Network Tools
Physical tools used to maintain network hardware
Cable crimpers
Needed building your own cables
Pinches a modular connector onto a wire/cable
Last step - done after you have already run the cable where you need to, then you would attach the connector.
Looks like pliscohoobtsi
Modular connector
the little plastic ethernet looking thing on edge of a wire
Crimped will push cooper bars on ethernet thing into the wire
Crimper best practices
Get a good equipment
- good Crimper
- good pair of cable snips and electrician scissors as well
- good pair of wire strippers
Use correct modular connectors
- they differ between wire types
Practice
Multimeters
Looks like a wall dial thermometer with calculator screen
Checks the AC voltage
- from outlet
Checks DC voltage
- from PC
- CMOS battery power
Continuity tests
- fuse status (is it still working)
- cable connectivity
- wire mapping by testing pins on either end of wire.
Tone generator
Looks like small walkie talk with fat digi pen
Allows you to track where a wire is going from one end to the other
- how: by following a tone
2 pieces
Tone generator (walkie)
- puts an analog sound on the wire
Inductive probe (digi pen)
- doesn’t need to physically touch wire to listen into the audio
- just need to get close (small speaker on the probe)
Using tone generator and probe
Easy wire tracing
- can have hundreds of cables and still be able to track
Connect tone generator to wire (can connect to many types)
- modular jack
- coax
- RJ11 or RJ45
- punch down connectors
use probe to find sound
Cable testers
Can identify missing pins or crossed wires
Looks like cat5 connector with little bar of lights
Cannot check for quality
- frequency
- cross talk
- signal loss
Loopback plugs
Loopback traffic from one interface back into the same interface
- Used for testing physical ports
- Used for fooling applications that expect ethernet connection (even if not connected to ethernet network)
Type of plug
- Serial / RS-232 (9 pin or 25 pin)
- network connections
- diff plug for…
- –ethernet, T1, Fiber
Punch down block
Block that helps organize wires into different slots
Size
- 66 block
- 110 block
Punch block tool
Help manage a punch down block by helping punch down wires into the block
- looks like screwdriver
- every wire must be punched
- trims the wire during the punch
Punch down best practices
Organization is key
- Document what wires are plugging into what connection
Maintain twists (of wire) - keep as close as possible to the block
Document as much as possible
- tags on wire
- written document
- grafitti (written on wall)
Wifi analyzer
Sees communication on wifi network and gives feedback
- signal strength
- frequencies in use
- interference
- identifies errors
- validates antenna installation
Forms
- purpose built device
- software downloaded
