NetSupport School over Wireless

[alan-d]

Anyone here running Netsupport School over their wireless network?

I urgently need to know if there is any significant difference in logons and file transfers etc and if the teacher browsing all the laptops produces a drop in performance.

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Hi

I have been testing this today I didn't see a big slowdown. Had a few problems initially connecting up but i changed some settings in the configuration.

Z

[alan-d]

Was that on a single laptop or a full class?

Thanks for the input.

[FN-GM]

9 laptops

Z

[alan-d]

Thanks

[jwood]

We do it the other way around, ie. teacher on a wireless laptop connects to a class of wired desktops. This works fine, with the only problems every being caused by a few students who have found a way of stopping the net support service and disconnecting themselves.

[FN-GM]

@jwood how did they do that?

[jwood]

We don't know exactly, but whatever they do results in the computer being unusable due to a "netlogon service not running" error, and we have to re-ghost them.

[plock]

I've had the same issue with students disconnecting themselves; we've also had issues with students bringing in a free copy of NetSupport, or a trial version, of the Tutor, thus allowing them to control our machines. The students disconnecting the network connection caused NetSupport to disconnect; teachers were having problems reconnecting, not sure if that is still a problem though. I prevented students running applications off their memory sticks or home directories. With installing additional security using the password protection features of NetSupport this truly stopped them. I did learn the hard way on that one though!

In regards to OP, we have had endless problems with NetSupport running wirelessly. We have 10 laptop trolleys of 25 laptops each, when a whole set are connected NetSupport doesn’t work too well, causing ‘connecting’ issues and the like. Also, VLANS have been an issue also with NetSupport, when our wireless laptops are running, our wired Tutors couldn’t connect. I have solved this by specifying subnets in NetSupport.

Only today did I notice NetSupport have published some ADM's, that'll help with configuration and deployment I'm sure!

[FN-GM]

We don't know exactly, but whatever they do results in the computer being unusable due to a "netlogon service not running" error, and we have to re-ghost them.

The ring leader of the group responsible has been captured though, and the problem seems to have died out.

Do you allow them to task manager?

Z

[plock]

I would certainly hope not?

[plock]

That's odd, do students have access to see the C:\ drive? Via GPO have you hidden and prevented access to C:\?

[plock]

Agreed!

What are the ACL's on your NetSupport folders? Do students have Full Control? My setup gives students simple 'Read and Execute' access.

Using the GUI can students navigate to 'C:\Program Files', from my understanding the hide policy produces a 'disallowed' message when trying to navigate using the address bar.

What information do you have on when/how the folder is moved? What are the NTFS permissions when the folder is on the Students Desktop?

Are you using Mandatory Profiles/Local or Roaming? Are you using Redirected Start Menu's/Desktops?

Cheers.

[plock]

:? Woah!

I'm really sorry but I don't go down that route ever! That's probably where the issue lies with the NetSupport folder.

I would seriously consider changing that setup. We have loads of applications, none of which have caused me problems excessively. There are a couple of others way you can sort permissions.

I often use Application Servers when resource is available; this is a lot nicer to manage also.

Other than that, I have Startup Scripts running setting the ACL's on the folders necessary.

I'm surprised you've had a lot of issues, most of our kit runs nicely giving them simple Read & Execute access.

[rdhawkins]

For the OP and other general wireless stuff we have done a helluva lot of work for wireless over the last 18 months.

The one thing we have determined (the hard way) is that not all wireless cards are the same. The difference between a dirt cheap card and mid priced card is huge.

Cheap cards are fine for domestic, single PC connecting to a Wireless ADSL router type applications. These aren't so good though for high throughput usage with 25+ machines.

Regarding configuration though it is critical to 'tinker' with the maximum throughput figure in the transport configuration. Setting this too high will swamp the router causing too many retries from the clients. Also don't rule out interference form external devices such as mobile phones or micro waves. We had a site last year that was getting large numbers of drop outs when showing to 20 wireless laptops. Turned out it was a taxi company next door, their radio's where interfering with the signal.

For those with connection problems you can use the Name & Connectivity server introduced in V9. This can be used to locate and identify all clients when they are roaming (wireless laptops). The clients are configured to tell the Connectivity server what their ip address is, this may change as they move around. When the Tutor needs to connect to the clients it uses the address from the Connectivity server to find them. The actual connection is still made directly to the client though, its just the address that is acquired from the server.