Practicum 2 Journal 7 - January 10 - Tablets and more pfSense Goodness

Today someone had called in about their company just recently buying 3 tablets, so me and Wes set them up for VPN access, printer access, terminal access, and network drive access. The longest part of it all was probably figuring out what the model was for each of the three printers and finding the drivers as Windows Update was not finding them for us.

Working on the pfSense side of things, Ken gave Wes and I a Dell PowerConnect 6248 switch to work with. Other than that this switch seems like it will be a very good one to use, as mainly it supports working with 802.1Q VLANs through a trunk port that pfSense is giving out through the second network card.

Practicum 2 Journal 6 - January 9, 2014 - pfSense anyone?

So today Wes wasn't working, so I got to work by myself on this new project for a day. I grabbed an old Dell Optiplex 210L that they had out in the back hall for recycling, and a used hard drive from the pile they had and installed pfSense on it, and started working. Noticing that I then needed another network card, I found one in an old server of theirs.

After installing the second card I restarted the computer, and finished the pfSense installation. Ken also gave me a cisco router that he recently uninstalled from his setup, I was able to turn DHCP off on it and use it just as a switch. Working on this basically took the whole day, it was fun, I haven't done anything like that in a while.

Practicum 2 Journal 5 - January 8, 2014 - Telus Router Replacement?!

So today me and Wes worked a bit more on Zentyal, checking it out, and also getting terminal services working on Ubuntu Desktop with a program called xrdp (it acts like a terminal server allowing multiple people to connect to the same OS, but be logged in as themselves and even potentially at the same time as someone else but without the other knowing, and then me looking around at some other alternatives to Windows Server with little luck besides Zentyal.

Later on in the work day, when Wes went home I was messing with Ubuntu still, and Ken came and proposed an idea to me. His proposal was to replace the pile of Telus Routers he has with hopefully one box. Our initial thought was something like pfSense, so I looked into it more, and that is what seems to be the best option for what he wants.

This is the picture of what he has now:

(I apologize for the glare, as their is a window directly opposite the whiteboard)

This is the picture of what he wants:

(I apologize again for the glare)

So looks like I will be busy the next couple days figuring this out for him.

Practicum 2 Journal 4 - January 7, 2014

So today we got a few calls in for help, messed a bit more in Windows Server and Linux distributions. One of the Linux distributions that I have found is called Zentyal, it has quite a few of the same features that Windows Server 20XX has and some others (because of it being a flexible Linux OS). It allows for a mail server, network login server, file server, terminal server, and quite a bit more. Other than checking out Zentyal nothing exciting really happened.

Practicum 2 Journal 3 - January 6, 2014

So today we went through the service tickets that came in on the weekend, and noticed that Ken took them all, so Wes showed me some things in Windows Server that I did not know or could not remember previously seeing. Between going through TigerPaw for tickets throughout the day and messing around with Windows Server, that was basically the day. Not very exciting

Practicum 2 Journal 2 - January 3, 2014 - Rainbow Greenhouses

So today me and Wes (the person that I am working under) went out of the office and went to Chiliwack to a place called Rainbow Greenhouses. They recently have built a brand new building beside their current one for expanding their office and making a REALLY LARGE (and long) greenhouse area. When we arrived their it ended up that the employees themselves had moved over an set up their desktop systems. So Wes and I had moved over the servers and the leftover UPS units that were still left in the old building. After that I ended up wiring the networking patch panel to the switch (not splicing the cables into the patch panel though), after helping their tech setup her machines and the servers, I was sent to setup the front desk computer (the monitor cables were too short for it). After using a punch down tool and punching a CAT6 Ethernet socket for the printer, and making a cable for one of the employees there who wished to use Ethernet for his laptop, Wes and I were done there, so we came back to the office, finished up some stuff here, then went home.

So a pretty productive second day on the job, Monday I am working again, so we will see what I will be up to then.

Practicum 2 Journal 1 - December 31, 2013 - First day on a new job

So today I have started my second practicum, it is at a business in Abbotsford named Bytelok. They do offsite servers and management of networks for quite a few different businesses actually. Today I got a bit of a tour around their office. I got to see the office where I will be working, an extra office that is being used by a friend of Ken's that works upstairs (they ran out of offices upstairs I believe, so that is why she is working here), Ken's office, and the server room. I noticed that they have a pile of 20 different routers or so, I asked him later why they had so many routers hooked up. It is because of having a separate external (or WAN) IP address for each company he is hosting for.

On Friday we will be going to a place called Rainbow Greenhouses in Chiliwack to help them move their computers and stuff over to their new building which is just next door to their current location.