Internship Report
Internship Report
Internship Report
BY
NAHURIRA GASTON
20/U/243/LCS
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DECLARATION
I, NAHURIRA GASTON, hereby declare that this piece of work has been gathered and
compiled by me and that it has never been submitted to any institution for any reward. It is an
original report based on the activities that I conducted during my industrial training at LIRA
UNIVERSITY.
Signature………………………………………………………………...
Date……………………………………………………………………...
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APPROVAL
This report has been submitted with approval of the agency supervisor and the academic
supervisor.
Signature…………………………………………………
Date……………………………………………………….
MISS ABOOT FAITH
AGENCY SUPERVISOR
LIRA UNIVERSITY IT DEPARTMENT
Signature………………………………………………………
Date……………………………………………………………
MR. OKILA NIXSON
ACADEMIC SUPERVISOR
LIRA UNIVERSITY
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DEDICATION
This master piece is dedicated to the Almighty God, my family, and the entire fraternity of
Lira University headed by the IT team for their tireless love, support and guidance that made
my industrial training a success.
May the almighty God bless you abundantly!!
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My sincere appreciation and gratitude go to:
The Almighty God for the divine health, protection, preservation, mercy, love and providence
all of which have made my industrial training come true.
My family for their guidance, financial and moral support. I am too thankful for them
Lira University IT department team for their guidance, support and love rendered towards
making my industrial training a success.
My agency supervisor MISS ABOOT FAITH for a free learning environment given that
allowed interaction and un biased learning platform.
My fellow interns for being friendly throughout the whole internship period.
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Table of Contents
DECLARATION.......................................................................................................................................... 5
APPROVAL................................................................................................................................................ 6
DEDICATION............................................................................................................................................. 7
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.................................................................................................................................. 8
LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................................................ 9
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................................................... 9
LIST OF ACRONYMS...................................................................................................................................... 9
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................................................... 11
CHAPTER ONE............................................................................................................................................ 12
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1.1.4 NETWORKING........................................................................................................................ 12
2.2. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ASSIGNED AND HOW THEY WERE CARRIED OUT...........................18
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF ACRONYMS
AMD Advanced Micro Device
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BIOS Basic Input Output System
CCTV Closed Circuit television
CD Compact disc
CMS Content Management System
CPU Central Processing Unit
LU Lira University
ODEL Open Distance Electronic Learning
P.O.BOX Post Office Box
LMS Learning Management System
IP Internet protocol
DDR Dual Data Rate
DVD Digital Versatile disc
HDD Hard Disk Drive
HTML Hyper Text Markup Language
IC Integrated Circuits
ICT Information and Communications Technology
IT Information Technology
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LED Light emitting diode
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect
PHP Hypertext pre-processor
RAM Random access memory
REG.NO Registration number
ROM Read Only Memory
SDIO Snappy Driver Installer Original
SD RAM Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I conducted my industrial training at LIRA UNIVERSITY IT DEPARTMENT – LIRA
DISTRICT which ran from 1st September, 2022 to 30th September, 2022. This is the brief
description of the activities I carried out, the skills I gained, challenges met and my
recommendations.
Under networking, I was able to look at both the physical and logical dimensions of
networking. Running of cables, cable termination, punching down, extension of internet
access points, repeaters to increase on the network ports was all covered in the due course of
the internship period. Configuring routers, assigning IP addresses, logical network structure
of Lira University network, Internet service providers and the network flow from the out-door
fibers to the end users.
Web hosting was covered whereby I was introduced to physical servers (xen servers),
installation of the operating system (xen os), assigning of the network, and IP addresses to the
server, installation of virtual instance (ubuntu Linux), configuring of the domain names to the
server, optical fibers, and getting the SSL from Let’s Encrypt and project hosting.
I engaged in systems management whereby I was introduced to Moodle LMS, its installation,
configuring, and customization. I was able to work with the bee (E-Learning environment for
Lira University) by adding, deleting and managing faculties, departments, programs and
courses offered by the institution. More so other technologies were introduced like
configuring of Eduroam. This gave me the understanding of how to manage systems.
Generally, I gained a lot of skills out of this field attachment not limited to hardware repair,
web hosting, network administration, systems management but also work ethics such as
communication, telephone etiquette, relationship, code of conduct and association with the
team members at the work place.
Using some tools like a drilling machine, fiber splicing machine caught us unskilled and gave
us hard time to use.
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I thus recommend that the field attachment period is increased from four weeks to at least
eight weeks for students to gain more of experience.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0. Introduction
I carried out my field attachment at LIRA INIVERSITY IT DEPARTMENT, a department centered in the
middle of Lira University that provides IT support to all other departments within the University. This
gave me an opportunity to get introduced to other faculties that we worked with in the university
during the due course of internship.
This therefore introduced me to different activities that I participated in during my internship.
Including Networking, Web hosting, Hardware repair and maintenance, optical fiber and systems
management.
Generally, LIRA UNIVERSITY IT DEPARTMENT is a good place for not only industrial
training but also other IT related queries because they have sufficient equipment both
software and hardware and a hospitable team that is always willing to have new members
introduced in the department.
1.1. Objectives of field attachment.
To offer students an opportunity for converting classroom knowledge into
practical wisdom.
To enable students, understand work ethics, communication skills, employee
relationships, employment demands and responsibilities in the employment
environment
For students to gain exposure to both opportunities and challenges in the working
environment.
To enable students gain problem solving skills through assigning them various
tasks.
1.2. Location and description of the place of the field attachment
Lira University in located in Ayere village, Barapwo parish, Lira subcounty, Elute County Lira-
Uganda. The University campus is located at Northwest of downtown, Lira off the Lira-Kamini
Road. Web: lirauni.ac.ug, Address: 7R2C+9CV, Lira, P.O.BOX 1035 Lira Uganda Telephone
Number 0471660714.Operation Hours 08:00am to 05:00pm Monday to Friday
Lira University is a public university that offers academic documents to both internal and external
students at both a diploma, degree and master’s level. Lira University is identified as a center of
applied sciences and technology that aims at community development and transformation of the
society.
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1.3. Vision Mission and Core values
Vision
A beacon center of Applied sciences and technology
Mission
To provide access to quality Higher Education, Research and conduct professional training for the
delivery of appropriate services directed towards sustainable utilization of Biodiversity for
community transformation.
Core Values
Management excellency
Effectiveness and efficiency
Professionalism
Integrity
Internalization
Team work
All-inclusiveness
Accountability and transparency
ICT MANAGER
Lab Attendants
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1.5. Tasks Carried out by the organization.
Strength
The information and communication technology (ICT) has managed to provide reliable
internet to lira university through maintenance of the network. This has enabled
administrators to do the office work and also help students to do their research work.
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The department has managed to provide guidance and support to both the staff members and
students to enable them use the ODEL system for e-learning. This has enabled lecturers to
online and students have been able to learn during the period of the lockdown in the country
as issued by the president of Uganda.
The department has also been able to maintain the systems and websites of the university so
that they and constantly working all the time.
The ICT department monitors the hardware devices within the university and ensures that
they are functioning properly at all times.
Weakness
Adopting to the new online learning by students and lecturers has been slow.
The ICT department is not an independent department which makes decision making hard
since it requires approval from the department under which they are.
Opportunities.
Favourable government policy in a way that Lira University has been taken as a public
university has increased its chances of development.
Government funding organisations that have supported research and innovation with in Lira \
university has boosted the innovation and research experience and skills of Lira University
students giving it a better platform to compete with the bigger research organisations.
NGOs (None Governmental Organisations) and external organisations that have promoted
project funding within the institution has given a chance to exploration especially health-
based projects.
Threats
Natural hazards more especially lightening and thunder, heavy rains with winds have spark
off the wireless internet access points and destroyed the fiber joints at different man hall
points with n the university.
Competing institution around the North and other parts of the country has affected negatively
the growth of the university in terms of competition on student entries.
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2.0. CHAPTER TWO
2.1. DESCRIPTION OF THE TASKS CARRIED OUT.
While at Lira University IT department, I got involved in activities including Hardware repair
and maintenance, Networking, Webhosting and Systems management.
Identification of hardware components and their functions was done under the guidance of
the university technician, Mr. Busingye Christian
Figure 1 Motherboard
a) RAM: This type of memory reads information randomly and stores it temporarily. A
computer without a RAM cannot display. RAM is one of the major factors that
determine how fast a computer is. RAMs are either static (SD RAM) or dynamic
(DDR RAM) where SD RAMs are generally slow majorly found in old generation
computers while DDR RAMs are faster and are in the new generation computers.
DDR RAMs are in categories of DDR1, DDR2, DDR3, DDR3L, DDR4 and below
are the differences specifically for a desktop RAM.
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DDR1 DDR2 DDR3 DDR4
Has one Has one Has one Bottom
notch at the notch at the notch at the notch is in
bottom bottom on bottom on the middle
Rectangular the extreme the left Squared
capacitors left. towards the capacitors
on a single Few square centre. 288 pins
side capacitors Squared High range
184 pins on a single capacitors of speed
side on both sides than others.
240 pins 240 pins Uses less
Faster than Twice faster power
DDR1 than DDR2 compared to
Uses less Uses less others
power power
Table 1 How DDR1, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4 differ
Similarity: All have two notches on both sides.
b) CPU: This is the brain of the computer. CPUs differ by manufacturers, generations
and speed.
By manufacturers, there are AMD processors where each edge(corner) has missing
pins and Intel processors where only one edge has missing pins and also has resistors
in the middle.
Intel processors include Pentium (1,2,3,4), Dual Core, Intel Celeron, iCore (i3, i5, i7,
i9) and hybrid processors that are inbuilt on the motherboard.
c) Disk drives: these store data permanently. They include the SDD which stores data on
instantly accessible chips and HDD which uses mechanical platters to read and write
data.
B) The screens
Screens are connected to the motherboard by the screen fibres. They are of different types
which include LCD, LED and paper and thus the sizes of the fibres differ.
-LCD is the only screen with a power cable to power the screen from an inverter
board which in turn connects to the motherboard.
-LED: The screen board is at the bottom, has small display connector than LCD, is
attached to the back cover by hinges and can thus stand alone.
-Paper: Has small screen board and small display connecter, is lighter than other
screens and has screws to hold the screen to the back and thus cannot stand alone without
back cover.
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2.1.1.2 Hardware assembly and troubleshooting
a) Steps of disassembling a laptop
Clean the surface
Disconnect it from power
Remove the battery
Remove the CD/DVD-ROM
Remove the HDD
Remove the casing
Remove the keyboard
Remove the motherboard
In assembling, the parts that were removed last are put back first.
b) Steps of troubleshooting a computer
Identify the problem by interviewing the client
Develop a solution
Implement the solution
Test the solution. If it works, document the problem and the solution.
c) Some of the tools used in troubleshooting and fixing computer problems
Side caliper
Rework station
Digital multi-meter to measure continuity, voltage, efficiency.
Soldering gun for fixing broken components such as wires using soldering wire.
Blower (Air and Heat) for removing broken chips from the motherboard and
drying the board.
Thermopaste/ coolant for cooling the CPU
Soldering paste/flux for cleaning the inner parts of the graphics card and other
chips.
Tweezer for picking hot components from the motherboard considering the
direction.
2.1.1.3 Software installation and configuration
a) Installation of an operating system
Steps
Create a bootable device e.g., CD, DVD, Flash disk using either Power iso or rufus
Identify the functional key that will help you enter the boot menu of the target
device.
Insert the bootable device into the target machine.
Restart the target device while pressing the specific key to access the boot menu.
Change the boot device from the hard disk to the bootable device you have created.
Press enter and start installation.
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b) Installation of drivers
A driver is a set of files that tells a piece of hardware how to function by communicating with
the computer’s operating system.
Drivers can be installed while offline using software such as Driver pack, SDIO or online
through updating windows.
Different software applications have different installation procedures and thus it is important
for one to get genuine software with their guidelines of installation.
For example, during the installation of the Ease Us data recovery software, all the files
indicated in the figure below should be run following the instructions in the How to install.txt
file.
Figure 2 showing files to be run while installing Ease Us data recovery software
d) Configuration of BIOS set up and utility
Restart the computer and press the appropriate functional key to enter the
BIOS setup
Using the left, right, up and down arrow keys, navigate to the item to be
modified such as date and time
After making all the required changes, navigate to the exit tab to save changes
and exit.
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1.1.4 NETWORKING
A network is an interconnection of devices to share resources. Networking was
covered under the supervision of Mr. Dan Okallo for logical network and Mr.
Busingye Christian for physical network. Under Logical network, the network flow
from LU main server to the endpoints was covered.
Crimping tool
RJ45
Network cables
Network cable tester
Punch down tool
Cable ties
Faceplate and network modules which make up a network socket
etc.
NETWORKS CABLES
Among the networking tools are network cables which are used for connecting
devices in a network in a wired manner. These are of different types: -
Optic Fiber cables: These provide a fastest rate of data transfer over
distance. There are different types of fiber cable that is in door and out
door fiber cables.
Coaxial cables: These normally connect the microwave dishes on masts
to the network operations center for a given telecom company in a given
area.
Console cable: One end of this cable has a USB connector and the other
side has an RJ45 connector and is mostly used when configuring
unmanaged switches.
Twisted pair cables: In this kind of cables, the wires are twisted to
reduce signal attenuation. Twisted pair cables are o two types i.e.,
shielded and unshielded.
o Shielded twisted pair cables are most suitable for outdoor
cabling because the aluminum foil increases the strength of the
cable preventing it from bending which would otherwise cause
signal attenuation and loss.
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o Unshielded twisted pair cables are most suitable for indoor
cabling because they are weak due to the lack of the shielding.
Cable termination is a terminology in networking which is the process of making a network cable
suitable for signal transmission by connecting RJ45 connectors at its ends. When terminating a cable,
two standards i.e., T568A and T568B are followed as defined by the ISO.
T568A T568B
White Green White Orange
Green Orange
White Orange White Green
Blue Blue
White Blue White Blue
Orange Green
White Brown White Brown
Brown Brown
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Table 2 Order of the wire colors for both T568A and T568B
Depending on the devices to be connected, a network cable can be terminated to be a straight-
through, crossover or rollover.
Straight-through cable: Both ends of the cable are of the same standard. These are used to
connect different devices such as a switch to a computer.
Crossover cables: One end is of standard T568A and the other end is of standard T568B.
They are used to connect similar devices such as switch to switch.
Rollover cables: In this cable, the order of the color wires is interchanged as per standard
used. For example, using T568A, results would be as follows;
SIDE A SIDE B
White Green Brown
Green White Brown
White Orange Orange
Blue White Blue
White Blue Blue
Orange White Orange
White Brown Green
Brown White Green
Table 3 T568A Rollover cable ends
Rollover cables are used to configure unmanaged switches.
After arranging the wires in a given standard, they are fixed into RJ45 connectors and then
crimped using a crimping tool.
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Figure 3 RJ45 Connector(left) and Crimping tool (right)
After terminating a cable, it is then tested using a network cable tester.
Local area network is the network that spans a small geographic area such as a room or a building.
Open control panel >>Network and internet >> Network and sharing center >> Change
Advanced sharing settings
Turn on network discovery for both private and public networks
Turn on files and printer sharing for both private and public networks
Save changes
Right click the folder to be shared
Go to properties
Under the sharing tab, go to advanced sharing.
Set the number of recipients and permissions, click OK.
ROUTER CONFIGURATION
A router is a network device that connects other devices to the internet and transfers data packets. To
configure a router: -
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Configure the basic and advanced settings and click APPLY to save the settings.
The first step in the installation is to download the XenServer ISO file. This can
easily be accomplished by visiting the link above or using the ‘wget ‘utility on a
Linux system
Now burn the ISO to a CD or using ‘dd ‘to copy the ISO to a flash drive.
Now place the media into the system that XenServer will be installed and boot to that
media. Upon successful boot the user should be greeted by the wonderful Citrix
XenServer boot splash.
At this point simply press enter to begin the booting process. This will boot the user
into the XenServer installer. The first screen will ask the user to provide
a language selection.
The next screen asks the user to confirm the reason for booting to this media as well
as provide the option to load extra hardware drivers if needed. In this particular case,
it is to install XenServer to the machine so it is safe to click “OK”.
The next prompt is the obligatory EULA (End User License Agreement). Feel free to
read the whole thing, as your supposed to anyways right, otherwise using the
keyboard arrows move the cursor over to the “Accept EULA” button and hit enter.
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The next screen requests the installation device. In this example the RAID setup on
the server is where XenServer will be installed.
The RAID system is reflected as “sda – 556 GB [IBM ServeRAID-MR10k]” For
this guide, thin provisioning is not necessary. Make sure the asterisk (*) character is
next to the hard drive selection to install XenServer and tab to the “OK” button.
The next screen will prompt the user for the location of the installation files. Since the
installer was boot locally with a CD/DVD/USB, make sure to select the “Local
Media” option.
The next step allows for the installation of Supplemental Packs (SP) at the time of
install. For this guide, none of the supplemental packs available will be installed at
this point but will be covered later once XenServer is up and running.
The next screen will ask if the user wishes to verify that the installer media is not
corrupt. Generally, this is a good idea but is a personal choice. All in all the
verification on this test server took about 3 minutes from a CD
Once the verification is completed, if selected during install, the XenServer installer
will all the user to setup some system information.
The next screen will ask the user to chose a management interface. The number of
interfaces that shows up will vary from system to system and the management
interface doesn’t have to be a separate interface. A separate interface can be used to
secure administrative access to the hypervisor itself.
Once the management interface is selected, the system will prompt for how to obtain
an IP address for the management interface. This step will obviously vary from site to
site as well.
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After determining the IP address information for the XenServer, the system will ask
for a hostname to be set as well as DNS server configuration.
At this point all of the initial configuration parameters will be complete and the
XenServer installer will be ready to begin the installation of the hypervisor.
The installation will take some time but a progress bar will be displayed. Once the
installer is done, it will prompt the user to restart the system to boot to the newly
installed hypervisor (be sure to remove the XenServer installation disk upon reboot).
Upon removing the installation media and rebooting the system, the user should be
presented with the Citrix XenServer splash page. Allow the system to continue
booting.
Once the booting has completed, the system will present the XenServer control page.
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After we successfully installed the XenServer we went ahead to setup the NGINX
web server as well as creating a Virtual machine on the Linux XenServer. The link to
the server is Projects.lirauni.ac.ug
I found out that Lira University E-Learning platform was customized from Moodle
platform and I was given access rights as an admin and had to fulfil the task that I was
assigned by the Supervisor that is adding new faculties, Departments and Course units
that were introduced by the University.
A walk through was also done on the University website, IT website and how they can
be managed and updated. This is where the help desk came in and I learnt how to help
students connect to eduroam and a new technique of wireless internet connectivity
adopted by the university.
This gave me a broad understanding on how to manage websites, systems and use of
content management systems to come up with a desirable solution to the need.
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2.2. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ASSIGNED AND HOW THEY WERE
CARRIED OUT
At the end of the period designated for hardware repair and maintenance, I was assigned a
duty to assemble a desktop computer with was dismantled by my supervisor Mr. Busingye
Christian.
Different computers with different brands including Lenovo, dell, were given to me for
windows installation after the practise sessions.
Under Web hosting, I and my fellow interns were grouped and given a new Critex Xenserver
and were told to install an operating system on it, create a virtual instance (linux based) and
configure it to host a project and mirror the IP address to the domain name. I was also tasked
to get a SSL certificate from Let’s encrypt as a free SSL certificate provider. This was done
under the supervision of Mr. Okallo Daniel.
Under Networking, I was instructed to download a Cisco packet tracer and create a virtual
network setup which was done under the supervision of Mr. Busingye Christian.
Also, I was assigned a duty to calculating the network portion given the IP address and
subnet.
I was assigned a task of terminating network cables and sharing files over a LAN. This
helped me to gain networking experience.
Under Web hosting by Miss. Aboot Faith, I was tasked to add, and or delete the departments,
programs, and courses under education faculty through assigning me role and admin
preferences on the bee LMS that is used by Lira University.
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2.4. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEPARTMENTS
While at Lira University, I interacted and worked with the technicians, systems managers,
network administration and even the IT manager and thanks be to God all were collaborative.
This gave me a conducive environment both to learn and also seek for guidance freely. More
so I interacted with administrators from different faculties where we could go for practical
sessions for example hospital admins during network installation, Dean Faculty midwifery
during extension of ethernet cable to her office, HOD Computing and Information during
printer installation and troubleshooting. All these administrators were hospitable and
welcomed us into their offices and gave us a clear environment that allowed us implement of
roadmap during my internship season
Under computer assembly, I got a challenge of having extra screws after assembly but this
was solved by being orderly while disassembling and unscrewing. I used labels for easy
identification and remembrance of where each screw goes.
Generally, I did not encounter a lot of challenges during the entire internship period however
it was not a straight line but different debugging methods were adopted incase of encounters
faced during the internship course.
Computer Science curriculum should be twisted in such a way that practical course
units are evaluated on a practical basis, more time is given to students for their
practical sessions, AI Lab should be setup to provide a better environment for students
to explore in artificial intelligence.
The length of the field attachment period should be increased for the interns to gain
more experience.
Internship attachment letters should be provided to students earlier for their better
preparation.
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To LU ICT DEPARTMENT
Interns should be driven in the practical part of implementing the logical network for
example setting up a network for a certain building
Students should also be introduced to artificial intelligence to align them with the current
trends in technology.
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