Computer Security Handbook, Fifth Edition

CHAPTER 6

NETWORK TOPOLOGIES, PROTOCOLS, AND DESIGN

Gary C. Kessler and N. Todd Pritsky

6.1 OVERVIEW

6.1.1 LAN Characteristics

6.1.2 LAN Components

6.1.3 LAN Technology Parameters

6.1.4 Summary

6.2 LAN TOPOLOGY

6.2.1 Network Control

6.2.2 Star Topology

6.2.3 Ring Topology

6.2.4 Bus Topology

6.2.5 Physical versus Logical Topology

6.3 MEDIA

6.3.1 Coaxial Cable

6.3.2 Twisted Pair

6.3.3 Optical Fiber

6.3.4 Wireless “Media”

6.3.5 Summary

6.4 MEDIA ACCESS CONTROL

6.4.1 Contention

6.4.2 Distributed Polling

6.5 LAN PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDS

6.5.1 OSI Model versus LAN Model Architectures

6.5.2 IEEE 802 Standards

6.5.3 IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD Standard

6.5.4 Ethernet II

6.5.5 IEEE 802.5 Token-Ring Standard

6.5.6 IEEE 802.2 LLC Standard

6.5.7 Summary

6.6 INTERCONNECTION DEVICES

6.6.1 Hubs

6.6.2 Switches

6.6.3 Bridges

6.6.4 Routers

6.6.5 Summary

6.7 NETWORK OPERATING SYSTEMS

6.8 SUMMARY

6.9 WEB SITES

6.10 FURTHER READING

6.11 NOTES

This chapter provides a broad overview of local area network (LAN) concepts, basic terms, standards, and technologies. These topics are important to give the information security professional a better understanding of the terms that might be used to describe a particular network implementation and its products. The chapter also is written with an eye to what information security professionals need to know; for a more complete overview of the topic, the reader is referred to general LAN texts, such as those listed in Section 6.10.

6.1 OVERVIEW.

There are a number of ways ...