mrstrong

looking for suggestions for primary school pupils blogging on chromebooks ? Blogs can't be public. teacher wanted to use Blogger which looked ideal but on testing it I found service is unavailable for google workspace for users < 18 Could you do it in google docs at a push, e.g. allow comments by pupil sharing it with other pupils ?

did some googling over lunch and nothing definitive, but get the feeling if you only have one disk group like me (4 physical disks in raid 10) then stick with one virtual disk rather than slicing: e.g. from this (old) thread: https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-HDD-SCSI-RAID/Create-1-large-or-2-smaller-virtual-disks/td-p/4062822

just bit of feedback: had another parent event and set up as @jthompson suggested, worked a treat only slight issue was wifi as had the student wifi assigned to top level ou with automatically connect and enabled on chromebooks by device then in my new ou for guest chromebooks added the new staff access wifi also enabled on chromebooks by device and automatically connect, but can't see how to force devices onto this one (ie in priority to students wifi) Fixed by adding the student wifi network to their own chromebooks ou and then remove student wifi from top level

yes i think you are correct about the write back vs through i.e. without a cache on the controller it wouldn't matter. To get some real data you could try live optics (free I think) from dell to see how your server is performing etc: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dt/live-optics/index.htm

both servers raid look good to me e.g. you have OS on 2 seperate physical disks in raid 1 then the vms on different physical disks (raid10 on srv 1, raid1 on srv 2) this was what was recommended earlier in thread. My issue is I only have 4 disks and have set them up as raid 10 with one virtual disk, OS on C:, VMs on D: I'm now wondering if it would have been better to create two virtual disks like you have. Of course my two virtual disks would be on the same underlying 4 physical disks unlike yours.

just a quick follow-up on this, with 4 ssd in a raid 10 is there any benefit (e.g. performance?) to having more than one virtual disk in the raid 10 setup? e.g. one virtual disk with partitions C: for OS and D: for VMs vs two virtual disks with first one for OS and second one for VMs ?

we have an old mac mini server (2012 2.3Ghz intel core i7 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3) still on El Capitan 10.11.6 ! It is still in use as a cache server for ipads and has been used to prepare several of them. Yesterday I needed it to take an old ipad out of single app mode but found it "unresponsive". Had to hard power it off and then it failed to boot. Lots of googling etc later managed to boot into recovery, disk first aid failed error code 8 but I noticed it had another "unused" disk ! I have managed to do a time machine recovery to that disk (1TB) and mac is back up for now. This second disk is obviously same age as one that has failed but probably in better health as not been used ? I'm wondering if I could upgrade this mac e.g. is it possible to put in a 1TB ssd then do a time machine recovery to that, maybe add some more ram and update the os e.g. to Big Sur ? Never attempted to take a mac apart and not much experience with macs other than using apple configurator to prepare ipads. What would you do in this situation ?

thanks thats very helpful, hopefully will have some spare time later this week to investigate Found out you can run Get-Volume | Format-List in powershell to see the ObjectId and then run e.g. \\?\Volume{nnn...} to view volume contents without drive letter

now we've got a second physical server I think I'll do some test restores to it to get my head round this iscsi setup (setup by a third party a long time ago). Just read that you need to be careful though as its not designed to be accessed by more than one "client" at a time so presumably I will need to take the disk offline in Disk Management on the production server before connecting via iscsi initiator from my new server!? I didn't understand this at first because I thought you were talking about a "folder on the NAS" which doesn't exist as its just block level on the NAS but I think I understand now: I guess you mean you somehow view the disk in windows OS and copy the WindowsImageBackup folder to a USB ? My windows backup disks don't have a drive letter but I guess i could assign one to see the files on the NAS?

I've done test restores of individual files/folders but not the complete DC (its a vm) or a bare metal / DR scenario e.g. if the server was lost, is that what you do, ie. do you restore to a different server? We only have one physical server which is very old though have just got another one which will be replacing it. Perhaps I should try doing a restore on the new server, e.g. try and connect it to the nas over iscsi ?

I managed to set up raid etc in the lifecycle controller, the dell documentation is ok though a little out of date / confusing in places: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000123958/dell-poweredge-server-start-up-guide https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-uk/microsoft-windows-server-2022/win2022_ig_pub/install-windows-server-2022-by-using-dell-emc-lifecycle-controller?guid=guid-7d8861aa-f60d-4ab0-b04b-ec69c7ca2be4&lang=en-us

sorry @ChrisC I wasn't clear, we are not using veam at the moment, we are looking at various backup options. We are currently using "windows server backup" that comes built in as part of the microsoft server 2012R2 OS This server connects to a NAS over iscsi. To the server it just looks like another local disk that it is backing up to. But when I log into the the NAS I am unable to see the backup files e.g. like the .vhdx of the hyper-v guest disks I think this is because it is a "block level storage" So my question was in essence if we loose the server (that connects to the NAS over iscsi) are we stuffed or can I spin up another server and connect to the NAS over iscsi to get at the data ? Maybe we would need to export / backup the exiting iscsi config first?

not heard of sconfig, will have a look thanks. Overall project is to replace our Windows Server 2012 R2 DC. I've got till Oct 10, 2023 apparently (when its EOL) my rough "plan" is to build a hyper-v server 2019, then I think I can make that a DC (promote?) and retire the old one (demote?). Sure I'll be posting on here for some advice before I take the plunge

slightly off topic but hoping someone can put my mind at rest: we have a windows server backup job to a NAS using iscsi. If the server was "lost" so we just had the NAS could we recover ? e.g. could i spin up another server and connect to NAS over iscsi to recover the data? I'm sure I've tried before to browse the files on the NAS but I don't think it is possible as it is "block level storage" ?! I think if you use windows server backup to backup say a hyper-v VM to a usb drive you can connect the usb drive to a PC, then browse to see the vhdx. Is this how veam works too i.e. you can "see" the files like a vhdx for a vm so you could mount it direct from nas ?

we use the outlook web app here also and some users are moaning about how it has changed recently (i.e. the gui interface). Weirdly it hasn't changed for everyone, is this expected ? E.g. would have thought microsoft would roll out changes for all users in the tenant at once ? Is there anyway us admins can control these "improvements" rolling out ?

Mmm, sure i configured the nic to have a static ip to do the firmware updates via LCC but windows seems to have defaulted to dhcp. Does anyone have a basic list of tasks for a new server? this one is going to be a hyper-v host for a domain controller. so far I've done: windows update also enable: receive updates for other microsoft products turn off IE Enhanced Security Configuration enable remote desktop probably next I'll: rename computer set static ip (or maybe just leave as dhcp and reserve?) install hyper-v role create partition for hyper-v guests not sure if should join domain or leave in workgroup? anything else before i start creating vms ?

managed to install OS via lifecycle controller. Did it via idrac virtual console on a laptop plugged into same switch as server, quite impressed as it mounted the iso from my laptop. Annoying could only choose english united states as language but selected uk for time and keyboard After a cold boot kept going back into lifecycle controller, eventually realised I have to exit from LCC to get it to do a normal boot. Also took me a while to figure out how to send ctrl-alt-del to login (under console controls, keyboard macros). Re the external monitor black screen, tried a hard reset / powerdrain as suggested here https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000152161/dell-poweredge-troubleshooting-a-server-that-does-not-start-no-power-no-post-no-boot-and-no-video#6 but didn't fix. I swapped in a newer widescreen monitor and I now have image. The monitor I was using was a really old 4:3 one. It did display initially during post but went blank after "Initializing PCIe, USB, and Video" Time to have a click around as used to server 2012r2 so lets see what MS have been up to in last 10 years!

thanks for all the great advice, will be ready for next time feedback from teacher this morning, event went ok, some parents attended with pupils who knew their logins, others used the generic student login and that worked even with several logging in at same time

Not sure I have any plus rather not start taking a new server apart First time I've set a brand new server up Figured if I can install os via idrac console I should be ok as then I'll access via remote desktop anyway ?

thanks, does look good but not confident I will have enough time to deploy it ready for tonight and then un-deploy it tomorrow morning for students! Going to go and find a hard hat ready for tomorrow

boots and gets to "Loading Bios drivers" , then "Initializing ..." then screen goes black (on the attached monitor) I figured out how to connect via the idrac NIC in a web browser and can see it boot ok past this, started the virtual console and pressed F10 to get into lifecycle controller Then tried "Get the latest firmware" but says all up to date. Haven't installed an OS yet so thinking I might just try and install server 2022 in lifecycle controller (via the idrac virtual console by mounting virtual media iso)?

yes chromebook default wifi network does https inspection via smoothwall I've not been given enough time for this, think I'm just gonna say try everyone logging in as student and maybe have to face the music tomorrow.

thanks, so maybe veam could be an option after all. Do you keep offline copies though and if so how does that work?

looks like there are two places to set up guests under device settings: 1) "managed guest sessions" https://admin.google.com/ac/chrome/settings/guest?hl=en 2) "allow guest mode" under "sign in settings" - "Guest Mode" here: https://admin.google.com/ac/chrome/settings/device?hl=en Option 2) looks easier, basically change that one setting for OU with chromebooks in ? Do after school when kids left and put back to "disable guest mode" tomorrow morning ?

yeah pretty typical round here yes they are managed, is "enable Guest sessions" a user or device setting, think all chromebook devices are in their own OU seperate from users OU. Also these chromebooks will probably be in use tomorrow morning with the kids so don't want them to be logging in as guest! Do these policies refresh/deploy pretty quick ?