ISP Setup Research on Linux based ISP's of Pakistan

Abstract

ISP technology is based on Internet operating system whereby information /data is routed in the form of packets through the Internet. Keeping in view the vital role of ISP's I have tried to the best of my knowledge and abilities to cover each and every aspect of its setup in this report. This report is in accordance to the fulfillment of a final year project proposal. The project that was undertaken in this regard was a research project and encompasses a detailed technical analysis regarding the general setup of Internet Service Providers in Pakistan. This rep01t primarily deals with the platforms, Technologies and the principle working of an ISP. This is a technical report and holds a wide variety of technically oriented terms, aspects and may conform to the existence of some technical background learning and knowledge in order to fully understand the text material provided in this report. Although I have tried to the best of my ability and knowledge to make the language and other technical details more easy to understand and more effective by the help and use of elaborate, correct and neat diagrams. Generally ISP's are more business-oriented organizations making use of the computer communication and networking technologies as a means of providing different services. Therefore they maintain a certain managerial hierarchy and business rules that are definitely required by every organization these days to both function and prosper in terms of maintenance and financial growth, but this project report has been specifically oriented designed and produced keeping in view the technical aspects related to computer science functioning of an ISP. Hence this report does not offer any hierarical setup or plan that provides a business-oriented outlook. This thesis report is primarily based on research and does not conform to any sort of development. Although the material in this report can be used to create the technical base of an ISP, as all the material in this report is being used in some of the high ranking ISP 's in Pakistan. Also this report for the first time gives a complete and detailed description of different technologies and platforms that should be in an ISP in one place which during my research I happened to confirm by consulting almost every book on communication and networks available in the market and almost every type of material on the net. Target Audience: The purpose of this research is to gather a complete and detailed description and knowledge of the technologies and services used and provided by the ISP's in Pakistan and also the servers used in the ISP setup on a Linux platform as almost all the ISP's are using other platforms for the various servers this report provides ample amount of knowledge and data for setting up an ISP on a Linux platform. This project targets students, teachers, computer professionals and other people including business professionals who are interested in learning about ISP's and their working as its principle audience. Report Layout: The layout of this report is designed in a progressive manner, and has been divided into chapters for convenience of understanding. The first two chapters deal with the basics, a brush up on networks and a little about internetwork to give at least a vague idea about what Internet is and how it works, and a detailed description about routers, and remote access servers. Third and foutih chapter are the core support of this project providing a detailed account regarding the general ISP setup and services rendered by the an ISP, along with the I P addressing and s ubnetting principles which f onn the bas is for w ide scale networking through out the world. As a universal law it is understood that nothing can survive in this world without proper management and without being secure same stands true for computer networks and chapters Five and Six give ample material on how networks should 7 be managed using some o f t he n etwork management t echnologies oft oday a nd also provides certain features of network security technologies that may be used in this regard. Every ISP works on a certain Operating System platform, which serves as the lifeblood of every ISP, for this particular project the platform chosen was that of Linux the details of which are provided in the Literary survey, and all the supporting servers that a re u sed in a n I SP are a lso b ased o n t he s arne platform details of which are given in chapters Seven till Twelve. This portion is the core of this project; some of the servers used and mentioned in this report include Apache Web server, Domain Name Service (DNS) server, Network File System (NFS) server, E-mail server, and Squid or Proxy server. Last but not the least chapter thirteen gives an outline of different operating systems used in an ISP.