ICTNUT

@WITCH: I agree with you that some people (techies) face problems with "upper management" not understanding the issues that can and do arise from installing illegal software onto the PC's. The problem is this, and correct me if I am wrong, but the remit of a NM is to ensure that there is some form of software asset management in place to ensure that all software installed is indeed licenced. If you do not have control of the laptops and staff are installing as they wish then your asset control is only 50% effective and your AUP is not worth anything especially if you do not have the backing of "upper management" If on the other hand you are the one installing the "non licensed" software and it does come back to bit the school in the A$&% then seeing as "upper management" do not back you up what's to say they will at this point. Resticting laptops is as much a safeguard for you as it is the school.

Hi all, just come back to this topic, seems like I started something here. I have a solution that work for me, in addition to the GPO settings I mentioned on the first page I now have a script that runs at srart up of the PC clears down all profiles on the local pc including the default user one, creates the default user folder and then copies a mandatory profile down from the server to the default user folder on the local pc. Depending on the room they are in depends on the profile that comes down but this means that if a student does try to bypass and due to the profile being local it will always load the default user profile and lock the darlings down. This proflie transfer happens once a day or if the PC is restarted (but as the kids don't have the option of a restart it tends to be once per day). This has proved to work extremely well. HTH

Single image here, why complicate things. We image our PC's using RIS and partitioning make life difficult for very little benefit. We do have 30 stand-alone music media PC's that have a 200Gb sata drive in them partitioned into 2 100Gb sets the second being hidden and holds a ghost image on it but other than that all other Pc's are as above.

Maybe it's just me but how many schools actually provide unrestricted laptops for staff?? I could not provide laptops to my teaching staff unless they were restricted. When I took over at my school one of the first things I did was call all laptops back in slapped a new "restricted" image on then and then handed them back. Yeah sure there was a few people that moaned but I simply told them that it was for thier safety as well as the schools and it allows me to peovide a better support service and over time they "maoners" have gone and everyone gets on with having a nice clean laptop that they are allowed to connect to the school network. I agree that we do it to protect the school and legalities behind it but if you start quoting chapter and verse at staff they will switch off and do everything they can to get back what they had. Tact is a good appraoch I find.

If you have a firewall check that port 123 (TCp & UDP) and is open, this is the port that ntp sends and receives requests on. If this is blocked you have no cahnce of syncing with the lea.

None here but there is no option for zero on the poll

The site is: http://www.peacefire.org/ This site has a wealth of information on how to get around blocking software and the likes it also has an email service that will email you daily new proxy sites to check including all the new https:// ones also: http://www.peacefire.org/circumventor/simple-circumventor-instructions.html Enjoy !

I agree with GATT if the software works why rock the boat. Teachers are always saying they don't like this or that, just agree with them and tell them you look into it maybe even right it down on a piece of paper and then "file it" What really shocks me is that "Upper Management" has the ability to deply via GPO what they like. WOW !

Thanks all for your input. I will be arranging a meeting with the Head of ALC and SMT for next week to discuss this. @Contink: Thanks for your input, I did not think at the time that these "trainers" are not actually education based they are in effect "outsiders" which would NOT qualify for the education discount that we do get. Thanks all again.

Seems to me that something has gone skewed with the SUS 2.0 install that you have on this server. I do remember reading somewhere that SUS and windows Storage Server 2003 was not a good idea but I can not remember where. Check the Event logs for anything that stands out, if you do not know what a certaqin event means check out http://www.eventid.net this is a really good placeto find stuff out. As you say there a lots of errors on this server what I would do is clear the event logs, re-start the server and then check the logs again as any errors will be generated in order so you can see what is happening first as the two errors above could be due to previous errors that you may be missing.

As far as Helpdesk software is concerned I am in the final throws of testing a web based helpdesk software that I have developed which is FITS compliant and will be releasing it for free to all. I hope to have this out by the 20th of this month, I will post to this thread when it is available.

I use a couple of LinITX boxes for Net monitoring and SPAM control, Linux of course as Windows would kill it. But they work great especially the new ones with 3 10/100/1000 NICs builtin.

@VGeek: In order to ensure that your PC has indeed been "cleaned" of these nasties the only real option you have it to do as Geoff has already mentioned. You can keep sweeping your PC with anti-spyware and anti-virus programs but there is no gaurantees that they will catch them all and all it takes is one to be missed for the whole process to start again. You need to also look at the use of your PC could it be allowing private/confidential information to be leaked out, are you in control of this? If your PC is "just a pc" then you should have no real problem wiping it but if your PC is one of great importance and is used, for example as a development or trusted information holder then you need to decided what you are going to do with it. In my opinion take a back up and wipe it.

@halfmad: I have made this type request already but aside from the amount of extra admin thiswould casue forme they do not wantto bring thier PC's/laptops in anyway. @Geoff: At the moment we are talking about Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro X

@Geoff and @Limbo: Our LEA only provides a single Gateway/Router IP so schoolcan get out on the "internet". At the moment NO OTHER services are provided to schools via the LEA. All schools are in control ofthier own internal IP addressing. Each school LEA assigned IP is on its own VLAN within the LEA and resides in a 10.x.x.x range. All schools are advised to use either a 192.168.x.x or 172.x.x.x range. All of our VLAN data is tagged at switch/router level and relaying is used in order to distribute IP's along the correct VLANs

@Geoff: Currently our LEA does NOT allow remote access across the LEA network to the schools (I know I have been going on about it for years now, and even started a pressure group but as of yet nothing) @Ric_: I agree if the software is purcahsed by the school then it should only be used IN the school but if the center manager decides to by a single licence of the product in addition to the 40+ all ready bought then not only are the school pc's licenced but so it the one at the tutors home. I make the distinction between school and the adult learning center as they are two entities but it is funded by the school itself. Sure the ALC has it's own budget (which forms part ofthe overall school budget) but is fully supported by the my support team. @Halfmad: I agree asking for freebies is the way I look at it but I still have to provide these people with what they want. I just need a way to cover my a&!e and the school.

We have a adult learning center which has around 250 students attending twice a week. With regards to the users that are under the sames restriction with regards to email and web usage as normal students are and have an amended AUP to suit them, this is not a problem. The problem I have is tutors (not school ones) are requesting use of software they use to teach the classes "off site" i.e. at home. I have spoken to the adult learning center manager and have tried to tell him that, in my opinion, this is a no no as it would be hard to track if they have uninstalled the software once they have left, however he says that it is essential that they have access to the software in order to teach it. [my own opinion here] You would think that tutors teaching a subject would at least know the subject before hand :? [/end my own opinion] As the software is purchased by the school and not the adult learning center can I just get the adult learning tutors to sign a disclaimer that if they use software off site they will be liable to prosecution if they do not remove it once they have finished teaching at the school or something to that effect?? As the software is purchased by the school I have to disclose the software within my software asset register and therefore the link exsits. If anyone has any idea what to put into this letter to the tutors or if you have one you don't mind sharing any help with this would be apreciated.

I have been looking into thisone myself as I am about to change the IP layout at the school to build in some extra scope: An IP subnet mask of: 255.255.248.0 would give you 2048 IP addresses based over 8 host networks i.e.: 192.168.1.0 - 192.168.2.0 - 192.168.3.0 - 192.168.4.0 - 192.168.5.0 - 192.168.6.0 - 192.168.7.0 - 192.168.8.0. What you need to remember is that 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.0.8.255 can not be used so you only have 2046 IP's available. This knid of setup is really good if you wish to "assign" IP's to specifc kit or VLANS. We run VLANS in my school and the plan would be to do something like: 192.168.1.0 - Servers/Switches/Routers (VLAN1) 192.168.2.0 - Student PC's (VLAN2) 192.168.3.0 - Student PC's (VLAN2) 192.168.4.0 - Student PC's (VLAN2) 192.168.5.0 - Staff PC's/Admin PC's (VLAN3) 192.168.6.0 - Staff PC's/Admin PC's (VLAN3) 192.168.7.0 - Wireless Access (VLAN4) 192.168.8.0 - SPARE Not any easy thing to turn around but if you manage to work out your subnet first this will save you alot of hassle. The idea is to capacity plan, look at what you have already (number of devices that need an ip address) then double it. It's always easier to have more than you need than to have less and strugle to add more later.

This has got to be one of Googles' best April Fools Jokes I have seen yet. "Get Broad Band By Sinking some Fibre Optic Cable down your Toilet" TiSP: 1) This IS Prank 2) Toilet Internet Service Provider Watch the installation video here --> http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=gtjAdKQkqDo&eurl=http%3A//groups.google.com/group/google-tisp/browse_thread/thread/392f801cfe785130&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/gtjAdKQkqDo/2.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskL6bHCiolBIuNjqfmpsqE3O

@tosca925: That would be why a vanilla install of w2k3 would be better than setting it all up and then trying to change the domain and stuff later. That is just one of the possible issues that could and would arise.

I did not think that drupal had MSSQL support as I had looked at that but I will look into plone.

Hi All, I am looking for an opensource cms solution but has support for using MSSQL as the backend database. Has anyone come across or used any decent ones??

If you employ some sort of filtering solutions you can (in theory) setup "Working Hours". I have that at my place where during working hours things like webmail and banking cannot be accessed but before and after school and during lunch staff can access them. Stuff like ebay and the likes are banned anyhow as part of the AUP (which I belive if you gonna set it up right then the NM should do it).

I as network manager do not (and don't wish to have) access to any staff or students passwords. If they forget their password I will reset it and force the user to cahnge it next time they logon. All staff and students are responsable for thier own accounts and not knowing thier passwords removes the possibility if blame !

I'm with ChrisH on this one. I use VMServer Extensively at my school, having a "standard" base install of Server 2003 is good as it can then be tailored to your requirements when on site. A "dcpromo" would take 10mins (i know depending on speed and resources) and all your DNS, AD, DHCP would be setup for you in that time to the spec of the school you are installing into. Then asChrisH pointed out there are plenty of user contributed script for user and folder creation on the site todo the other stuff you need. The problem is trying to rename domains once the have been put in is not the esaiest or most straight forward of things to do and leaves you open to huge amounts of error.