Sync Paxton Net2 Departments between sites

[corriganc]

Hi all,

 

We have a Paxton Net2 server at each of our sites. Within this, there is a department for that site's staff (managed by Salamander) and another for Trust staff.

 

This means whenever a member of the Trust Central Team joins/leaves, we have to make the changes 7 times.

 

I'd like to try and automate this by using our Trust's Net2 server as the 'master department' and then keeping the other sites in sync.

 

In my head, I'm wondering if there is some way to script the export of the department as a CSV (we only populate name and token) which I can then push to the other servers and have them go through the list and add anyone not already on their server, update anyone who has had a new token or got married and expire anyone who exists on the server but not in the CSV.

 

Does anyone know if this is possible or, even better, have a solution for such a scenario?

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Kind Regards,

Callum

[snagrat]

Why don’t you just have one server to manage all doors across the Trust?

 

Rather than having 7 servers….

[ckedu-local]

Why don’t you just have one server to manage all doors across the Trust?

 

Rather than having 7 servers….

 

This - I have 1 server running in Azure that runs all the Net2 system for all the sites.

Got the schools split into different departments as we don't have the Net2 version where you can have multiple sites.

 

Works a dream for access, although modifying anything inside the Net2 client does freeze up when making changes.

[snagrat]

This - I have 1 server running in Azure that runs all the Net2 system for all the sites.

Got the schools split into different departments as we don't have the Net2 version where you can have multiple sites.

 

Works a dream for access, although modifying anything inside the Net2 client does freeze up when making changes.

 

I do the same. No issues with the client though.

[corriganc]

The long term solution is to have a single server, but that's not the setup we currently have, or will be able to have for at least 18 months due to other factors at play.

 

As such, I'm looking for a method to sync the departments between sites for the next 18 months.

[Jamman960]

I didn’t realise Salamander could deal with net2, are you running a single domain for the trust?

 

Couldn’t you create a second group to be synced up via salamander on each site containing trust personnel? Assuming they’re also able to login to ad on each site

 

I work for a large trust with separate net2 servers, we have salamander but don’t seem to be using it for net2, I imagine this would save a ton of work and inconsistency.

[corriganc]

I didn’t realise Salamander could deal with net2, are you running a single domain for the trust?

 

Couldn’t you create a second group to be synced up via salamander on each site containing trust personnel? Assuming they’re also able to login to ad on each site

 

I work for a large trust with separate net2 servers, we have salamander but don’t seem to be using it for net2, I imagine this would save a ton of work and inconsistency.

 

Yeah, we've started using Salamander's Net2 integration this past week, and it seems to solve all of our problems with user add/remove besides the Trust Central Team. It will automatically provision and expire staff based on their contract end dates in SIMS, so our school staff just need to link their ID badges up to Net2 for them.

 

I did ask them about what we're looking for with the Central Team staff, but because they don't exist in the MIS at any of the sites, they can't do anything with them (their Net2 integration seems to rely on the MIS rather than AD).

 

Unfortunately, we're currently running separate AD/Azure for each site, but this is something else that should be consolidated into one over the next 18 months.

[3s-gtech]

Wooah, I didn’t know it worked with Salamander. This could save me a hell of a lot of work.

 

It’s included in the suite too!

[thimon]

I had the same reaction. Paxton is now almost zero touch for us. Salamaner were great at helping us getting the sync setup.

[Chclark]

we have vpns between all our sites so just have a central net2 server now that salamander makes all the users into syncs the photos over from arbor, then writes the card number back into AD for papercut and inventry to sync into their systems.

[Edulass]

Looking forward to getting Salamander up and running soon.

[Callum99]

This is something that we are looking into for our trust. 18 Schools Primary/Secondary. Not all Paxton yet, but majority are Paxton Net2.

 

We're looking at going down the single server route, and basing it in our Central Trust Office.

 

Most of our primary schools have pretty basic IT infrastructure currently, some not even having any managed switches.

 

Some questions if you don't mind:

 

Have you come across any cons with only having the one server, such as any issues with using the Fire Alarm or Lockdown features?

 

Presumably you have some form of VPN that connects this all together?

 

I was looking into using Tailscale to form the VPN to each site, planning on having a 'Subnet Router' at each school and then the paxton controllers pointing to that as their router. Are there any downsides to this?

 

Thanks

[Chclark]

This is something that we are looking into for our trust. 18 Schools Primary/Secondary. Not all Paxton yet, but majority are Paxton Net2.

 

We're looking at going down the single server route, and basing it in our Central Trust Office.

 

Most of our primary schools have pretty basic IT infrastructure currently, some not even having any managed switches.

 

Some questions if you don't mind:

 

Have you come across any cons with only having the one server, such as any issues with using the Fire Alarm or Lockdown features?

 

Presumably you have some form of VPN that connects this all together?

 

I was looking into using Tailscale to form the VPN to each site, planning on having a 'Subnet Router' at each school and then the paxton controllers pointing to that as their router. Are there any downsides to this?

 

Thanks

 

The cons been on a single server is if the link to the server drops your fire relays in the software won't work, however we have looked into this as the rules in our area state this cannot be used, and to be compliant each acu must have a physical fire relay and breakglass, we are currently retro fitting these where needed. But anything new now must be installed with this as standard.

 

We haven't tried the lockdown stuff but have a routine in place at one site which if they scan a certain reader twice it holds the vehicle gate open permanently till a different reader is scanned twice by a certain card. This works really well for them in the holidays unsure if the VPN dropped if this would continue working or not as not sure sure if this config sits on the local acu or server but suspect it's on the server.

 

The only other thing we have found is if making alot of permission changes we have multiple for each site of there's alot of change been made on the profile at once it can cause doors to hang while it pulls all the changes.

Edited January 2, 2025 by Chclark