azrael78

Ric, I've tried IPCop and the latest version of it doesn't seem to work with CopSpot which I assume is what you suggested. I'm not sure how to go about running Chillispot on IPCop. I've also looked at Smoothwall Express 2 but similarly I can't get it to work quite right. I'm wondering if I'm barking up the wrong tree with this one or whether there are ways of doing this properly. Any additional thoughts or ideas anyone - is anyone else actually doing this? Thanks, Az

You wanted this as a VBS script or are you not picky about what scripting language? Az

Most used area? Which area do you mean exactly? Do you mean quick-launch? (The small bar that's usually on the right of the start button) Do you mean the 'main' start menu - where you click 'start' and you have Windows Update on it? Do you mean the 'programs' subfolder on the start menu? In any case... assuming you want one of those 3... let me try to help you 1) Quick Launch To place icons here, you should ensure they are shortcuts (rather than real documents) and they need to be copied into the users' profile into this path: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch As I said above, ensure these are shortcuts, you should replace with the actual user name of whom you'd like to have the shortcuts. If you use a global profile, then as long as you put the icons into the 'Quick Launch' folder (as above) then it should all work. 2) Main Start Menu As above, copy the shortcuts into this path: C:\Documents and Settings\\Start Menu If you are using the All Users start menu also, copy them into that one - but ONLY copy them into the user start menu OR the all users start menu, if you copy both, then your end user will have 2 sets of icons. 3) Programs Subfolder As #2 - except change the path to: C:\Documents and Settings\\Start Menu\Programs I'm not sure if this is really what you want, I suggest you get an icon (that loads word or something harmless) and try it out yourself so you can see what works for you. If however this isn't what you want, reply to this thread and we'll try to help you better Az

Ah I see. I'm not familiar with Smoothwall or IPCop, are these relatively simple to setup? The ChilliSpot add-on - is this an add-on specifically for Smoothwall/IPCop or is this something I'd have to download/install manually? I'm looking at ZeroShell but it's driving me crazy. Does Smoothwall and ChilliSpot have the capability to use RADIUS to authenticate? Thanks. Az

After doing some initial digging around, I came across a few issues. The WiFi hotspot has to go through our site proxy servers in order to get out, there is no direct link out to the internet. So whatever software I look at must support going through a proxy for internet traffic (but not authentication etc). Unfortunately, Captivate for ISA is not an option as management will not pay for it. So it looks more and more like a Linux-based solution will be required. Anyone have any other ideas? I will continue to look around and have given PfSense a go but it's transparent proxy function seems broken and therefore, requires me to put the IP of the PfSense gateway into each client... which defeats the purpose. Peace. Az

Hey all, I've been tasked to look at and provide a Captive Portal (WiFi Hotspot) in our school for any students and staff who wish to surf the (filtered) internet on their own equipment such as iPhones etc... It's not my idea but I've been asked to look into it. I'm at a bit of a loss how to do this, we currently have a similar system provided by ISA 2006, but this only really works for a small cyber-cafe (which it was originally designed for) - but the idea of the WiFi Hotspot is to replace this ISA 2006 solution. I've already done some digging around and have found commercial ISA 200x add-ins that will turn ISA into a captive portal... the problem is I've also been told we have NO budget for this, so everything has to be free. Physical hardware isn't an issue as we have a well established wireless network, we also have a spare PC or 3 to throw at this solution as well as network capacity. Has anyone done anything similar to this before? I've stayed in hotels where you get a login webpage, you enter in your credentials and you can surf. This (unless I'm mistaken) is a captive portal - and this is what they want. Anyone know of anything I can look up or look at for ideas? I mean sure - I could use IIS 7 with ISA but how would I make the clients all point to the webpage - particularly when these clients could be phones, PDA's... or anything else? Any ideas would be gratefully received Peace. Az

What we have done for students at least - is to totally block any HTTPS traffic using ISA 2006's protocol/port blocking rules. The only time they need it is for the VLE and that doesn't go through our proxies on-site as that goes straight to the county equipment. It works for us - staff however, have HTTPS available to them. Az

Same here, except I'm not Team Leader and I'm happy about that. 8 years... where did the time go? I'd say it's like a prison sentence but no free cable TV, no 3 square meals a day for free... none of those particular 'perks'. Az

I've recently done this myself... What you could do is clone the DC using whatever virtual tools you like - but in the Virtual PC/VMWare PC manager, change the network interface to INTERNAL so that only your host PC's internal NIC and the VMs can talk, so your VMs can't talk to the outside. This allows you to use the same IPs and such without danger of interacting with the live network. I've done this using Hyper-V and it works really quite well. HTH, Az

Apps like this tend to be either difficult to block or very simple I've found. If you use mandatory profiles for the students - it's easy - simply wipe the AppData folder and everything in it at logoff (if you have it redirected) and/or pre-populate their AppData with items you know and trust. Roaming profiles are harder, but you could wipe the specific java folders in AppData or redirect their AppData to a network share and then lock it down some other way. Thankfully where I am, all the kids use mandatory, so this kind of application isn't a huge issue for us personally but I can see and understand how it could be. FYI - We don't allow any kind of 'chat' outside of our VLE and even then, we have chat inside the VLE disabled at current, SMT may well override us on it but that's their call to make. Az

Yes, you read the topic correctly... I'm curious about how I'd accomplish this task - we have a 'live' AD at school, I've created a test network also which is a skeleton of the live (for all intents and purposes it matches the configuration, but doesn't house all the user data...). What I'm curious about is how can I make a copy of this skeleton environment? I can easily setup some VMs here at home but I want to copy the skeleton environment so I have a test environment here at home as well as at work. What would be the best way to achieve this? (The 'test' network is Hyper-V based, however I don't want to simply copy the VMs, as they will have the DNS and IP configuration of the network at work - which is totally different to here at home) Would running ADMTv2 and FSMT be acceptable ways to clone the environment? I'm keen to do this so I have an exact (except for IPs and server names) copy of the skeleton at work - true I *could* just VPN in, but that tends to tie up the house DSL line. Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions? Cheers, Az

Well it had to happen sometime... let's make EVERYTHING multiple choice and completely disregard the ability to arrive at your own conclusions - not those set out ahead of time. This sort of thing really... makes my blood boil. I did GCSE's 13 years ago and only a small fraction of it was multiple choice, you had to actually REVISE and STUDY to have any hope of passing. Ah well... that's progress for you it seems. Az

+1 for Dameware - we use this and we don't give the teachers any kind of remote capabilities. (Most packages we find gives them far too much control over the workstations - they don't really need or want that level of control as they'd never use it here... they'd prefer we did it all) Az

Using one of those powered USB to SATA things... sorry should have said. After unplugging everything, rebooting the laptop and plugging it all in - it's fine now... testing happily. I'm using SeaTools short and long generic tests (as no others are supported on the drives). I'm having it NOT fix errors so I can see what the errors are (if any). I'm then running a quick surface scan over the top for completeness Peace. Az

Didn't think so but appreciate the reassurance there Michael I'm trying to test the server HDs at the moment (I don't have a PC with onboard SATA except for my workstation and I'm not gonna take it apart as it works perfectly). I'm using a USB to SATA converter - A standard XP SP3 install (on a laptop) can happily see drive 4, gives me it's serial # etc... but it can't see the other 3 drives, yet they are all part of a RAID array. Is this standard behaviour? What worries me is that SeaTools can't even test the other drives as it can't 'see' them. Any recommendations on disk-testing software that would work fine with USB to SATA? Peace. Az

Well just to be on the safe side, I've taken the hard drives out and am running seatools on them just to double-check whether they are fit for use or are starting to go bad. As for the power supply issue - how would I know what kind of connector my PSU has? I don't want to replace the existing PSU as it works and works well. I'm guessing it would be as simple as unplugging the ATX connector on the mainboard and simply counting the pins there? @dhicks: I didn't think about putting Linux on there to be quite honest with you. However I'd personally prefer hardware RAID as opposed to software, not that I'm anti-linux tho Edit: The PSU is an FSP FX700-GLN, it's a 700W PSU, ATX v2.0/ATX v2.01. It says on a review website that it has 20+4 ATX connector. Which to me suggests I may not need a converter. It's got enough bits and pieces on the thing (connectors-wise) that I should have no issues - unfortunately they don't seem to sell it anymore and I'm aiming to keep costs down - particularly if existing hardware works.

Well my old server PC has finally revealed it's fault - Port 4 of my Promise FastTrak SX4-M RAID card just decided to break itself (I unplug the SATA cable, the port comes out with it). Still it does not boot up 100% of the time but I firmly believe the RAID card and/or the disks are at fault, although leaning more toward RAID card (as I can unplug all the disks and it still sits like a lemon). This leaves me with not many options... 1) Try to source another FastTrak SX4-M (Not very likely, even EBay didn't have one...) 2) Try to get another PCI RAID card that does RAID-5 and restore from backup. 3) Upgrade the MB, CPU, RAM so I have a PCI-e or PCI-X slot and then get a new RAID card. 4) Get a new PC. Here's what I've got currently on the old 'server' PC... CPU: P4 2.4GHz HT MB: Asus P4PE RAM: 4GB DDR RAM HD: 4x Maxtor DiamondMax 22 (250GB SATA S150) (they don't make these anymore) The mainboard doesn't support PCI-X or PCI-e in any shape or form. The PSU I have is a nice one, it allows me to run a shed-load from it without issue. (When I get time I will look it up... it's not easily to hand) So, at a bare minimum I'm looking at replacing the MB, RAM, CPU and RAID card. I'm guessing that wouldn't be cheap and I'm also guessing that it would probably be a shedload easier (and cheaper) to simply get a new PC... but I'm loathed to throw stuff away. Any thoughts now? Peace. Az

That is a pretty nice server, particularly for the money, however I was hoping to get something with more internal drive bays. Maybe I'm too clouded (as I've worked with lots of Dell Poweredge servers with hot-swap RAID-5 and all that goodness) to really know what I want. In all honesty, is RAID-5 worth the money? I know about RAID levels and such, my current desktop PC (you could call it a server really, it's high enough spec) - has RAID-5 on it specifically because I do alot with the PC and I'd rather have the redundancy across many drives with the ability to continue working even if 2 drives (out of my 6) fail. I know that RAID-0 is mirror and RAID-1 is striping, neither of which really appeals as I don't want to buy huge drives (or many drives) for RAID-0 to be effective and I don't like the whole 'if one drive dies, you lose the lot' thinking with RAID-1. I do have a NAS box that I do backups with, everything here is backed up fully on an almost weekly basis. So it's not like I'm not covered in the event of total failure - it's just I'm of the school of thought that I'd rather have belt + braces when it comes to data storage and safekeeping. I'm not asking for anyone to 'pick me a server', I just find it helpful to throw ideas at other like-minded IT professionals to get a better idea of things as it's likely someone else will find a better solution or idea that I wouldn't have come up with myself Peace. Az

Well I'm not against building my own, but to be honest I'm not exactly the hardware building type. This may well come down to the fact that I have a visual disability. Nothing wrong with a 'soulless HP' or anything else, as long as it does the job, yeah I have a budget and it's not exactly huge. Looking at around £500 (just the server, no monitor/keyboard etc... - gotta love KVMs). I'm sure I'm gonna be told I'm living in cloud cuckoo land but heyho, it's worth having a look anyway. I've looked on ebay but I'm a little dubious about that, particularly with PCs/Servers. Maybe I'm being paranoid. Peace. Az

Hey all, Firstly - the server in question isn't for work/school use, it's for home use only. I'm looking for a reasonably priced server to replace my ageing P4 server (that is slowly giving up the ghost). I'm not overly fussed about brands but I do have a few specifics - DualCore/QuadCore capable, obviously the faster the better - SATA and SATA-RAID (must be able to support RAID-5). Aside from that, I don't really need much else in a server - so I guess my question is - is it worth looking at and investing in a 'proper' server (server hardware) or is it worth simply picking up a generic desktop PC with the basic specs and then souping it up? The end 'server' needs to run Server 2008, which in turn may host some VMs purely for testing, it's not production and it's daily load would vary - it's primary role would be a file server, nothing more. So what do you guys think? I'm taken with the HP ProLiant server offer but the onboard RAID only supports RAID 0 or 1. (Why RAID-5 in a home server? I want the redundancy factor and I don't mind paying a little extra to get it) Thoughts? Peace. Az

Would this HP server do for a moderate-end home server? Probably a silly question as it's specs are better than what I have currently but my current server (a 'build it yourself' special) - seems to be behaving rather oddly. (You power it up and it just sits there, doesn't even POST or beep anything - unplug a few wires, plug them back in... up it comes... it's around 4-5 years old now - Pentium 4 - 4GB RAM) Anyway, the reason I ask is because if I have to replace any parts of my existing box (with a few exceptions) it will cost me a small fortune as the parts in it are so old and out of date. It has 4x SATA hard drives, all of these are starting to 'creak' a little due to the massive amount of use it's been put through over the years, but replacing 4 HDs with 250GB capacity is around £40-£50 per drive from what I've seen (It's home, so I have to pay VAT) - so buying a new server (like this HP) only works out slightly more expensive but gives alot more bang for your buck... (sorry, I mean pound). Any ideas? (If anyone has any ideas or questions about my server HW issues - drop me a PM if you can, I'd appreciate any help, ideas or advice given in regards to it) Peace. Az

Take a look at your group policies - see if you have the computer browser service set to be disabled or something for your workstations. Another thing to check on the 2003 - service dependencies, see if the computer browser service depends on another service (or indeed any other component) and check that. Hopefully this isn't too late to help you or provide something. Az

I'm another Acronis advocate here. We use it on every server we have - we have some that run the Acronis agents instead of the full program - I also use it here at home. (Albeit in a much smaller capacity) The DR is top notch but there's a proviso - as long as the Acronis DR CD that it can build will boot and recognise your RAID or IDE/SATA/SCSI controllers and your network, then you're all good - if not, then you need to build something a little more robust. I've found using UBCD4WIN, adding Acronis components to it and updating the whole thing with DriverPacks to be an excellent alternative to Acronis' own DR-CD. The only real PITA with Acronis is, if you want Windows - it's good, but if you want Linux AND Windows, then you gotta shell out for Enterprise Edition - which uses Linux Agents, still good stuff though. HTH, Peace. Az

Same here - although I'm not using RSS feeds with mine, but I've been nothing but impressed with it. I'd find it hard to go back to a non-touch phone now, it's made alot of things so much easier for me personally (due to my visual disability). Peace. Az

Do you mean startup (as in PC startup) or login? I've had similar issues with printer scripts, particularly when said printers or print-servers have been turned off by staff... A good thing to do at logoff is to remove the mappings for all shared printers, this prevents the shared printers from being dragged around with users, however this is only 'good' when you DON'T want to store printers in user profiles - are using profiles and actually make use of print servers (be it PC boxes as print servers or dedicated endpoint devices). I forgot to do the above - and printers from all and sundry followed our roaming profile users (staff) - took me a while to work that one out. Peace. Az