Network Management and NOC Workshop
APRICOT 2008
 
Venue: Howard Hotel
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Dates: February 20-24, 2008 (Wed-Sun)
 
Instructors: Hervey Allen (HA): NSRC
Phil Regnauld (PR): NSRC / catpipe ApS
 

This workshop was organized by the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT) and the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC).

Each session is 90 minutes in length. There is a daily lunch break between sessions 2 and 3.

WED TOPICS GOALS
Session 1 Welcome and logistics (HA/PR)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint]
General Network Management and Planning Principles (PR)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint] 		Introduce insructors and attendees introduce themselves. Discuss the overall concepts of Network Management including:
  • What is network operations and management?
  • Why network management?
  • The Network Operation Center
  • Network monitoring systems and tools
  • Statistics and accounting tools
  • Fault/problem management
  • Ticket systems
  • Configuration management & monitoring
  • The big picture...
Session 2 Ubuntu Overview: What's Different (HA)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint] 		Discuss differences in Ubuntu/Debian philosophy and describe core functionality such as:
  • Package system
  • Package repositories
  • Naming conventions
  • Services starting & stoping
Session 3 OS Overview cont. (HA) Install and configure Ubuntu server 7.10 for the remainder of the workshop. Familarize attendees with Ubuntu through OS setup and multiple exercises.
Session 4 Cisco Configuration Elements (PR)
      [OpenOffice | PDF | PowerPoint] 		Basic Cisco router configuration for proper network management. Applies to other manufacturers, servers and workstations.
THUR TOPICS GOALS
Session 1 SNMP and other Network Management Protocols (PR) Over two sessions the following topics will be covered:
  • What is SNMP?
  • OIDs
  • MIBs
  • Polling and querying
  • Traps
Session 2 SNMP and other Network Management Protocols (PR)
Session 3 Configuration Management and Change Controls (CVS) (PR) CVS (Concurrent Versions System). We'll discuss and do some of the following:
  • Version control systems
  • CVS principles and commands
  • Set up and access a CVS repository
  • Import a project
  • Big picture, including mail notification, cvsweb and lists
Session 4 Rancid (router/switch config management) (PR) RANCID - (Really Awesome New Cisco confIg Differ). Install and use RANCID to monitor router configuration changes.
FRI TOPICS GOALS
Session 1 MRTG and RRDTool (PR) Discuss the Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG):
  • Use of SNMP
  • External MRTG readers
  • What MRTG can graph
  • Disk space issues
  • Install and unning MRTG
Session 2 MRTG and RRDTool cont. (PR) Discuss the Round Robin Database Tool (RRDTool), including:
  • Command-line based
  • Faster and more flexible than MRTG
  • Solving issue of historical trends and interface problems
  • Installing and running RRDTool
Session 3 Cacti and Smokeping (HA) Present the basic differences between Cacti and Smokeping, then install both programs and configure them for our environment.

If there is time we will do additional configuration of both programs.

Session 4 Ticket Management with trac (HA) Describe what trac is, then do a complex install of trac allowing for:
  • Multiple trac environment configuration.
  • Authentication via trac not Apache.
  • trac user admin via web interface.
  • write-protected for anonymous users.
  • Ability to add subversion later.
  • Aztech calendar plug-in.
SAT TOPICS GOALS
Session 1 Netflow (PR) Items to be covered include:
  • What it is and how it works
  • Uses and applications
  • Vendor configurations/Implementation
    • Cisco and Juniper
  • Flow-tools:
    • Architectual issues
    • Software, tools, etc.
  • Lab demonstration
Session 2 NFSen (Netflow) (PR) NFSen (Netflow Sensor). A graphical web based front end for nfdump netflow tools. We'll install and use NFSen in this lab.
Session 3 Log management and monitoring (Swatch) (PR) In this session we'll give a general overview of log monitoring, why it's important, what to monitor and two commonly used tools - Swatch and syslog-ng.
Session 4 Nagios (HA) Describe what Nagios does including:
  • Detailed examples
  • Install and configure Nagios to monitor the classroom
  • Configure the Nagios display tree
SUN TOPICS GOALS
Session 2 Nagios cont. (HA) Continue with install exercises and work on more advanced configurations, including sending email alerts to specific users for specific events.
Session 2 Scripting Session (HA) Go through a detailed discussion of creating a bash script to extend Nagios. This includes:
  • How a script runs
  • Variables and command line
  • Basic script flow control concepts
  • Exit levels as passed to Nagios
Session 3 Scripting cont. (HA)
  • Bash/Nagios Lab cont. [HTML]
Complete the Bash/Nagios lab. There are three major sections:
  1. Create a Nagios Plug-in
  2. Set Up Nagios Notification for our New Plug-in
  3. Extend our plug-in to work for any number of hosts
Session 4 End of Workshop Summarize what we have covered during the week. Allow attendees to ask questions. Fill out an evaluation form. Take a class picture.

 

Last modified: Tue Mar 4 08:54:08 CLST 2008