Network+ 008 - 1.7 Network Architecture

1.0 Networking Fundamentals

1.7 Network Architecture

Three-Tiered - network hierarchy

    Core - Location of major servers (web, databases, applications)

    Distribution/Aggregation Layer - Manages communication to end users

    Access/Edge - User level, end-points




Software-Defined Networking - Infrastructure as Code

    Application Layer - Manage/configure the device, IDS, firewalls, load balancing

    Control Layer - Manages the data plane (Infrastructure Layer), routing tables, session tables, NAT tables

    Infrastructure Layer - Data plane, Processes the network frames/packets, Forwarding, Trunking, Encrypting, NAT

    Management Plane - See Application Layer

Spine and Leaf - Each spine switch connects to each leaf switch

    Software-Defined Network - High availability network model

    Top-of-Rack switching - Datacenter rack architecture for high-performance routing

    Backbone - Spine switches



Traffic Flows - Data traffic flows within a data center

    North-South - Traffic to/from an outside device

    East-West - Traffic between devices within the data center.

Branch Office - Remote location, end-point devices, IDF

On-Premises - Data center owned and operated from within.

Colocation - Shared data center

Storage Area Network (SAN) - Block level network storage, efficient read/write, high bandwidth

Connection Types
     Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) - Usually integrates with FC without additional hardware. Not routable.

    Fiber Channel (FC) - Supports 2, 4, 8, and 16 Gbps rates. Server (initiator) and storage (target) connect to a FC interface.

    Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) - Created by IBM and Cisco, RFC standard. Sends SCSI commands over an IP network. Routable, managed well in software, drivers available for many operating systems.

N10-008 Exam Simulation - 1st Attempt Results

 

N10-008 Exam Simulation

Simulation Date: December 27, 2022

Results:
Score: 65.56%

Points Scored / Total: 59 / 90

Number of Questions: 90

Total Time: 01:22:24

 

Breakdown:
Networking Fundamentals: 56.25%

Network Implementations: 38.89%

Network Operations: 71.43%

Network Security: 86.67%

Network Troubleshooting: 81.82%

 

Notes: Trying to get back into the swing of studying for this now that the holidays are mostly in the rear-view mirror. I honestly thought I was going to do better than these results going into it, but during the test quickly realized I will need to work on memorizing some specific things such as protocol port numbers and learning more about implementing a network from the ground up.

BeyondTrust - Cloud Identity and Access Management Solution

BeyondTrust - Cloud Identity and Access Management Solutions

Access Console (Bomgar) - A remote connection tool that can manage access to systems on your network, require on-use approval to connect to a system, and can integrate with password management solutions to inject passwords into a session without sharing the password. It also records everything during the session which can be used to generate reports in real-time, and it only uses outbound traffic to connect the systems so the connection cannot be reversed.


BeyondTrust Graphic

PowerShell 008 - Add registry items and Extension-based Edge IE mode Compatibility

Add registry items and Extension-based Edge IE mode Compatibility


    I recently had to find a way to make Microsoft Visio Viewer, an old Internet Explorer add-on, work on a computer that no longer has IE on it. Microsoft offered a registry fix to allow the file extension to run through Edge IE Mode, and I took that into PowerShell with the resulting code below. Originally I tried to use variables, but ran into issues and ended up hard coding the paths, names, and values. This is the first time I used PowerShell to add registry items, and I used New-Item to generate new paths (folders/subfolders) and New-ItemProperty to add new keys. I also piped the results into Out-Null to remove the output spam. After some experimenting I believe this can be applied to any file extension type, however there might be other prereqs to making other file extensions work. This fix for example below requires the Visio Viewer software to be installed first. To apply the fix to other file extensions find and replace “VSDX” with whatever extension you are trying to make this work with. Once the fix is applied, you can right click the file and a new “Open With” menu can now expand where you can select Open with MS Edge in IE Mode.

#Visio Viewer Edge IE mode registry fix script

New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.vsdx\OpenWithProgids" -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.vsdx\OpenWithProgids" -Name "MSEdgeIEModeVSDX" -Value "0" -PropertyType DWORD -Force | Out-Null


New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX" -Force | Out-Null


New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\Application" -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\Application" -Name "ApplicationCompany" -Value "Microsoft Corporation" -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\Application" -Name "ApplicationName" -Value "Microsoft Edge with IE Mode" -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\Application" -Name "ApplicationIcon" -Value "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\Application\\msedge.exe,4" -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\Application" -Name "AppUserModelId" -Value "" -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null


New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\DefaultIcon" -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\DefaultIcon" -Name "@" -Value "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\Application\\msedge.exe,4" -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null


New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\shell" -Force | Out-Null


New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\shell\open" -Force | Out-Null


New-Item -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\shell\open\command" -Force | Out-Null

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Classes\MSEdgeIEModeVSDX\shell\open\command" -Name "@" -Value "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\Application\\msedge.exe,4" -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null

United Training - CySA+ Certificate of Course Completion

Network+ 007 - 1.6 Network Services

1.0 Networking Fundamentals

1.6 Network Services

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) - Automated IP configuration for network devices.

Scope - IP address range used and reserved IP addresses not to be used.

Exclusion Ranges - IP address range within the scope not to use.

Reservation - IP address reserved to provide as a static IP address.

Dynamic Assignment - Automatic IP address assigning.

Static Assignment - Non-changing IP address, typically to provide to a specific device.

Lease Time - The duration an IP address is assigned for.

Scope Options - Used to set additional network info when a host is assigned an IP address.

Available Leases - IP addresses available to be assigned.

DHCP Relay/IP Helper - Router that converts a device’s DHCP broadcast into a unicast to forward it to a DHCP server.

UDP Forwarding - Used when you are limited to the amount of destination you can communicate to, allows you to forward data to a UDP replicator which then can send to any number of destinations.


DNS (Domain Name System) - Protocol that translates IP addresses/domain names.

Record Types
        Address (A vs AAAA) - Used to resolve a domain to IPv4 and IPv6 addresses respectively.

        Canonical Name (CNAME) - Maps an alias name to the true domain name.

Mail Exchange (MX) - Indicates how email should be routed based on SMTP

Start of Authority (SOA) - Administrative DNS records for the DNS zone at the cutover point from the parent DNS zone.

Pointer (PTR) - Resolves an IP address to a domain. (reverse DNS lookup)

Text (TXT) - Originally made for human-readable DNS notes, can also be used to filter out spam email and to verify domain ownership.

Service (SRV) - Indicates a host and port for a given service. (VoIP, IM, etc)

Name Server (NS) - Indicates which DNS server is authoritative for a given domain.

Global Hierarchy - Domain Name Space hierarchy

Root DNS Servers - Top level domain in the Domain Name Space hierarchy.

Internal vs. External - IP addresses and Domains that reside within a network (internal) opposed to outside the network (external sites).

Zone Transfers - Process of copying the contents of the zone file on a primary DNS server to a secondary DNS server

Authoritative Name Servers - Contains data to provide in response to questions about domains in its zone.

Time To Live (TTL) - The amount of hops a packet will make before getting discarded.

DNS Caching - Temporarily stored data for previously looked up DNS data.

Reverse DNS/Reverse Lookup/Forward Lookup - Reverse translating a domain from an IP address.

Recursive Lookup - Source domain data from several other DNS servers.

Iterative Lookup - Source domain data directly from the DNS server involved.

NTP - Network Time Protocol, clock synchronization for network devices.

        Stratum - Degrees away from “real time” (Atomic clock:0, highly accurate)

        Clients - Connects to the network time server for syncing, stratum 2.

        Servers - Network Time Server provides time data to network devices, stratum 1.

SANS Healthcare Forum 2022: Vulnerabilities and Mitigation Techniques

SY0-601 Exam Simulation - 1st Attempt Results

SY0-601 Exam Simulation

Simulation Date: September 14, 2022

Results:
Score: 61.11%

Points Scored / Total: 55 / 90

Number of Questions: 90

Total Time: 01:12:59

 

Notes: I felt good about the content I have studied and was able to answer those questions quickly, but I also felt the opposite when I came across questions for content I have not reached yet. I did not prep for this practice test with any prior review the day of the simulated exam.

PowerShell 007 - Registry Permissions

Registry Permissions

        Example:

                $key = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node",[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKeyPermissionCheck]::ReadWriteSubTree,[System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::ChangePermissions)
                $acl = $key.GetAccessControl()
                $rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule (".\USERS","FullControl",@("ObjectInherit","ContainerInherit"),"None","Allow")
                $acl.SetAccessRule($rule)
                $key.SetAccessControl($acl)

This will take the registry key “SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node” and give the “\USERS” (local users) group permissions to have “FullControl” (Read/Write access).


Breakdown:

                $key =

        $key is the variable object the code will be set to.


                [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::

        Indicates this will involve the registry, the :: operator accesses members (properties) of a namespace (hierarchy structure).


                LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node",

        Targets a registry item, path for registry key. *Note: The ( is left open.


                [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKeyPermissionCheck]::ReadWriteSubTree,

        Targets the Microsoft.Win32 namespace, RegistryKeyPermissionCheck property, and accesses the ReadWriteSubTree member. This indicates the code should save over what is there with what is provided.


                [System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::ChangePermissions)

        Targets the System.Security.AccessControl namespace (hierarchy), RegistryRights property, ChangePermissions member. *) closes the parenthesis left open from before. This is what the code will replace within this targeted member.

So far the code is targeting a registry item and saving over a targeted member (property under the namespace hierarchy) with provided info.


                $acl = $key.GetAccessControl()

        The next line sets $acl as a variable object for the above (reg path/overwrite/provided info) targeting its ACL (Windows Access Control List).


                $rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule (

        Sets a variable object, $rule, as something that target the System.Security.AccessControl namepsace, RegistryAccessRule property.


                ".\USERS","FullControl",

        Give the Users group full control


                @("ObjectInherit","ContainerInherit"),"None"

        Allows the permissions to be inherited by child objects but not propagated .


                ,"Allow")

        Specifies if access rights are allowed or denied.


                $acl.SetAccessRule($rule)

        Takes the variable $acl, targets the ACL (Access Control List) properties and sets them to the variable $rule above.

                $key.SetAccessControl($acl)

        This takes the target $key and applies $acl permissions that had been configured with $rule.


        Results:

        Targeted registry file: 

                HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node

        Is updated with permissions below.

                IdentityReference: “.\USERS” (local users)
                RegistryRights: "FullControl" (get full control)
                InheritanceFlags: "ObjectInherit","ContainerInherit" (Inherited to all child objects)
                PropagationFlags: “None” (Permissions are not to be propagated to those child objects)
                AccessControlType: “Allow” (Access rights are allowed)

PowerShell 006 - Send Keystrokes

Send Keystrokes

        Example:

                $wshell = New-Object -ComObject wscript.shell;
                $wshell.SendKeys('text')
                $wshell.SendKeys(~)

        This will type out “text” followed by an Enter keystroke

        Breakdown:

                $wshell = New-Object -ComObject wscript.shell;

        Creates a COM Object with a wscript command and assigns it to the variable $wshell


                $wshell.SendKeys([KEYSTROKES])

        The Object runs the SendKeys command for what is between (). Use single quotes for ‘text’ or one of the codes for non-displayed keys.


Common Non-Displayed Keys

Key	Code
BACKSPACE	{BACKSPACE}, {BS}, or {BKSP}
ENTER	{ENTER} or ~
ESC	{ESC}
DEL or DELETE	{DELETE} or {DEL}
PRINT SCREEN	{PRTSC} (reserved for future use)
TAB	{TAB}

You can combo these with SHIFT, CTRL, and/or ALT by starting with the keys

Key	Code
SHIFT	+
CTRL	^
ALT	%