smurfomatic

Was told yesterday that I was to work from home wherever possible. No children in, so the only people on site now are residential staff and one of the admin staff collecting post every day (though not sure why, as no-one will be in to read it!) and occasional visits from staff who absolutely have to be on site (e.g. referring to paper files). I will only be going to site if there's a major failure of on-site equipment. Given that we're a Google school so 99% is on the cloud so server is not doing much any more, plus obviously no need to worry about wireless controller issues if there's no staff, not likely to be called out! If I am, not a problem, but it's a 30 minue drive for me.

Amazingly, only one pupil password reset today! A couple who "couldn't remember their username" though (a feeble attempt at avoiding work on day one of lockdown I reckon)

As someone who works in an independent prep school with around 300 children...I hope so! Been in school today, apparently we have three children due in tomorrow as key worker kids, one of them is a bit of a handful... Just got back after basically being told to work from home unless it's essential I'm on site - which means a callout if the server goes down, but not much else.

I know exactly how you feel. Been struggling with my own mental health for some time, and recent events obviously don't help. Difficult I know, but find someone you can talk to, see if that helps.

Out of office: "I'm sure you think your email is of critical importance. So is my family, downtime and mental health. Your email can wait until Monday."

We had a whole staff meeting today, and were told teaching staff can access the site (but will basically be working from home) and admin/support staff can either work from home or in school depending on what suits them best. This suits me, I'll be in next week pretty much as usual (expecting most of my workload to be password resets and explaining how to log into Google Mail) then will go from there. I have two weeks booked off over the "holiday" but not sure what I'll be doing, to be honest just need a break. Plans for the start of next term will be made as and when we know when that will be! Head of ICT has worked for hours on a Google site that staff can edit to update parents & kids about expected work, and also set up email groups for each class to make it easier to work from home.

Now someone's come up with the brilliant idea of loaning out Chromebooks to families with more than three children while we're closed. I've made it clear that any agreement has to involve no expectation of technical support!

Not as far as I'm aware (YMMV) - just that we're already down 25% of pupils, we're also losing staff at a similar rate, and it's only a week before the end of term anyway.

Announcement from the Head that "the school site will close at 2pm on Friday 20th March". Whole staff meeting after that to discuss what happens, who needs to be in work etc. Fully expecting to be in work on Monday morning! Ironically I'm working from home today - not at all coronavirus related, they're replaceing the gas pipes in my street and I need to stay in so they have access to the property...

39 pupils absent out of 220 in Years 3 - 8, 23 out of 77 off in the junior end of school. As far as I know, the vast majority are self isolating but not showing symptoms. At least six staff members self isolating, either due to their own symptoms or close family. At least the planned ISI inspection has been postponed - though apparently other schools had inspectors arrive as planned today.

What's the best way to kill a circus? Go for the juggler...

Thanks for the suggestions regarding using Smoothwall, I will try to use this but unlikely to get a chance before the Easter holidays!

Here is the switch config: I haven't done anything on the Smoothwall, as I want to get the devices to get IP addresses issued first! Don't want to overcomplicate things.

Still no joy... Core switch now configured with fixed IP on VLAN 2, and routing set up to direct traffic to the server. Can't ping the server from the switch or vice versa (bearing in mind they are in separate buildings, joined by a fibre link) so just about to give up!

That's what I'm trying to set up, a second VLAN for guest wifi only. The issues I'm having are in getting the guest users to get IP addresses from the server, which will hopefully be solved by setting up the core switch as @AB_IT suggested.

I'm sure there is someone who could help, but can't see how that would work. How is the Smoothwall going to identify the difference between guest and normal traffic, unless it's separated by VLAN?

Thanks - will give this a try tomorrow

The gateway is currently set as the server IP address. If I set up the core switch with an 11. IP range, won't that impact on all the 10. traffic? All switches have VLAN 2 configured. The switch is a HP 2920, can't tell in the documentation I've found online if it's a Level 3 or not. I've not changed anything on the smoothwall, in terms of routing traffic. Though that shouldn't be causing the issue of no traffic at all on the server end. Thanks for your help so far. If this doesn't work soon I'm just going to rely on the Ruckus guest wifi settings blocking traffic to anything other than the internet!

Still struggling... All ports on HP switches set to have VLAN 2 "tagged" Server set up with NIC teaming and VLAN 2 configured New DHCP range (current network 10.x.x.x, VLN 2 is 11.x.x.x) IP helper address set to 11.0.0.1 - which is the DHCP server for VLAN 2 The VLAN 2 connection reports as "no network access" and has received 0 packets. I'm sure I've missed something obvious, but can't see what it is...

I had the wrong idea on IP helper addresses, hoping I've sorted that part out now. Ruckus has a "guest" option for configuring the SSID, which is what our guest wifi is configured as. Will need to check the documentation to see if this does block across vlans.

All switches are now configured with the new VLAN, do they all need the "IP helper address" or just the core switch? At the moment I'm not getting issued an IP address, but that may be a problem with the server end.

Currently (on the "one VLAN") we have the Smoothwall as the gateway. Core switch is HP so may be better to use that, just need to read up on configuring it properly.

Okay thanks for this, so just set a new IP scope on my DC, for the guest access? How do I get the server to recognise the different VLANs? Running Server 2012 at the moment

Okay thanks, something to consider. Do you think the steps detailed above will get things working as intended?

I'm trying to set up separate VLANs for the first time. The plan is to have the default VLAN for all school traffic, and a new one (VLAN 2) just for the Guest wifi so that visitors are blocked from accessing school systems. I would like to use the Zonedirector as a DHCP server for the Guest wifi to keep it completely separate from our servers. Network layout: Ruckus Zonedirector -> HP 2920 switch -> fibre link -> HP 2920 switch -> Smoothwall -> internet What I've done so far: Added new VLANs to the HP switches, configured Zonedirector port to access both VLANs What needs to be done: Change Zonedirector Access VLAN to 2 Enable DHCP server on Zonedirector, with different IP range to server Switch Guest wifi from VLAN 1 to 2 Would this work? Seems like it's too straightforward! Does anything else need changing, for example on the Smoothwall? Already made a booboo today, by changing the Access VLAN on Zonedirector first, which dropped it off the network! I had to console connect to fix it.