GNS3 is a Graphical Network Simulator that allows emulation of complex networks. You may be familiar with VMWare or Virtual PC that are used to emulate various operating systems in a virtual environment. These programs allow you to run operating systems such as Windows XP Professional or Ubuntu Linux in a virtual environment on your computer. GNS3 allows the same type of emulation using Cisco Internetwork Operating Systems. It allows you to run a Cisco IOS in a virtual environment on your computer. GNS3 is a graphical front end to a product called Dynagen. Dynamips is the core program that allows IOS emulation. Dynagen runs on top of Dynamips to create a more user friendly, text-based environment. A user may create network topologies using simple Windows ini-type files with Dynagen running on top of Dynamips. GNS3 takes this a step further by providing a graphical environment.
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TrueCrypt is a free open source on the fly encryption software. (On the fly means that all decryption is done within the memory and no decrypted data is written to the hard drive.) It works for many operating systems, including Windows and Linux (ie: Ubuntu 6.06). TrueCrypt works in two ways. It creates a TrueCrypt encrypted volume on your hard drive, which is basically a file, or it can encrypt entire hard disk partition or USB memory stick, but the latter topic is out of the scope of this guide. (Please refer to wwww.truecrypt.org for more information on how to encrypt an entire hard disk partition.) After TrueCrypt creates the encrypted volume - it can be mounted for anyone to use. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password.
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