Using Protectli & Open-Source Software to Inexpensively Protect a Small Network

Showing the advantages of small enterprise network management through free open-source software and the Protectli devices

Abstract

Small enterprises continuously run into financial and work efficiency trouble when managing their networks. They either have had the same system for the past ten years and see no problem with it. Or, they don't know how to upgrade their network or how to pay for it. Access to a comprehensive, interactive, and entry-level network management guide for small budgets could mitigate these problems.

Problem and Purpose Statements

Concerns and Implications

Background

For the sake of historical and technical analysis, this capstone project can be broken into several subcategories. The major parts of my project consist of the following: open-source NOS, bare-metal hardware, and entry-level documentation. Below will be the description and background information on each of these subcategories.

Open-Source NOS
Computers have existed a little longer than network operating systems have. We know the first computer was the ENIAC built by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert in 1946, but obviously, the ENIAC did not have any networking capabilities. Concepts of computer communication didn't begin becoming popular until the late 1960s and the early 1970s. IBM's Systems Network Architecture, or SNA, was the go-to guide to interconnecting computers and their resources during the '70s. Rather than an actual piece of software, it was an idea and documentation that described network formats and protocols. The idea of LAN and its utilization with the TCP/IP set began pushing out SNA while the need for a capable NOS arose.

A company named Novell became one of the first NOS developers upon its launch of the Netware S-Net device. It allowed the IBM XT computer to transform into a file-share system for other computers configured in a star topography. On the S-Net was Novell's own NOS, named Netware, a first of it's kind. Since the only NOS competitors at this time were producing proprietary software for specific computing hardware, Novell was chosen more often because of their motivation to port their system onto varying hardware.

After Novell held the spotlight with Netware for some time, other competitors began to pick up the pace of developing captivating NOS. AT&T's UNIX continued transforming through the work of third parties and was able to take the form of several popular operating systems, such as SunOS and eventually MacOS. IBM and Microsoft also worked together to develop OS/2 with the goal of dethroning Netware, but the project ended up being delayed and failing.

All of the operating systems previously mentioned have not been open-source though. Open-source implies the source code is freely available for manipulation and redistribution. Most of the networks we connect to daily are run on proprietary software and are consequently more expensive for the managers to run. Open-Source networking operating systems didn't come into reality until the early 2000's with projects such as pfSense and OpenWrt. Since then, there have been plenty of adaptations to Linux creating a plethora of different NOS for any situation.

Bare-Metal Hardware
Original equipment manufacturers or OEMs have been making networking devices since the development of the Netware S-Net. Before that, there were barely any devices created explicitly with the intention of communication through computers. in 1976 Ginny Strazisar created the first IP router, and then in '78 Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf invented the TCP/IP protocols for networking. After that developments in hardware began evolving until 1990 when Kalpana released the first network switch. Seven years later the introduction of the 802.11 standards began the explosive research and development of wireless devices.

Access to networking hardware wouldn't become widely available until later as it was mostly used at universities or in the context of military research. Thus, when businesses began purchasing networking equipment they trusted the big name companies because they held the most resources. Decades later this is still the case. Original device manufacturers (ODMs) such as Cisco buy hardware from OEMs, put their own software on it, and get away with selling it for a much higher price. This is where the trend of white-box or bare-metal networking has begun to grow. Networking professionals realize they can save enterprises enormous amounts of money by just doing more work themselves. They can purchase the equipment from the OEMs directly and then implement their own configurations of open-source software onto it.

Entry-Level Documentation
Networking operating system developers, and software developers in general, have always had the tendency to write and produce documentation on their products. This documentation consistently contains all of the information a user could ever need. This includes details about the software and its capabilities, a list of commands and respective flags, available services, and instructions on setup and configuration. While all of this information is extremely useful to anyone trying to utilize the software it tends to be quite dense in language. For those with little to none networking experience, reading and understanding the available documentation is a challenge in itself.

Because of this, professionals have created more accessible documentation by taking what they know and compiling it into easier to digest guides. These are found all over the internet, by just searching "{insert software} installation guide", dozens of results will surface. I have found these tutorials to be very helpful to me throughout my education and subsequently, they inspired this capstone topic.

Context

Global and Ethical Concerns

The Plan