This chapter contains an excessive amount of information about Physical sides of Network, which I believe is not particularly necessary for bug bounty programs. If you're interested in learning more, I recommend reading the book.

Understanding Structured Cabling

Successful implementation of a basic structured cabling network requires 3 things: (Star topology)

• Horizontal cabling
• Telecommunications room
• Work area

Horizontal Cabling

A horizontal cabling run is the cable that extends horizontally from a work area to the telecommunications room. It typically consists of Cat 5e,6,6a,7, or fiber optic cables for standards like 1000BASE-T and 1000BASE-SX.

Solid Core vs. Stranded Core

All UTP cables come in one of two types: solid core and stranded core. TIA/EIA specifies that horizontal cabling should always be solid core.

• Solid core
• Standard core

The Telecommunications Room

The telecommunications room or intermediate distribution frame (IDF) is the heart of the basic star topology network.

Equipment Racks

An equipment rack provides a safe, stable platform for all the different hardware components.

• Important Notes

Patch Panels and Cables

A patch panel is simply a box with a row of female ports in the front and permanent connections in the back. It solves the switches and solid cables movement problems.

• Important Notes

The Work Area

A work area is simply a wall outlet that serves as the termination point for horizontal network cables. This outlet typically contains one or two female jacks, allowing a PC to connect to the network via a patch cable.

• Ethernet networks specify a limit of 100 meters between a switch and a node. Interestingly, though, the TIA/EIA 568 specification allows only UTP cable lengths of 90 meters. What’s with the missing 10 meters? The answer is … the patch cables