Lessons Learned Forum at Peachtree Corners

In your classroom labs at Computertraining.com you worked to install and configure a DHCP server on your network. In your lab scenario, you are the Administrator of a child_domain of the classroom parent_domain. As you know from lecture, a DHCP server must be authorized in Active Directory before it can begin to assign IP addresses. During the lab, in order to authorize your DHCP server, you provided the credentials of an Enterprise Administrator. What purpose does authorization serve? Do you think that your credentials as an Administrator of the child_domain would have been sufficient for authorization? Why or why not? What about the credentials of a parent_domain Administrator? Once your DHCP server was authorized, you were able to hand out IP addresses. As you saw in the lab, a blue exclamation point appears on a scope when it has exhausted is available IP addresses. Is it possible to increase the useable amount of IP addresses in an existing scope? Explain your answer. You may use your class materials as well as the internet to answer.

MS Technet : DHCP Basics

In your class at Computertraining.com we recently discussed the topic of Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP1 (WSUS 3.0 SP1). Using the information provided in the following scenario, along with what you have learned in class, describe how you as an administrator would implement an updating stategy using WSUS.

Network:
» Your network consists of a HQ office and 4 branch offices.
» Each office location is connected to each other using 56k dial-up slow WAN links.
» Each office location is connected to the Internet with using a high speed cable modem.
» The HQ location consists of roughly 1000 client machines
» Each branch location consists of roughly 100 client machines

Administration:
» The IT department is located at HQ and is responsible for the administration of all 5 locations
» There is no full time IT at the branch offices.

Company:
» The company consists of 5 major departments. Executives, Management, Research, Sales and HR.
» Each location operates independently of each other and contains all 5 departments.
» The Executive, Management and HR departments all use similar computer equipment and applications.
» The Research department uses a variety of custom computers and hardware.
» The sales department uses laptop computers with a customized order tracking application.

You may also use any information you can find on Microsoft’s WSUS home page :

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wsus/default.aspx

In the following post you will read about an admin who is having trouble understanding how he should nest groups in order to grant users in one domain access to a resource in a different domain.The first scenario he describes is viable, and will work, but does not follow Microsoft’d best practices. In what way could the first scenario be improved? The second scenario is closer to Microsoft’s best practices, but is incorrect in its structure. What would be the correct nesting structure based on the information he provides? Finally, the assisting user has a much stronger grasp on nesting principals, and has quoted a post that he stated helped him gain his level of understanding. The post in its entirety is very good, but contains a minor error in his explaination of the group scopes. Using knowledge gained from textbooks, lecture and labs at Computertraining.com, locate and define the error and explain why it is a minor, not a major flaw.

http://www.sadikhov.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php?t45207.html

In tonight’s class , we discussed Active Directory, Organizational Units (OUs) and, the objects that represent the users and computers in our local and domain environments. In your own words, descibe the differences, as well as the situations which we would use, local and domain user accounts. Why do we have accounts for computers that belong to our domain, and is it nessecary? List and briefly describe 3 ways we can create user and computer objects in our Acitve Directory. Describe some of the conventions we can use to name the OUs in our Active Directory heirarchy. What is the Microsoft recommended depth of ‘layering’ for an OU structure? Do you agree?

In the following link, an admin of sorts is having problems with the syntax for the DSADD command line tool. Can you determine the errors in his terminology? Based upon the information in the link, what would be the exact syntax for the DN (Distinguished Name) the troubled admin should use to get the -memberof switch to work in his DSADD command?  You will find examples of the syntax in your homework and textbook.

http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Windows/microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory/2005-08/msg00962.html

Your posts are due : June 1st 2009 6:00pm

What makes Microsoft’s ISA Server 2004 so secure right “out of the box”. Describe the different ways the ISA can filter network traffic. What makes it such a versatile product to use on a network. Describe in your own words what you like and dislike about the ISA product.

Below is the link to the ISA homepage.

Microsoft ISA homepage

Your posts are due  buy 5/26/09

Recently, you have installed Server 2003 onto your Computertraining.com classroom computers. Describe the differences in usage between a workstation/client OS and a Server OS. What is the primary difference between the Server 2003 and Vista installation environments? You have learned that the system requirements for Vista are far greater than those required for installing Server 2003. What are the reasons for this? What do you think could be the cause of repeated 2003 OS clean install failure on a computer that you know meets all of the minimum hardware requirements? What can be done to troubleshoot this problem?

Below is a link to a great Server 2003 technical reference that you can use as a tool through thie course and in the future.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Technical Article Index

Your postings are due by 5/25/09.

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In recent lessons at Computertraining.com, you have learned about Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop technologies. What ports and protocols do they use? In what situations would you choose one over the other?

Normally, you use your home computer to connect to your computer at work. In the exhibit pictured above, you are at work on an Windows XP computer and want to access some files on your Vista Home Premium computer at your home by using Remote Desktop. Assuming all configurations have been made on the network at your work to allow this, describe everything you would have to configure on your Home network for this scenario to work. Would any configurations need to be made to the router? What IP address would you use when initiating the Remote Desktop Connection?

Use what you have learned in the classroom at Computertraining.com, as well as your course materials to answer the above questions. Below is a link that may help as well.

Wikipedia : Port Forwarding

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You administer a portion of your company’s network. The network contains 20 client computers as depicted above. Recently, you tasked a junior administrator with setting up a new PC on your networkwith static IP information. The user assigned to the computer has reported that he has not been able to access any machines on the network or use the Internet since the computer was setup. None of the other 20 computers are experiencing any issues. You suspect that the junior admin made an error when setting up the machine. You ask the junior admin if he had any trouble with the setup and he reports that he did not. You decide to troubleshoot the issue yourself and discover the error when you run IPCONFIG /ALL from the command prompt. You open the network card properties sheet as depicted below to make the necessary changes.

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Answer the following questions using as much detail as possible with what you have learned at Computertraining.com :

1. What would you need to change on the NIC properties sheet to restore connectivity?

2. What would you change it to?

3. After altering the configuration, what steps would you take, and what tools would you use to test connectivity?

4. Was the junior admin truthful when he stated he did not have any issues with the configuration? Explain. (Hint: try to configure the depicted settings)

You will find useful information in Chapter 7 of your 70-620 Vista Configuration and  Chapter 9 of your  70-291 2003 Network Infrastructure textbooks.

Below is a link to a very nice Knowledge Base article covering Basic TCP/IP Troubleshooting :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/169790

You have learned in class at Computertraining.com about the Encrypting File System (EFS) and BitLocker encryption technologies. In today’s post 9/11 business culture, the proper protection of user and customer data on company computers is paramount to a business’ success. What are the limitations of each, and which do you think is the better method for a business to encrypt data. Can EFS and BitLocker be used together? Are there any significant differences between the EFS included with Vista and the EFS of previous versions of Windows? If your computer is stolen or ‘hacked’, is there a situation where an unauthorized user might be able to view EFS encrypted files in plain text?

The following link may help to answer these questions.

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6162949.html

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During lecture at Computertraining.com, we discussed how a Server 2003 computer can perform as a network router. Using the information in the picture above, the knowledge you have attained from class, and the Technet link at the bottom to answer the following questions with as much detail as possible.

In this scenario, you have been given the task of planning and setting up a solution to meet the company’s Routing and Remote Access needs. You network consists of (5) LANs connected to (5) 2003 Server computers configured with the Routing and Remote access service. All employees will access the Internet through RRAS1’s WAN public IP address. The network cards of each server will use the first available IP addresses of each subnet they are connected to. There is one DHCP server located on Subnet ‘C’ that is providing IP addresses to all of the clients on each network. Employees require access to various fileservers on each network while working from home, but the company is concerned about unauthorized access. For security purposes, dynamic routing will not be used.

1. List each servers NICs and the IPs you would assign them.

2. How many static routes would need to be configured on the server named RRAS1.

3. Type out all of the static routes you would configure for RRAS3 in the following format ( Interface , Destination IP, Network Mask, Gateway IP ).

4. How many of the servers would need to be set up as DHCP relay agents and what NIC would they listen on for the DORA process.

5. What other services would be required to meet the company’s need and how would you configure them.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754634.aspx