Sheridan

Its an external company so I've got no idea - they just sent us the RDP file. I'm testing it at home right now and it works fine, so its got to be our internal filtering thats causing the problems

It is a weird one! I've tried with IP and url - for the gateway and address but it doesn't make any difference. It seems like the two urls are resolved OK though. If I change the url of the gateway to the ip I get a certificate error which suggests its getting through at some point. I've tried via the smoothwall, and bypassed the urls to go direct out of the (separate) firewall but I see the same behaviour on both - ie. nothing until a successful connection. Our network is simply routed and the default gateway is the firewall or smoothwall so its not complicated and has worked for years like this. The oddest thing of all though, is that it works every single time on one single machine - which is my PC and I'm using the same proxy/port as the others! This 'golden' PC is the same version of Windows, has the same firewall settings, the same policies are ones that don't work so I am genuinely mystified by this. If I run a tracert on two to compare they're both the same with no delays or nslookup errors.

I did add their domain to our dns, but dns resolution seems to be ok and instantaneous anyway. It like the first few attempts don't go anywhere!

I'm trying to get my head around an issue we have using an external RDP connection. We have the RDP file and its domain is whitelisted in smoothwall. However when anyone (admin or staff) tries to connect it will usually timeout for the first, second and probably third attempt. On the third/fourth attempt it connects fine and the connection is stable! I've checked the logs and it seems that when the connection is failing, nothing is being logged against the domain specified in the RDP file, when the connection suceeeds I can see allowed traffic to that domain on our smoothwall. I can't see any reason why the first few attempts seem to do nothing, but it must be related to our smoothwall as when hotspotted to a phone, it works first time, every time? If I had the rules wrong in smoothwall, it surely would fail every time? As it is after you manage to get a connection it will then work (and reconnect) OK for a while until you reboot or logoff and login again later. Anyone got any ideas? I've tried everything I can think of! I've tried on Windows and also Mac and get the same results

This is really weird, my problem seems to be that when the user opens the RDP file, it will fail to connect 2-3 times, but on the next attempt it seems to work? I'm not sure what could cause this behaviour on a smoothwall and it must be filtering related, as it works first time, every time for an admin!

I think that's correct, it is just an rdp file they send you, I'm just having issues with it getting through our smoothwall, which seems to be a config problem

Urgh, this thing hits all sorts of IP ranges on our firewall on 80/443 and 3391, lots of amazon addresses mainly. Going to be a long slog to whitelist this lot!

Yes it seems to a blend of cloud and RDP - I've their domain whitelisted but still having timeouts, I'll have to poke around in our firewall settings

We're moving to PSF and I was surprised to see the 'cloud' implementation is simply an RDP file. Has anyone got a list of what IP/Ports needed to be open for this to work? I can only see one domain on our firewall which is allowed, but its still not connecting

Same here - we will generally install anything as long as its reasonable, licensed and we get some warning! We also install teamviewer on laptops so we can remotely 'install as admin' if someone is isolating or similar.

We use Applocker here and its usually pretty effective, and make any local accounts just members of the 'Users' group I don't think its reasonable to allow your kids to use your work issued laptop - it happens here all the time, which is why we see damaged keys, spilled drinks, scratches marks on devices. I'd play the other devils advocate and say if a teacher wants their own kid something to play games then buy them their own device.

Thanks, that my intention to keep the older UTM as a backup device and use the new one as the primary

Do you license both devices, or just use an old UTM as the backup when the new one arrives? Cost will be the biggest factor for us.

We've currently got a Smoothwall S10 due for renewal soon, and I'm thinking about what options there are for failover - if this falls over on us we've got to wait several days for a replacement under warranty So have any of you got a UTM (Smoothwall,Sophos etc) with a failover option, or do you live dangerously like me!?

So it looks like the new Apple M1 based macbooks are the end of dual boot. Its a shame as I've used macbooks/airs for years as they offered a good bang for your buck and also the ability to to boot into Windows when you need it I know there's other options but I for one will miss the dual boot era!

What happens when you run an nslookup for a server name, do you get a pretty instant response? The last time I had some dns weirdness was quite a few years ago but it ended up being the arp cache on the switch(s) so I ended up rebooting those as well

That's exactly what we're doing, as soon as that runs the display duplicates, then flips to 150% which makes it look rubbish!

Thats the issue, some use Extended, some never use it!

We're trying to setup a method that will automatically duplicate the main (i.e monitor) display to the secondary (i.e projected/large screen ) display and keep the display at 100% So the user's registry preferences set the display to 100% - this works fine. If the user initials the Windows+P option and selects Duplicate it works fine. However we scripted it to run this (displayswitch /clone) on login, which also works but flips the view to 150% This is rather annoying as a) we force the display to 100% and b) where does it randomly decide to select 150% from!? Has anyone found a more reliable way to duplicate screens on login? Our staff seem unable to remember the Windows+p option so I'm trying to force a default!

I did try with my phone but no luck - I've just finished reinstalling Macos now - never seen this happen before

We've updated macs before so its a new issue, doesn't seem to relate to the filtering (an older macbook has updated OK this morning) I guess its a reinstall!

I've got a brand new macbook - it came with 10.15.6 on it and it won't update to 10.15.7 All I've done out of the box is create an account and join to the wifi - at which point it detects the 10.15.7 update is available.However no matter what I try it simply comes up with the error 'an internet connection is required to install macos' I've tried safe mode, and downloading the update file manually, a new user account, using cable instead of wifi but it is stuck in this loop It seems like a common problem, but is reinstalling macos on a brand new laptop the only option? Seems a bit 'Windows 10' to me...

I manually updated all of our APs to 8.5.7 (Build 7694) and so far things have settled down. I had a case open with Cambium I find their support lacking and responses are often delayed We still have the occasional weak signal issue, but that will always be the case until we have a AP in every single room! 8.5.7 (Jun 08 2020), Build: 7694 8.5.7 (Jun 08 2020), Build: 76948.5.7 (Jun 08 2020), Build: 7694

I was a big fan of netbooks back in the day - they were quite cheap, portable and ran Windows. The battery was about 5-6 hours and they had a decent keyboard. I wouldn't touch one with a bargepole now though, although we've gone down the route of Chromebooks which offer similar benefits I can see us going 100% mobile but it will mean all Teachers getting an Ipad (about 75% do at the moment) and replacing all ICT suites with Chromebook trolleys. Although our new MAT is keen on o365 so this may change!

The problems we have started with w10, and have persisted through multiple versions and images, different print servers and lots of different printers. The issue is not so much the printer not deploying as not appearing for the user. If a user complains their printer hasn’t appeared we can usually see it in the registry but they can’t see it in Word. Logging off and back on can fix this in most cases but not all. We tried pretty much everything discussed on here over the years but I gave up this as a bad job, and just put it on the list of things that W10 doesn’t do well.