LanSchool Noob - Connection Server Setup details needed

[bwilkerson]

Ok, I am new to LanSchool and while I was able to get the stand-alone installs for teacher and student workstations to work it was suggested that I should set up a LanSchool connection Server. Well I set up a Server 2008R2 in VMWare and installed LCS.msi but have no idea where to go from there.

 

I also created an AD Group called LanSchool Teachers and added myself to it so I could do some testing but I do not know how this all communicates with AD and all that.

 

Do I need to used the admx templates in this active directory security model?

 

How do I manage what workstations and channels teachers can have access to?

 

Lots of unanswered questions and missing detail in the setup/user PDF files.

[sonofsanta]

What's the connection server?

 

We just install the Teacher MSI to the right machines, Student MSI to the other machines, then set the channel, AD secure mode etc. through group policy (from the ADMX template). Teachers are added into the LanSchool Teachers group and... that's it. Just make sure computers in a room are all on the same VLAN, saves a great deal of hassle with broadcasting and so on.

[bwilkerson]

What's the connection server?

 

We just install the Teacher MSI to the right machines, Student MSI to the other machines, then set the channel, AD secure mode etc. through group policy (from the ADMX template). Teachers are added into the LanSchool Teachers group and... that's it. Just make sure computers in a room are all on the same VLAN, saves a great deal of hassle with broadcasting and so on.

 

From what I understand it is a central server that the LanSchool clients can report back to. The very reason I am looking into this is because of vlans. While the standalone install has worked fine for our labs we have several laptop carts on wireless that are used in classrooms where the teacher computer on the wired port is on a separate VLAN than the wireless laptops but the teachers would like to use LanSchool in those situations as well.

 

We have a site License so the connection server is included with that license.

[sonofsanta]

Ah right. Don't know if that was even an option three years ago when we installed, but all our classrooms are fixed desktops so the VLANs haven't been a problem. I did briefly try and experiment with the broadcast/multicast options but couldn't get anywhere on the switches, so gave it up as it was only for my interest/benefit so I could control machines site-wide from my office. I fear I'll be no help to you!

 

Daft question, have you tried ringing support? They have actually been useful for me in the past.

[bwilkerson]

Ah right. Don't know if that was even an option three years ago when we installed, but all our classrooms are fixed desktops so the VLANs haven't been a problem. I did briefly try and experiment with the broadcast/multicast options but couldn't get anywhere on the switches, so gave it up as it was only for my interest/benefit so I could control machines site-wide from my office. I fear I'll be no help to you!

 

Daft question, have you tried ringing support? They have actually been useful for me in the past.

 

I may go that route to.. I just came across this forum in my searches on LanSchool and it looked like a decent community to get answers. We too have tried messing with multicast on our switches and have had no luck so I wanted to test this route as it says right in the install manual that it alleviates the headaches of communicating across vlans as it uses port 80 internally.