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pageThe UNCA network is a collection of building-wide Ethernets connected by fiber optic cables. At this time, data between buildings moves at "Ethernet speeds" or 10,000,000 bits per second. At the beginning of this semester, only three buildings are connected to the campus Ethernet. That will soon change.
By next Fall, the campus network will reach all buildings. An inner core of three buildings, Robinson, Ramsey, and Lipinsky, will be connected by a 155,000,000 bits per second ATM (Asynchronous Transmission Mode) network. Other buildings, including dormitores, will be connected by 10,000,000 bits per second links.
UNCA, like most colleges in North Carolina, connects to the Internet through the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NC-REN). The structure of NC-REN changes frequently. However, NC-REN does maintain a nice network map that shows a fairly up-to-date view of its connections. At this time, UNCA connects to NC-REN via a 20 Mbps "pipe" to the North Carolina Information Highway. Should this connection be disrupted, NC-REN provides backup T1-speed, 1.544 Mbps, connections that go through both Western Carolina and UNC-Charlotte. Haywood Community College, Mars Hill College, Montreat College, and Warren Wilson College also receive their Internet service via the UNCA POP (Point of Presence).
The North Carolina Information Highway (NCIH) is a high-speed network which provides high-speed data and video to several universities, community colleges, and government agencies in the state. It is part of North Carolina's Integrated Information Network (NCIIN) and managed by several phone companies. Needless to say, the management structure of the state's Internet is a tad complicated.
Most state-wide university networks connect to regional networks which then connect to one of the "backbone" networks. However, the North Carolina network connects directly to two nation-wide backbones, Sprintlink and UUNET. Both connections are made through DS3 (45 Mbps) points of presence (POPs) in Raleigh. Consult UUNET's global backbone map to see how the North Carolina connection fits into the larger Internet.
At this time, there is a second high-speed Internet connection in the state. The NCGigaNet project is building a high-speed network between Duke, NC State, and UNC-Chapel Hill which connects to the new Internet 2 backbone. Although, UNCA data traffic is not routed through new network, the diversion of some North Carolina traffic to Internet 2 does decrease congestion on our out-of-state links.
For a good tutorial on the workings of the Internet, check out the Internet Architecture home page of Boardwatch magazine. Although many of the Internet backbone providers are reluctant to publicize detailed network maps, you can find a decent collection of these by starting with The Geography of Cyberspace and An Atlas of Cyberspaces pages of Martin Dodge. Because these pages are located in London, it can take a while to download them.
To get a better feel for UNCA's Internet connection, log into bulldog.unca.edu and run the program /usr/sbin/traceroute to at least four of the following locations:
You run this program by typing the command
This program shows the route taken by packets as they travel from one Internet site to another. Write down the name of the halfway point to your four chosen destinations. You'll use them later in this lab.
Way back in CSCI 107 lab number 2 you copied an HTML page called 107start.html into your public_html/csci107 directory. You're going to do this again, but this time you'll name your file lab7.html. Begin by executing the following commands which create lab7.html and start editting it with pico:
Simultaneously, without terminating your bulldog login, start up Netscape and load your HTML page at the URL
where you replace USERID with your bulldog login id.
In order to efficiently complete this assignment, you must be able to quickly switch between the telnet and Netscape programs. Do this by repeatedly hitting the ALT-TAB combination on your keyboard. If you aren't switching between the two applications, get some help from your instructor or a fellow labmate. When the title bar of the application is a dark blue, it is running in the foreground.
Bring the bulldog telnet session to the foreground. You should be editing your lab7.html file under pico. Perform the following sequence of actions at least two times:
If you are not seeing the changes you are making to the file, get the attention of your lab instructor.
There are many good sources of information on HTML, the HyperText Markup Language. If you're going to be a serious web page designer, you'll probably want to purchase a good book on the subject. For what we're doing in CSCI 107, you should find Paula Davidson's page Getting Started with HTML which is stored at the URL
to be an excellent reference. By the way, if you really want to know more about home page design and the Internet, you should sign up for one of Paula Davidson's sections of CSCI 121 next Fall.
In this lab, we're going to ask you to add ten element to your home page. After you make a change, ALT-TAB back to Netscape to verify that you got it right. Your instructor will grade this lab by examining the page that you create.
The title of your HTML document is located between the <TITLE> and </TITLE> tags. Modify the title of your page to contain your name. The title of the page is displayed in Netscape's title bar, not in its main window.
The level 1 header of your HTML document is between the <H1> and </H1> tags. Change the level 1 header to contain your name.
Unordered, or unnumbered, lists looks something like the following
Add into the middle of your document a list that contains the "halfway points" of the Internet routes you traced in the first part of this lab.
Probably, the longest tags are those which refer to other pages. Here's an example of a reference to the UNCA CSCI home page:
Add a reference to http://www.atms.unca.edu/ -- the home page of the UNCA Department of Atmospheric Sciences -- into your page.
Here's a way to include the image of the UNCA icon in your page:
Add it.
If you want to use an image as a link, you combine the preceeding two tags into something like
Try it out. If you think about it for a while, it does make sense.
Here's an example of a mail link
Add an email link to your bulldog account.
You start paragraphs with the <P> tag. Add a couple of short paragraphs to your page.
Use the <HR> tag to add a horizonal line.
There are many ways of putting words in different fonts in HTML. Surround some words you would like emphasized with the <EM> and </EM> tags.
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