# Enhancing Data Security Through VLSM Subnetting and TCP/IP Model in an ENT
## 5 Discussion
The wireless security standards implemented should protect against unauthorised access, thereby ensuring confidentiality of information within wireless communications. **Port Security on Switches** further strengthened the security on the switches. We configured port security (hardening) so that only specific devices may access the switch via the designated ports. This will automatically stop any attempt to connect to the switch from any unknown computer devices. The configuration requires the following commands in order. Switch(config)# interface FastEthernet0/3  
Switch(config-if)# switchport mode access  
Switch(config-if)# switchport port-security maximum 2  
Switch(config-if)# switchport port-security mac-address 00E0.F7C8.D028  
In this paper, the ENT offers better administration of the network. The ENT connects two routers namely Router0 and Router2 to Router1 via a Serial DCE wire. The ENT can enable scalability of the network by accommodating subsequent branches to Router1 through vertical (replacing with a high-performance Router) and horizontal (adding a new Router with similar characteristics) scaling. Fault isolation is built-in whereby when a location encounters a network disruption, the operational connectivity of the other locations will not be affected. In the process of connecting the devices, triangles in red indicated misconfiguration, while triangles in green represent proper configuration (data sent from a device as the source can reach another device as the destination). The downside to the topology used in this paper is scalability limitation whereby switches can become a source of concern. The connection of additional devices due to the growth of the network may prevent the use of a switch as a central device. To mitigate this challenge, the administrator in an organisation should consider upgrading the central device and the network connections redistribution. Lack of sufficient bandwidth or processing power to manage the data being transmitted from connected devices may diminish the network performance. In this paper, Telnet was used to remotely access, configure, and manage devices (set password on each Router) on the network through a CLI Telnet and SSH protocols are appropriate for private and public networks, respectively. SSH is a robustly secure replacement for Telnet, used to enable remote access and management to a device. Unlike Telnet that encrypts only usernames and passwords, SSH encrypts all data transmitted across the network preventing such data from eavesdropping and unauthorised modification. SSH operates on a client-server architecture. In our context, the client is the PC or Router/Switch from which the connection is to be established whereas the Server is the Router or Switch to which the configurations may be made. With SSH implemented, only authorised users with credentials will be able to make modifications on the Switch or Router after they have been authenticated. The configuration of SSH requires that the server has a hostname, and domain name as both the hostname and domain name are required for the generation of encryption keys for encrypting traffic exchanged between the client and server. In our work, we demonstrated the implementation of SSH to access a Router from PC2 as shown in Figure 19. Once configured, the router can be tested by typing the following commands on PC2. A password was configured for the console to prevent access to each Router and Switch from an unauthorised host. Password encryption secures Switch credentials can be useful for preventing naive hacking. Tracert was used to trace the path through which packets travelled from source to destination including the time to reach its destination. Diagnosis of network connectivity to uncover potential issues was performed with the Tracert. We engaged one Server system for both DNS and HTTP configuration. DNS service translates the domain name, a given web address or URL, into an IP address 192.168.5.194. This resolves the domain name to ensure web browsing and network communication.