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Systems Administration -- Final Examination

Due Date: Tuesday May 13, 1997 at 10:30pm

The midterm can be submitted by e-mail by midnight on Tuesday May 13, 1997.

  1. Given an IP number of a destination at a remote site, explain in detail the sequence of operations that are performed in Unix to deliver a packet to that destination. Mention routing, default routes, ethernet encapsulation etc etc. Detail the software used and the files or servers accessed?
  2. Explain in detail the sequence of events which occur when an X-term or diskless workstation boots?
  3. Explain the difference between DNS domains and IP addresses. How are each allocated administratively and in terms of what (hierarchical) structure? How is the mapping between them done?
  4. Using traceroute to determine routes, whois -h RS.INTERNIC.NET domainname to determine actual addresses, and any other utilities you wish, determine the network connectivity between Kent State University, the Ohio Academic Research Network (OARnet) and sites outside Ohio, both inside and outside the US. In particular, include uakron.edu, csuohio.edu, osc.edu, uc.edu, utexas.edu, nyu.edu, stanford.edu, csu.edu, utoronto.ca, tcd.ie, papp.undp.org, cwi.nl
    Hint: You can be reasonably sure all these sites have WWW machines, so try traceroute www.uakron.edu etc.
  5. Explain in detail the sequence of operations performed when a user at MCS in Kent sends mail to pfarrell@maths.tcd.ie
  6. What are the effects of the following lines in a sendmail.cf file?

farrell@mcs.kent.edu Tue Apr 30 02:06:52 EDT 1996