Friday, July 9

Day 5 - so much information, so little time! Once again, I am borrowing from Rocky, because much of the time, he recorded while I drove. His words and listings of steps are in red.

Check DNS settings on server to ensure workstations have network access.

• Go to ‘Control Panel’
• Select ‘Administrative Tools’
• Select ‘DHCP’
• Open ‘IPv4’
• Open ‘Server Options’
• Right click on ‘DNS Servers’
• Select ‘Properties’
• Make sure to check off ‘DNS’
• Enter the numbers directed towards the DNS IP’s (i.e. 142.66.33.100; 142.66.33.101)

Sidenote on activation keys:

• KMS - Key Management Software - limited time to perform activation ritual. After that point, software shuts down.
• MAK - Multiple Activation Key - automatically activates via internet. Allows for multiple but limited numbers of activated software. (I think Lyle said he had to enter the numbers centrally; this would give me a headache - the print out was very tiny.)

Other notes:

• Make sure "Enable Remote Desktop" is checked, to allow centralized access to other computers.
• Initial Configuration Tasks window is always accessible through Run -> oobe. (Secret geek language)
• Firewalls must be disabled to see shared folders. Firewalling is done at the gateway from our network to outside (well, not exactly the gateway, but at the physical point)

1. The first thing that Lyle wanted us to do was to check that we had the proper ‘loopback address’ of 127.0.0.1 . We didn’t do this as we were scrambling to keep up. I hope to remember and check this out on Monday. Everything was working fine and as it should but it be nice to actually check this out.
2. In the DNS Services:
1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. DNS

• In the section that lists the servers, Lyle indicated that we should have at least two. It’s even better to have more – basically as many as you can enter. This way, should one server be down, our workstations would have alternate routes to take to be able to access the internet.
• The first server should be OUR server (192.168.24.50)
• The second one, in our situation, was to access Lyle’s server (192.168.181.50)
• We then continued by listing the other servers within our class (i.e. 192.168.15.50, 192.168.10.50)
• To check which servers our network are going to access to get out to the internet – I believe that Lyle said we could telnet in and type “ list all servers “ and this would provide a listing of servers.

We had an issue with our Server Name which had to be modified within the DHCP service. The suffix ‘.local’ wasn’t being attached to our name Server2008. Turns out that where the Server2008 name is typed in, we had to select ‘More’. It was at the next window that we typed in ‘local’ for the suffix. (This was a problem that I mentioned in my previous post.)

Installing Windows 7

This was very similar to installing any other piece of software. We found documentation, but really didn't have to consult it today. It's good to have on file, however, for troubleshooting purposes.

1. Boot from DVD drive (F12 on startup).
2. Follow the prompts in the wizard, using "Custom Install."
3. Perform chipset and Windows updates.
4. Note to self: Perform updates several times. We kept getting new ones listed after a reboot.
5. Note to self deux: I only speak two of the extra languages. The language updates are not necessary (that's why they are not listed in the Critical Updates section - go figure) and very time consuming to download.

Setting up Windows 2008 Server

Accessing the switch through a network cable (as opposed to the serial connection).

• Telnet is not automatically enabled in Windows Vista or 7. To turn it on (in Vista):
• Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off -> Check Telnet Client.

Telnet

1. Run cmd.
2. telnet switch ip address
3. Log in as usual.
   

Browser

1. Open browser.
2. Browse to switch ip address.
3. Log in as usual.
   

• Technical difficulties with connecting a laptop to the switch have made my life miserable for the last few days. I have spent more time troubleshooting that today than working on the server. Rocky was a huge help, working away at Server 2008 installation, but I missed out on a lot of the steps that he took, and I certainly didn't get a chance to write them down. Therefore, I am borrowing heavily from his notes and blog entry.

• If I were doing this in the real world, I would have division-owned equipment that would be easier to connect (after the first time, when I would have had more time to get to the root of the problem and fix it).

• We had problems with accessing the internet from the server. Firewalls need to be temporarily turned off during set up, and IE Explorer security settings need to be opened up. Both of these are done through the Server Manager.

To configure IE settings:

• Access the Server Manager 2008
• Scroll down to find (on right hand side) ‘Configure IE ESC’
• Disable the firewall

Turning off firewall:

Access the Server Manager 2008

• Go to Windows Firewall
• Select Windows Firewall Properties
• For ‘Firewall State’ – select ‘OFF’

• Make sure to download and install updates as soon as the internet connection is working.

ROCKY'S NOTES

• To access routing table
• Get in command mode (cmd)
• Enter “ telnet 192.168.24.254 “
• Should get a prompt to enter admin username and password
• telnet is a command interface to connect to a device
• using the browser and entering the URL of 192.168.24.254, the user gets the GUI
• the webview allows the user to see graphically what is happening in the network
• the GUI has more functionality than the telnet client
• the GUI provides the user the ability to see if everything is working properly
• Lyle indicated that he uses the GUI a majority of the time when working with networks
• Again – with the issues, I wasn’t able to catch how he used this webview to monitor connections. Some items he covered were:
• From the left side, there were buttons – as well, there were tabs along the top
• To check connections, Lyle selected the ‘ethernet’ button
• Webview works best using IE
• From the Ethernet button, one can see what ports are up or down; port connections between switches; speed of ports; half/full duplexing
• To modify any of these features – select ‘manually configure’; modify
• The following path NETWORKING – IP – hover over IP – ROUTES – STATIC will show the static IP’s assigned to each switch
• To check the routes for traffic on the network:
• Using telnet, enter “ show ip route “
• Will get a listing of all IPs for routing

Installing Roles

• File Sharing
  
• DNS
• DCHP
• To modify these at a later date, go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services
• We had to do this with the DHCP role because we missed putting the Domain Suffix in when originally setting up the role. We also missed the DNS ip address listings.

Updates

It was really hard to find the updates for the serial adapters, largely because we didn't know the exact model numbers (which is where I usually start looking for updates), but also because the updates were on the Dell site (OK - makes sense) under "Chip Sets" (makes absolutely no sense to me). And to make matters worse, we were to download Vista drivers for Server 2008. My profound thanks to John and Sandie for finding them and sharing them.

All of this goes to prove conclusively that working as a team is the preferred method. I know from talking to my techies in Horizon that they spend a lot of time on the phone tracking down information when installing/troubleshooting equipment. The people who know are always willing to share. And it also shows that trying to install equipment under the pressures of time constraints makes it much easier to miss the tiny details! Plan ahead, plan ahead, plan ahead!

What I learned today at school...

Reminders:

• Just because you think you have pushed really hard on the RAM, video, and NIC cards, you probably haven't pushed hard enough.
• Vista and Windows 7 do not have telnet turned on by default. In order to communicate with the switch, this needs to be turned on first.
  

Adding layer 3 functionality to the switch (in Lyle's words because he said it best)

vlan 2 (This creates a new vlan - vlan 2)

ip interface vlan-2 address x.x.x.x mask 255.255.0.0 vlan 2 (The x.x.x.x IP address will be assigned to you and will be the ip address for port 1 on the switch)

ip static-route 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 gateway x.x.x.x (The x.x.x.x IP address here will be the next hop that packets will be forwarded to if they are undeliverable on the local switch)

vlan 2 port default 8/1 (This sets up the vlan 2 networking port to be on slot 8 port 1 on the switch and starts forwarding packets)

Other commands to remember:

• show vlan
• show ip interface

Websites for instructions on installing Win Server 2008:

Microsoft Corporation. (2008). Installing Windows Server 2008. Retrieved from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755116%28WS.10%29.aspx

Petri IT Knowledgebase. (2011) How to install Windows Server 2008 step by step. Retrieved from http://www.petri.co.il/how-to-install-windows-server-2008-step-by-step.htm

Warren, S. (2007). How do I... Install and configure Windows Server 2008 core? Retrieved from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/howdoi/how-do-i-install-and-configure-windows-server-2008-core/176

Impressions

It appears that installing the Server software is just like installing any other piece of software. It was a lot easier with Lyle to tell us what the settings should be. But what if you don’t know the settings?

I liked the web pages that included screen shots. These are much easier to follow than the Microsoft page, but it has more detailed information. I realize that that site is designed to be very technical, but would it have killed them to make it a bit more user friendly? (That’s a rhetorical question – we all know about Microsoft….)

“Things I did not know…” department

Pressing F12 forces the computer to boot from the DVD drive. Does this work for all machines, or just Dell? (I guess I don’t totally know, yet.)

Overall, things went pretty smoothly for us today. The nice thing about using a GUI is that many things have a standard way of functioning, for example entering data into a field instead of having to use a command prompt function. We lucked out in that our computers worked really well with the network, which made life much easier than previous days.

July 5

Today was a really good review of much of what I missed yesterday when we had so much trouble. We had tech difficulties of a different sort today, but Lyle came to the rescue with another laptop. Sometimes the strangest and littlest things make a huge difference. And yesterday, my laptop worked; today, it skipped over the password entry. What a pain!

A summary of the commands that we have used so far:

• write memory - saves changes in settings
• copy working certified - copies settings to the second OS on the switch
• ip interface vlan-1 address 172.22.120.1 - sets VLAN1 IP address
• aaa authentication default local - readies switch for remote access via telnet, FTP, WebView, SNMP, etc. These can all be changed individually, but this command does them all at once.
• to access remotely, enter IP address into your browser. This opens up the GUI.

Reminders:

• Isolating our group switch from the central one (with firewall and internet access) solved this problem with duplicate IP addresses.
• We had to temporarily disable the firewalls on our laptops in order to be able to do the ping exercise.
• Different OS's handle IP addresses and masks differently. Addresses/masks that I predicted would be able to communicate didn't act like they should have. Apparently Apple is the least restrictive.

A Not-so-friendly Reminder

I learned a lot today.

1. The word "boot" has multiple meanings. I wanted to put on my boot to boot my computer every time it re-"boot"ed.
2. Always be nice to the IT department. They will save your butt many times.
3. Plan ahead. Working under a deadline puts on a lot of pressure.
4. Some things are beyond your control. (But they are almost always solve-able, given enough time and a reliable internet connection - and an OS that works in Turcotte Hall.)
5. If something isn't working, there is probably a hidden (on purpose or by serendipity) setting such as a port number.
6. CoolTermWin is a freeware program that enables communication with a switch through a serial port. It needs a serial-USB adapter for use with most newer laptops.
7. Once communication is established, the setup is not difficult.
8. The default serial connection settings for the Alcatel switch appear to be fairly standard. They appeared by default in CoolTerm. They are: baud rate 9600, parity none, data bits (word size) 8, stop bits 1.
9. There is a lot of information available for one switch - 6 manuals worth! (11 if you count the ones for the 6800.)
10. There is a lot more information available on line - you can find all kinds of help if you have the time to look for it.
11. Hopefully there is a lot of general transfer of knowledge from Alcatel to Enterasys, HP, etc. Our division has a wide variety of switches purchased over a period of time. And once again, each division is different.
    
12. The OmniSwitch 6624/6648/6800/7700/7800/8800 Troubleshooting Guide is 614 pages long. I downloaded it.
    
13. My Facebook status today read "Gail Malchow Tschritter is very frustrated, but glad to be back with a great group of people." Problems can be solved with teamwork. One of the most important things to keep in mind as a leader (of any sort) is that you and your team need each other, and that you can't do everything alone.
14. Another example of teamwork - Rocky just reminded me that you must always save. The command is "write memory" and you need to copy that to the other OS using "copy working certified."
15. To check the ip address, use "show ip interface."