Home Network Purity Test

Copyright (c) 2002-2003, Jon Wilson <jon@phuq.co.uk>

Version 0.22. Please send comments and more questions! Everything mentioned in this test exists on a real home network, somewhere.

Coming soon: CGI for scoring, high-score table

Section 1 - Computers

  1. Score 1 for every computer you have at home
  2. Score an extra 10 if you had to actually walk round and count them
  3. Score an extra 20 if you found some you forget you had whilst you waled round
  4. Score an extra 1 for each computer that works
  5. Score an extra 10 if you have more than 5 non-working machines
  6. Score 2 for every computer you have at home that is networked
  7. Score 5 for every computer you have at home that is currently switched on
  8. Score an extra 2 for each working Mac
  9. Score an extra 5 for each working computer that is neither a PC nor a Mac
  10. Score an extra 5 for each networked computer that is neither a PC nor a Mac
  11. Score 1 for each full month of uptime

Section 2 - Operating Systems

  1. Score 5 for every different operating system you run at home. Different Unixes or Linux distributions count multiple times; multi-boot machines count multiple times; the same OS on multiple architectures counts multiple times; different versions of Windows count a maximum of 3 times (3.x, 95/98/98SE/ME or NT/2000/XP).
  2. Score an extra 5 for any of the following: VMS, OS/2, Plan-9, BeOS, OSX

Section 3 - Internet Connection

  1. Score 1 if you have an Internet connection of any kind
  2. Score 5 if you have ISDN
  3. Score 10 if you have a broadband Internet connection (xDSL, cable-modem)
  4. Deduct 5 if your Internet connection cannot be used by multiple machines on your LAN
  5. Deduct 5 if your employer pays for your Internet connection
  6. Score 50 if you have a T1
  7. Score 200 if you have a T3
  8. Score 10 if you have more than one connection (broadband + dialup counts)
  9. Score 20 if you can route traffic statically down seperate connections
  10. Score 40 if you can route traffic down seperate connections using a proper routing protocol (e.g. OSPF)
  11. Score 20 if availability of your internet connection was a factor in your choice of home

Section 4 - Network design

  1. Score 10 if you have a firewall
  2. Score 20 if you have a DMZ
  3. Score 10 for each machine in the DMZ
  4. Score 10 for each distinct subnet on your LAN
  5. Score 20 for each VLAN on your LAN

Section 5 - Firewalls

  1. Deduct 20 if you have no firewall (the number of minutes your system will last on the Internet without one)
  2. Score 20 if your firewall logs port scans
  3. Score 10 if you do anything about the port scans
  4. Score 50 if your firewall does anything automatically about the port scans
  5. Deduct 50 if you don't actually understand what your firewall is doing about the port scans

Section 6 - DNS and other such numbers

  1. Score 1 for each host on your LAN that can be contacted locally by both name and number
  2. Score 5 if you run a nameserver on your LAN
  3. Score another 5 if it has working reverse DNS
  4. Score 15 if you have a secondary DNS server on your LAN
  5. Score 5 if you have a DHCP server on your LAN
  6. Score 10 if you use a dynamic DNS service for your external IP
  7. Score 20 if you have a static external IP (a real one, not just a DHCP assigned IP that doesnt change much)
  8. Score 2 for each domain name you own
  9. Score 5 for each of them that has any public DNS records pointing at hosts on your home network (CNAME records count)
  10. Score 10 if you have an Internet IP address block delegated to your LAN
  11. Score 20 if the reverse for that block DNS works
  12. Score 100 if you have a public AS number for your LAN

Section 7 - Mail

  1. Score 5 if you have an SMTP server on your network
  2. Score 5 if you have a POP or IMAP server on your network
  3. Score 10 for each domain on the internet that has an MX record pointing at your SMTP server, and your server actually does relay for them
  4. Score 10 if you don't use your ISP's smart-host for outward SMTP (don't score if your ISP uses a transparent proxy on port 25)

Section 8 - Services

  1. Score 1 for each network service running on your home network. e.g. ssh, telnet, httpd, imap, smb. The same service on multiple machines counts multiple times.
  2. Deduct 10 for any machine where you don't know what services it is running
  3. Score 10 for each service on your home network accessible from the Internet (must be deliberatly accesible, not due to lack of firewalling)
  4. Deduct 10 if any of them actually run on your firewall
  5. Deduct 25 if one of them is telnet
  6. Score 2 for each time in the last week you have accessed your network remotely in any way
  7. Score 2 for each person who has remote login privileges on your network
  8. Score 5 for each external user who has root privileges anywhere on your network

Section 9 - Web

  1. Score 5 for each webserver running on your LAN. (Single servers listening on multiple IPs, ports and/or names count once. Different servers listening on different ports on the same box count multiple times)
  2. Score 10 for each of these which is not Apache or IIS
  3. Score 10 for each website on your LAN visible from the Internet
  4. Score 10 if you have a house bug-tracker application
  5. Score 10 if you have a Wiki
  6. Score 5 for each publically visible website hosted on your nextwork

Section 10 - Chat

  1. Score 1 if you use chat (IRC) from your LAN
  2. Score 10 if you use IRC to talk to your flatmates
  3. Score 15 if you run a local chatserver (ircd)
  4. Score 20 if it talks to any other IRC servers (local or Internet)

Section 11 - Accounts and Logging on

  1. Score 1 if your machines have user accounts
  2. Score 2 if your user accounts have passwords
  3. Score 10 if you have some sort of centralised password system (an automatically copied password file counts)
  4. Deduct 10 if it's NIS
  5. Score 20 if you're using nisplus, kerberos
  6. Score 20 if you have a PDC (running on Windows or Samba)
  7. Score 30 if you have an SDC
  8. Score 50 if you have single-signon across all your machines

Section 12 - Storage

  1. Score 5 if you have a file server
  2. Score 5 if it serves to both Unix machines and Windows PC's
  3. Score 20 if it serves via AFP
  4. Score 5 if it uses SCSI disks
  5. Score 10 if it has software RAID
  6. Score 20 if it has hardware RAID
  7. Score 1 point for each Gigabyte of storage available to the network
  8. Multiply the number of Gigabytes of MP3s you have by the number of machines on your network that can access AND play them, and add this to your score
  9. Score 1 for each gig of data that is regularly and automatically copied to a second machine (e.g. rsync, Windows roaming profiles)
  10. Score 5 if you have a backup system of any kind (CD counts)
  11. Score 5 if you have tape backup
  12. Score 10 if you have a tape library or autochanger
  13. Score 20 if you have DLT
  14. Score 30 if you have off-site backup

Section 13 - Wireless

  1. Score 10 if you have a Wireless LAN
  2. Score 5 if you have a WLAN that can reach the local pub
  3. Score 10 if you have a WLAN that can reach the beach
  4. Score 15 if you have a WLAN that can reach the host in your car
  5. Score 25 if you have a working consume.net type-node that others can use to get net access

Section 14 - Home and work

  1. Score 2 if you use your network to telework. Just checking work mail counts.
  2. Score 1 for each hour in the last 7 days you used you LAN to telecommute
  3. Score 10 if you have a VPN to your office network
  4. Deduct 200 if your home is actually your primary place of work

Section 15 - Sharing

  1. Score 1 for each resident of you house who uses your LAN for an Internet connection
  2. Score 15 if you provide an Internet connection for your neighbour's network (not by wireless)
  3. Score 20 if you load balance or otherwise throttle any of these connections

Section 16 - VPNs

  1. Score 10 if you have VPN capabilities to another home network

Section 17 - Monitoring

  1. Score 5 if you have a network monitoring program (e.g. Netsaint, Big Brother)
  2. Score 5 if it sends you SMS messages to report failures or problems
  3. Score 10 if it sends you SMS messages without using an email to SMS gateway

Section 18 - Power

  1. Score 5 if you have a UPS
  2. Score an extra 5 if you have more than one UPS
  3. Score 1 for every 100VA of UPS power you have
  4. Score 2 for each item plugged into a UPS
  5. Score an extra 5 for each item plugged into UPS that is not a computer (monitors, external modems, etc)

Section 19 - Network Hardware

  1. Score 5 for every Ethernet hub or switch you have in operation at home
  2. Score 20 for every non-ethernet device you have in operation at home (e.g. ISDN router, Token-Ring equipment, etc)
  3. Score 5 for each operational machine you have with more than one active network interface
  4. Score 1 if you have any 10-base-2 cabling
  5. Score 10 if any of it works
  6. Score 5 if you have any CAT5 cabling
  7. Score 10 if you have any part of your LAN on 100Mbit
  8. Score 20 if you have any part of your LAN on anything over 100Mbit
  9. Score 20 if you have any fibre in use in your network
  10. Score 10 if you have any structured cabling (i.e. ducting, proper sockets)
  11. Score 20 if had to make modifications to the house to install cabling (e.g. drill holes, lift floorboards)
  12. Score 10 if you have a patch panel
  13. Score 5 if you have a server room
  14. Score 10 if you have a machine rack
  15. Score 5 if it is lockable
  16. Score 20 if it is currently locked
  17. Score 1 for each room in the house that has a network access point (WLAN doesn't count, trailing cable does)
  18. Score 15 if any of them is a bathroom or toilet
  19. Score 5 for each door in the house that will not shut due to cabling
  20. Score 25 if any of them is a bathroom or toilet door

Section 20 - Understanding

  1. Deduct 5 for each word or term in this test you don't understand or had to look up
  2. Deduct 20 for each look-up if you are professionally employed in network configuration or support