9 - Network management and security

Summary

The Internet is an insecure place.

The MIT Kerberos Team

Objectives

• SNMP and MIBs, using NET-SNMP as an example, and using NETSNMP utilities to query MIB objects.

• Encryption, confidentiality, and authentication, including DES, RSA, MD5 and DSS.

• Application layer security, using SSH and Kerberos as examples.

• Transport layer security, including SSL and the secure Apache server.

• Network layer security, IPsec and Virtual Private Networks.

• Firewalls and IPTABLES.

• Accounting, auditing, and intrusion detection.

Network management

The Simple Network Management Protocol

In addition to configuring network devices when they are initially deployed, network management requires the performing of many tasks to run the network efficiently and reliably. A network administrator may need to collect statistics from a device to see if it is working properly, or monitor the network traffic load on the routers to see if the load is appropriately distributed. When there is a network failure, the administrator may need to go through the information collected from the nearby devices to identify the cause. The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application layer protocol for exchanging management information between network devices. It is the de facto network management standard in the Internet.

Figure 9.1 illustrates a typical SNMP management scenario, consisting of an SNMP manager and multiple managed devices. A managed device, e.g., a host computer or a router, maintains a number of Management Information Bases (MIB), which record local management related information.