as a well.
Routing is accomplished between the intranet LANs via CIDR RIP2, using the 10/8 subnet designation as described in the RFC1918 IETF standard. The decision to run RIP2 over more advanced network protocols was based on the small size of this network, compatibility with Open Source platforms, and the ability for Information Technology students to use simple network analysis techniques to monitor and learn networking protocols:
/-------------\ /---------\
(10.2.4/24)-| Pejuta Haka |--+ +--| He Sapa |-(10.2.5/24)
\-------------/ | | \---------/
| |
/---------\ | | /--------\
(10.2.3/24)-| Nursing | | | | Oglala |-(10.2.6/24)
\---------/ | | \--------/
\ | | /
/------------\ \ | | / /--------------\
(10.2.2/24)-| Pine Ridge |--- \ | | / ---| Wounded Knee |-(10.2.7/24)
\------------/ \ \ | | / / \--------------/
\ \ | | / /
/-------------\ /-------------\ /--------------\ /-HSpr:
BIA:-| BIA Network |~~~~~~| Piya Wiconi |~~~~~~| GWTC Network |-
\-------------/ \------+------/ \--------------/ \-SkyL:
/ / ||| \ \
/------------\ / / ||| \ \ /-------------\
(10.2.13/24)-| Cheyenne_R |--- / ||| \ ---| Pahin Sinte |-(10.2.8/24)
\------------/ / ||| \ \-------------/
/ ||| \
/---------------\ ||| /------------\
(10.2.12/24)-| East Wakpamni | ||| | Eagle Nest |-(10.2.9/24)
\---------------/ ||| \------------/
|||
/------------\ ||| /---------\
(10.2.11/24)-| Pass Creek |--/|\--| LaCreek |-(10.2.10/24)
\------------/ | \---------/
|
(10.1/16)
BIA Network Pool: 169.203.118/24
GWTC Network HSpr: 64.251.167.224/29
GWTC Network SkyL: 208.34.9.224/28
OLC Email
--------------------
The OLC email server is a sendmail based system that uses procmail recipes for email filtering, as well as
clamav for virus and phishing detection. The system supports roughly 5000 user accounts consisting of about
200 full time staff, 150 adjunct staff, 4500 students and 150 employees that work for the headstart program
under OLC management. There are currently four (4) Open Source email webclient software packages installed
that users can access from the web, as well as imap and pop3 for email client applications:
The mail server also supports an individual blogging system for every email account on the server. The Open Source php blogging system that is installed is pppBLOG. Further information about the OLC email system can be derived by reading the email FAQ, located on the Technical Support Services web page.
OLC World Wide Web
--------------------
The OLC web server is an apache based system utilizing PHP for web development. The system supports roughly
50 web designer accounts, that create all of the content contained on this server. The goal for all OLC web
designers is to create and maintain web pages that follow W3C compliance when ever possible. Further
information about the OLC web system can be derived by reading the web FAQ, located on the Technical Support
Services web page.
