Aprice

I had a go with PFSense a while back, I think it was one of these two guides I used to get web filtering: https://www.spikefishsolutions.com/post/easy-web-filtering-with-pfsense https://openschoolsolutions.org/pfsense-web-filter-filter-https-squidguard/ I'm not sure how bulletproof they are, especially as they just rely on published blocklists of questionable quality. You may end up having to bite the bullet and go for something like Smoothwall or maybe Cisco Umbrella?, I'm not sure how compliant you would be with Prevent and some of the other KCSIE with any of these home-brew projects.

Have you tried setting the phone up manually? Usually you just need to put the proxy address in which is the IP of the PBX, User ID and AUTH ID both of which is the extension number, and the secret. As FN-GM says it could be Fail2Ban blocking the IP of the phone if it isn't authenticating properly.

Between the couple of places I've worked they were always the go to if budget permitted. I swear by them, even use them at home! Could it be the LA just haven't implemented it properly

I presume the third party could be the school, I don't see why they would care who gets the kit so long as they get paid. You are right, very oddly worded though!

I would start with getting the school enrolled in apple school manager - Free Then I would take a look at Mosyle manager to actually do the management. The free version should be fine for you there as well, we managed over 3,000 devices just on the free version. https://manager.mosyle.com Charge and sync wise I would suggest taking a look at Zioxi, I don't think you will really need the sync option as it will add a lot of cost and will likely be of no use to you unless you are enrolling them with Apple Configurator on a Mac, in which case a half decent USB hub would be more cost effective. Alex

Across a few jobs I've used the Evolis Primacy units and IDP Card Printers. My go to now is the IDP card printers, they've just been rock solid, the last one I put in was a Smart 51 which was about £700-800, they do some alternatives that are a bit cheaper. Just make sure you give whichever unit you buy a clean every so often using the cleaning cards or they seem to get a bit messed up. The two Evolis primacy machines I used just keep jamming up and leaving streaks all over the cards whatever we did. Thanks, Alex

The config is pretty much the same, as you say with the addition of adding an IP on the VLAN interfaces and adding a static route on if needed. I put a 5400r in a couple of weeks ago, and had it configured up in a couple of hours after everyone had gone home. Happy to help with any config if you get stuck Alex

For a secondary generally I would suggest something like the Aruba 5400r or 3810 as a core switch, The 2930F can do L3 but its really more of an access switch than a core. Depending on how big your network is it may be suitable for a couple of static routes. I do like the Ubiquiti EdgeSwitches / Unifi Switches but I've had 4 or 5 power supplies fail in them over a few sites so it might be worth having a spare just in case if you go down that route. How many client devices do you have roughly? Alex

Yep, that works on my home setup. I don't get why they have changed it though!

I managed to get the proper Hikvision kit through Highgate IT, it is annoying though when you have to work around these annoying restrictions.

Hi Tom, We've got Kyocera's mainly 4551's from memory, there getting a bit old now but still working well. I was told that the school bought these second hand for £350 each nearly 4 years ago. There's a pay per click contract on them which covers toner and servicing. I'll either be sticking with Kyocera or moving to the shiny Toshiba estudios I used at a previous trust.

My site had a mix of promethean activboards and a couple of activpanels, gradually we are replacing the activboards with BenQ's. The departments don't seem to be bothered which model of flat panel they have, so I'm sticking to the BenQs from now on.

I recommend Eurocoms, worked with them a couple of times. Alex

If you assign a static IP to your laptop on VLAN50 in the 10.13.170.0 range are you able to ping the VLAN 50 interface of the router, or either if the two switches? Should that work, can you ping the other interface of the other VLAN on the router and the IP of your DHCP server? Alex

It probably was just bad luck, I'm just not very impressed with them. From what I gathered the price is comparable to the Aruba 2930f. The CLI isn't bad though, very similar to Cisco.

I took over my current site, It has Dell N series switches. I absolutely hate them. I have had several hardware faults and a couple of stacks that throw up memory errors on various firmware releases. I think I will stick to Aruba and Cisco unless the the budgets really squeezed, in which case Ubiquiti. Never had a bad experience with the HP Aruba kit. The Ubiquiti switches I use at home and used in a couple of primaries, I'm quite happy with them apart from the 3 switches that power supplies failed in.

I think that might be a job for tomorrow.... Wouldn't be surprised if something crazy was paid for them

Couldn't believe it when 104 of them turned up, So far from the LA / DFE I have had HP 250's Lenovos and these now. A member of SLT ordered them rather than myself, so I had no idea what to expect this time round. I just created a provisioning package to skip the OOBE and create a user account and called it quits. At least the kids can try and install Office on this lot unlike the Intune managed lot before. Why couldn't they buy something that would be half useful, now I just have a load of ewaste! What a waste of public money

Hi, You need to go to Management, Allowed/Blocked Apps Then Blocked Apps at the top of that page. Create a new profile with the apps you want to hide selected. https://myschool.mosyle.com/#helpcenter/411

I work in Sandwell, but live in Nottingham. Sandwell goes back into lockdown (sort off) on Monday. I will go in as normal, the only real change is that the kids wear masks in corridors. Other than that it's business as 'usual' Alex

I have reluctantly moved over to shared device licencing, Shared Device licencing also requires users to login which is annoying. I wish the serialisation method still worked for the new products, SDL is just a pain in the neck.

Hi Steve, Just before I took the job at my new school Gaia put in a three host S2D Cluster. Its 3 Dl380 Gen 10s Dual Xeon 288GB RAM each Mainly Spinning disks with some 2TB SSDs in each host. The config isn't great and no documentation was passed on, its been a bit of a learning curve moving over from VCentre. Hardware wise its everything I could ask for, with plenty of capacity for growth. I believe it was about £50k all in, that might include some other bits I just don't have any paperwork for any of it.

I have worked with schools that have had both over the years, all of them changed back to Smoothwall in the end. For a Secondary site I prefer to have the option of a physical appliance which Smoothwall offers. The current site I work at moved from Netsweeper through LGFL to Smoothwall. Personally I'm not a fan of Netsweeper just caused problems.

We had 6 delivered on Friday, HP 250 G7s Intel Celerons 4GB ram. Pretty much what I expected to be honest. Alex

The desks can't be unbolted, if the heads get rounded off first