NightShade01

you might also consider using airodump-ng (the backtrack cd has it). It will show every AP by MAC address, the signal strength, and an approx amount of data vs beacons being sent out. I use it frequently to test if the APs are being overloaded or aren't available for connection.

Yes plexer is right I was referring to a test lab. I have a virtual lab and a physical one. I've tried to mirror some of the configuration we have at work although its quite a mess and hard to understand how things are layed out because so many people have change up the layout of the network.

We have an IBM only school district so we use their built in client Acess Connections. I HATE IT! There are so many problems with it...but that is another story. When it actually works I can tell you basically anything about APs in or close to the area of the laptop on. There are other open source tools (the names are escaping me at the moment) that work in a similar fashion. I seriously would consider testing some of these out because if it is just a matter of reconfiguring the APs because they aren't working right that could save you alot of money and/or time if you can pinpoint it to that. Trust me I know what you are going through we have a huge district with about 30 of the trolley's and over 60 APs. Wireless is always an issue.....

Hello all! First just wanted to say that I have googled building a lab and have many different ideas for how I wanna design it...but I wanted some other opinions. Second I just graduated college and thought it would be easier to find a sys admin / network admin job.....clearly I was wrong. I landed a support technician job for a school and work with 3 others on my level and 1 systems engineer. Basically I'm trying to build a lab to improve my skills and learn more real world things. I was hoping for some feedback on tasks that anyone here might perform daily....projects they have done that I could try duplicating, etc. etc.... All feedback welcome....my biggest issue is that I have some certs and a TON of theory for how things work but very little hands on exp...whole reason I couldn't get a sys admin position.

What are you using to allow the laptops to connect....windows wireless? I only ask because we have a similar situation and we use a third party utility that starts on boot which connects to the APs. This utility reports alot more information including what AP it is connected to including signal strength, etc... I don't think 15 or even 30 laptops should saturate an AP by just trying to connect

I'm gonna have to second cybernerd on that one....edu software tends to cause more trouble then any operating sytem i've ever worked on. We have a simple piece of software that runs on a MS SQL server and has a web front end. The application is pretty straight forward however there are so many people that update it, use it, tweak it, troubleshoot it, that it becomes more of a headache and research project to maintain the application then any linux software would.

I think linux is def ready for education too. Its all a matter of adoption and how much time you want to put in to deploying technology that people aren't used too (teachers or techs). I think its sad that we don't have any linux integrated here (where I work) they are very strongly against it for whatever dumb reason.

The removal tool that was mentioned (from f-secure) works well to detect and remove this thing...however be really careful about running it on the servers. We used on a server hoping it would disinfect -> reboot -> done.....well we rebooted the server and it didn't come back up. Seems this tool sometimes corrupts the boot record and other windows essentials. Haven't had any issues with desktop removals though....

Hey all...was wondering if anyone out there is using linux boxes (I primarily use ubuntu / debian) in a mainly microsoft network? Are there any challenges or issues that you have run into? I predominantly use linux because I like it better and find it easier to blow through a command line then a GUI, however everyone I work with uses Windows and 90% of the servers are windows too.

We have a similar setup to what you are describing. We have two domains and dual accounts in both domains. The "admin" side account for teachers only allows them access to the exchange server to receive their mail. They all pull the mail via the OWA link or we configure their laptops for outlook access on the grounds. It actually works out very nicely and we almost never have requests for password resets. My only concern was that there is alot of management involved with accounts (from teachers coming/going/retiring/firing) which can pose a slight headache quickly if you don't keep up with it.