Grommit Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 Hi How do I get staff members to use SIMS at home ?
kmount Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 Ask them nicely? Or, if you mean technically, you could consider Terminal Services, or a VPN.
Vegas Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 We've been using Terminal Services for SIMS access for the last 3 years with no problems.
Domino Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 Terminal services via vpn, or learning gateway (maybe wait till its had a couple of version revisions.....)
localzuk Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 As my boss has an aversion to VPNs for some reason, we will be going down the Learning Gateway route soon, when our LEA re-launches it next term. But personally, I'd think VPN connections for their laptops would be easier and more functional.
Domino Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 they would, but people peeing around with config or their own firewalls/routers could cause issues. at least with learning gateway they just need web access. And it does look like it'll work well. You may want to brush up on sharepoint (as thats what its based on) and also evaluate what you want to use it for, as not everything works through it (yet)
FN-GM Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 As said before VPN or Terminal Services. VPN will be the cheaper option but Terminal services will be better. Users wont be doing sims updates over the internet for one plus there are less things to break. Z
EduTech Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 Cant really elaberate anymore to be honest... Learning gateway option would be the best option i think if you have allot of less technically minded people as they might not want to mess around with there firewalls etc at home.. but VPN would be the cheapest option. James.
Hoggy Posted July 28, 2008 Posted July 28, 2008 Taking the bigger picture into account I'd recommend you went for Learning Gateway. The government expect schools to provide access to parents for online reporting by 2010 (Secondary) 2012 (Primary). LG will provide this and some. Might be worth asking if your LA is considering purchasing it and hosting it on behalf of schools. If they are it will save you a considerable amount of money and time.
Grommit Posted July 30, 2008 Author Posted July 30, 2008 As said before VPN or Terminal Services. VPN will be the cheaper option but Terminal services will be better. Users wont be doing sims updates over the internet for one plus there are less things to break. Z OK looks like a VPN it is then.. What the difference between a VPN and Remote Desktop ? And how to I stop users Remoting onto the ISA server.. is there a way to redirect to another internal Box ?
SYNACK Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 OK looks like a VPN it is then.. What the difference between a VPN and Remote Desktop ? And how to I stop users Remoting onto the ISA server.. is there a way to redirect to another internal Box ? A VPN is just an encrypted tunnel that gives you an ip address that your system considers internal. If you have a VPN connection set up through ISA 2004 or 2006 you can easily isolate the VPN clients using simple rules that will only allow it access to certain hosts or networks. In this case your SIMS software would be installed at home like it is on your internal client workstations. This software talks to the SIMS server just like an internal client it just needs to go through the VPN tunnel to be able to talk with your internal SIMS server. RDP is simply a way of remote controlling a desktop session on a remote computer, you could do this directly over the internet (insecure) or connect to the machine in question through a VPN which makes it much more secure. The issue with VPNs is routing and firewalls. Your schools ip configuration for VPN clients must not overlap with their local ip configuration on their home router. For instance if the users home router uses 192.168.1.0 and so does the VPN routing will fail and the VPN connection will not work. Some home routers do not support VPN passthrough at all and some cannot handle multiple simultanious VPN connections. If the home user has a device that cannot handle it or an ip configuration that overlapps the user must replace the router or reconfigure it respectivly. With the VPN route SIMS would need to be installed locally on each home users computer, meaning (I think - I havn't used sims) that their computers would need at least windows 2000 and can't run linux or be a Mac. The Web based route is much more simple for the end user as none of these issues come up (depending on how platform agnostic the web components or RDP client are).
Gatt Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 Installed SIMS via VPN last night - took a few hors! Couldn't logon though - Logon error 0 or something? Think I forgot to open a port on my VPN - possibly SQL?
Grommit Posted July 30, 2008 Author Posted July 30, 2008 Installed SIMS via VPN last night - took a few hors! Couldn't logon though - Logon error 0 or something? Think I forgot to open a port on my VPN - possibly SQL? Had the same problem
kmount Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 I'd doubt its a port issue as the vpn handles all of the traffic regardless of destination port. Could you ping the server name both hostname and hostname.domainname? I'll try it on mine tonight, been a while since I ran sims over vpn.
localzuk Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 I'd doubt its a port issue as the vpn handles all of the traffic regardless of destination port. Could you ping the server name both hostname and hostname.domainname? I'll try it on mine tonight, been a while since I ran sims over vpn. That's not strictly true. VPN's don't just carry all traffic, as most are set up with firewall restrictions in place by default, so you have to add exceptions to let things through.
kmount Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 I mean't that if you were running services on say ports 21, 22, 80, and 3306 on the VPN, you wouldn't need to open those ports to the world in addition to the VPN port. I stand corrected nonetheless.
matt40k Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 Just install Terminal services, slap in the web based client. The problem with VPN is that the TUNNEL is secure, but the end point might not be, with terminal you just secure your stuff and don't work about the endpoint (ie staff computer). Also you've got issue with the fact staff need MS Office at home for SIMS reports to work, terminal, you'll have it on the server. As for reason 0; see Capita KB72254. Fix 1 The machine may be pointing to a incorrect networked Connect.ini file and therefore cannot see any SQL Server or Database. Delete the Connect.ini from e.g. C:\Program files\SIMS\SIMS .net and then run SIMS .net and select the correct Connect.ini from e.g. S:\SIMS or alternatively create a local connect.ini and enter the correct SQL Server and Database name. Fix 2 Stop and Restart SQL Server - The SQL Server may not be running Fix 3 The error can also be an indication that the upgrade has been run, but has been unsuccessful. Please check the version of SIMSSQLApplicationsetup.exe in the setups folder is 1.558.12 (for August 2007 release) or 1.0560 (for September 2007 release) then run this to upgrade to version of DBupgrade which should be 2.11.10.24603 Then run Dbupgrade.exe manually from e.g. D:\Program files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Binn The list of upgrade files will be shown or there may be a message about a User already logged in. If Users are detected, a Force All will need to be run to exit the Users out of SIMS to allow the upgrade to commence (requiring the SA logon credentials). This Force All option will appear automatically if Users are detected as being logged in. Fix 4 If fix 3 does not resolve the issue please run SIMSApplicationsetup.exe from the setups folder Fix 5 If the error still occurs and you installed SQL 2005, but not via one of our installers then please follow KB71936 Fix 6 This error can also be caused by a corrupt user in the users table. If all other users can login to the system OK please re-create the user that is getting reason 0 Fix 7 Please reboot the server and try logging in to SIMS.net Fix 8 THIS IS ONLY RELEVANT IF PASSWORDS HAVE BEEN RESET This problem may be due to the Domain Control settings policy with the School. The reason for this is because the school's policy does not allow the password to be reset more than a certain number of times within a specific time-frame. This issue will be resolved in the June 08 release. (only if Reason 0 occurs after resetting passwords) This problem will need to be resolved on the domain server prior to running the June 08 release Fix 9 Check there is sufficient space on the partition where SQL is installed. Also check the system partition has sufficient space as temporary files can be created during the backup. Check the size of the SQL Log file eg SIMS.LDF. If excessively large use SHRINKDBLOG.BAT to shrink the log file.
Gatt Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 Right checked the ISA server this morning - SQL Server wasn't configured to allow SQL servers through the VPN -opened that up now and gonna retry tonight. Easiest way to run SIMS from home is with Windows 2008's Remote Apps as it uses the RDP protocol.. but dont have a server that can cope with that at present - trying to get one spare though
dhicks Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 Also you've got issue with the fact staff need MS Office at home for SIMS reports to work, terminal, you'll have it on the server. But, if I understand the way licensing works for MS Office, it's the client machine needs to be licensed for Office - the TS server itself needn't be (although it would have MS Office installed). You'd think that, by now, Microsoft could just offer all-in-one CALs or something. I'm just looking at how to let people access files / SIMS / etc from home, too. So far my favourite option is port-forwarding with SSH. -- David Hicks
moggy Posted July 31, 2008 Posted July 31, 2008 We haven't started yet, but our plan for home access is to use Citrix Secure Gateway into our Citrix/Server 2003 server. The MS Office client licencing issue is a real pain in the nether regions. We are favouring the idea of getting the end user to sign a declaration stating that they posses a suitable MS Office licence for the client PC. Any views on this?
vikpaw Posted January 25, 2009 Posted January 25, 2009 Just had a similar issue, while trying to use SIMS over VPN: Failed to login reason 0. The way we fixed it was to find the sims.ini file in C:\Windows and change the path of the sims setups directory to use a mapped drive (S in our case). All other references were using the S drive including the connect.ini It was a machine that unfortunately needed updating and so is now killing the PC while it updates. Damn, should have used the upgrade handler program to capture that eventuality! I've used SIMS over VPN before and it is rather slow even with a good broadband connection. It's much quicker to remote desktop to a local terminal and run it remotely, it also alleviates the issue of upgrading from afar. Nonetheless, hopefully the info might help someone.
kmount Posted January 25, 2009 Posted January 25, 2009 It also saves personal data ever leaving the site as with TS it's kept afar. Still, I've experienced what you're speaking of, and it's not pleasant with the size of the updates!
vikpaw Posted January 25, 2009 Posted January 25, 2009 LOL - It's still going! It's so much quicker to unplug the machine drive to work, update and then drive back again.
joe90bass Posted January 25, 2009 Posted January 25, 2009 Interesting topic! I'm just starting the ball rolling with discussions on SIMS access from home. I'm not even entertaining VPN, too much hassle with issues on users home PCs, LEA, etc! As we already have three 2008 terminal servers in school I'll be looking at using one of them with SIMS client installed on, or possible using remote apps.
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