TIA/EIA 568 Standard: Structured Cabling Specification

Here are the basic elements of a network with summarized recommendations from structured cabling specification 568.

Building Entrance Requirements
These are the specifications for the point at which the cabling enters a building.  These include the type of surge protecting device and the placement of the cabling used to connect in between wiring.

 Equipment Room
This is the existing telecommunications closet. It is the area where communication racks,cables, hardware devices (patch panels, switches, routers, etc.) are located.

It is recommended that the equipment room is located in the middle of the office space. This is to achieve approximately equal length of cables running from the equipment room to work areas and to ensure reliable transmission of data.

Backbone Cabling
It is the cabling between floors and equipment rooms (also extended between buildings). It provides the interconnection between equipment room and building entrance site (including cross connects, patch cords, and terminators).

It is recommended to double or triple the length of backbone cable. This provides for possible expansion and redundant connections.

Backbone cable maximum distance limitation:

• Voice grade 100ohm UTP — 800 meter
• STP data grade 150 ohm — 90 meter
• Multimode 62.5/125um fiber — 2000 meter
• Patch cable — 3 to 6 meter

Spending more money for the backbone cabling is recommended and selecting fiber optic over copper wire is the best choice.

Horizontal Cabling
It it the cable that runs from the workstation outlet to each terminal in the equipment room. It also includes the cable run from the wall outlet to each workstation, cable in equipment closets that connects network devices.

Horizontal cable maximum distance limitation:

• Between workstation outlet to workstation — 3 meter
• Between  equipment in the telecom closet — 6 meter
• Between telecom closet to workstation outlet — 90 meter

* Cable lengths from end to end should not exceed 100m.

It is recommended that horizontal cabling be rated for cat5 use. When installing horizontal cable, it is important to avoid any sources of EMI.

Work Area
The are where computers, telephones, patch cables, adapters, etc. are located.
It is recommended to provide a wall jack for each cat5, STP, and FO cable for future expansion.

 

Source: Structured Cabling System by Nortel Networks

Network Socket

What's inside a Network Socket?

Back to Basic!

We usually look for a Network Socket every time we need a “wired” Internet Connection (most are familiar with the name Internet Socket).

Network Sockets is the end point in a communication across a network, that’s what Wikipedia says.

I use to wire twisted pair cables, the EIA/TIA 568A or B Standard (the WoOWbBWgGWbrBr stuff!) but never I had experience wiring an Ethernet socket. How would the crimped cable work if there’s no network socket installed? Unless cables are directly connected to routers and switches! I saw this easy to follow instruction on ‘How to Wire an Ethernet Socket’. http://www.handymanhowto.com/2009/01/19/how-to-install-an-ethernet-jack-for-a-home-network/. The order of wires is basically  the same but the method of wiring them is different. It is really not an easy or should I mean a fast-to-do job, specially the cabling part. The technicians within my team usually do this network socket stuff. Well, If in case you want to wire a personal network socket, check the link and I hope it helps. 😉

Configuring Network Interfaces

Step1: Edit etc/network/interfaces
e.g.:

sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 10.50.15.12
netmask 255.255.255.192.
gateway 10.50.26.1

Disable Network Manager first. Unless, your configuration will be ignored.

Step 2: Start networking

sudo /etc/init.d/networking start

Step 3: Check your network information

ifconfig

Other than editing /etc/network/interfaces, here’s another way to configure your network interface:
The following are low-level commands.

$ sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.7.26 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.7.255 ←
$ sudo ifconfig eth0 down ←
$ sudo route add -net 192.168.7.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev eth0 ←
$ sudo route add default gw 192.168.7.1 ←

Network Configuration (Files and Commands)

Files

/etc/hostname – holds the hostname
/etc/hosts – file mapping of IP addresses – hostnames
/etc/networks – maps network addresses -names
/etc/host.conf – replaced by nsswitch
/etc/resolv.conf – client dns configuration
/etc/services – maps port numbers to names
/etc/nsswich.conf – name service switch configuration file, determines how system looks up name and various other things.

Commands

ifconfig – show and configure network interfaces
route – show and configure network routes
dhcpcd, dhcpclient, pmp – DHCP clients
dig – tests DNS servers
host – query and debug DNS servers
hostname – display hostname, and NIS domaind setting
netstat – shows what service is listening on what port
ping – sends ICMP echo request to hosts
traceroute – show the path (display routes) that a network connection takes.
mtr – works like traceroute in real time
tcpdump – packet sniffer command that displays the contents of packets received on a network interface.
route -n – view the routing table
whois – queries information about the owner of the domain

Netstat
netstat -a -u -t – Prints ports in use
netstat -r – Prints routing table
netstat -i – Prints interfaces
netstat -g – Prints multicast groups
netstat -M – Prints masqueraded connections
netstat -s – Prints statistics

Fix Wireless Network Connection Problems

Do you experience wireless network connection problems from home? I saw a great step by step diagram that may help ypu solve your problem. You can troubleshoot wireless network connection issues by yourself with the help of this flow chart.

View this document on Scribd

In case you do not have that technical person around, you could probably make your wireless connection work! 🙂