July 2001 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] network design
by Grainge, Derek 04 Jul '01

04 Jul '01

> Can anyone point me to some good reference material on > network design? > Alternatively, thoughts on the matter are most welcome! I don't know what precise grade of cabling you have installed, nor which apps, but if your main switch works at 100 M, you may have a bottleneck. We have done things a bit differently as we have lots of separate buildings, we have fibre running at 1 Gb, and switches within buildings providing 100/10. Very little cat 5 at the server end. If you use Office applications and store files on the network; if you load bloatware from a server, if you allow media on the network, I think 100 M will not be enough bandwidth. If the servers are connected to the main switch at 1 Gb, the fibre at 1 Gb and the cat 5 at 10/100 for stations, it'll probably work. 1 Gig switch modules still cost serious money compared with 10/100. You can segment network traffic by using departmental switches, so if Mod Lang want media onto their stations, none of that will hit the main switch at all. I assume that's one reason why you're talking about a server for them specifically. Their switch would logically reside at the departmental end of the fibre segment, along with their server. If configured appropriately, no-one outside Mod Land need know that their server is there. I read the comment about SAMBA. It's pretty good at looking like an NT/2000 server but it doesn't do everything a pukka Microsoft server will. I guess if you are installing a specific product the suppliers may only wish to support it if it's on the correct platform? Do you have money to get a consultant in for a day? I would REALLY recommend it. -- ******************************************************************************** All mail sent and received may be examined to prevent transmission of inappropriate attachments and certain obscenities. Wellington College does not accept responsibility for email contents. Problems to postmaster(a)wellington-college.berks.sch.uk. ********************************************************************************

4 4

Let me give you my scenario.
by Robert Moffat 03 Jul '01

03 Jul '01

Let me give you my scenario. I have been given a small computer lab to oversee. This is a subnet off the main college campus network. www.pembrokeshire.ac.uk We have to link through the college gateway to the outside world and are allowed no inward access. Our details. network domain name computerlab.pembrokeshire.ac.uk IP 212.219.110.x NETMASK 255.255.255.192 1 Compaq Proliant 350 file server IP 212.219.110.1 1 P2 333Mhz web server IP 212.219.110.2 1 HP4050 laser printer with IP 212.219.110.9 24 workstations IP via DHCP 212.219.110 10 up to 212.219.110.61, names Alpha to Zulu gateway 212.219.110.62 DNS 212.219.112.3 We run dual boot workstations with Windows 98 and Suse Linux (Ready to upgrade to 7.2 this summer). The Server currently runs Windows 2000 but I do not understand W2k and do not have time to learn (also the only technician who knew W2k has left). The MIS manager wants to Install Windows NT4 (Technicians can support this (probably)). I want to install Suse 7.2 and Samba as my file server. I have bought a book and am gradually working through it :( Can anyone offer advice on how to configure the smb.conf file for this network. Also how to get the login screens /passwords set up bearing in mind my dual boot. Thanks Rob Moffat Robert Moffat r.moffat(a)pembrokeshire.ac.uk 01437 765247 ext. 242 The contents of this Email and any attachments are the property of Pembrokeshire College and are intended for the confidential use of the named recipient(s) only. If you are not an addressee please notify us immediately at the address below or by Email at "support(a)pembrokeshire.ac.uk". Any files attached to this Email will have been checked with virus software before transmission. However, you should carry out your own virus check before opening any attachment. Pembrokeshire College accepts no liability for any loss or damage which may be caused by software viruses. Pembrokeshire College Haverfordwest Pembrokeshire SA61 1SZ

1 0

Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] VMware
by John Phelan 03 Jul '01

03 Jul '01

Many thanks for your comments, Derek. I'll be at the Linux show this Thursday, with a view to buying the latest Suse Distribtion, or if not cheap enough, I'll get it via Suse-schools pricing. Several people have suggested this distro as a way of getting a look at VM ware. Regards, John. > >On 2001.06.29 10:03:31 +0100 John Phelan wrote: >> Hello to all, >> can anyone advise where I can get a copy of VM ware to run MS programs on >> a >> >> Linux box? I just need an evaluation copy for the time being- VMware's >> site >> >> wants money up front. > >Isn't it on the SuSE distribution? > >I use VMware on one machine at school because I have to be able to access >the Novell NDS - it doesn't get used for anything else! I have my own copy >at home because I sometimes have to develop MS based material and it is >really useful to run a virtual network on the desktop. It needs processor >and RAm power, though! > >-- >Best wishes, >Derek Harding, (BA MIAP) >ICT & Network Manager >hardingd(a)warlingham.surrey.sch.uk > > > http://uk2.net

2 1

Re: Network Design
by Paul Munro 03 Jul '01

03 Jul '01

It *is* best to keep domains relatively locked in on themselves, and this helps keep the 80% traffic local and only 20% traffic external: this reduces broadcasts to outside segments and helps local (i.e language lab machines) utilise the bandwidth better. If you *were* to amalgamate these machines onto one server, then IDE RAID may not work too well. The amount of disk access can seriously screw around with your hardware's ability to operate properly and the MTBF could seriously drop..but cost is obviously important there- so that's your decision. Your language lab will need a good switch with excellent circuitry, and perhaps instead of separate servers you may consider VLANs? A more expensive switch with VLAN capability can offer far more granular control over network traffic than most other options..it may be worth looking into that. Anyway, you are right that your multimedia accessing school users will need some good bandwidth, and if it's any consolation to this discussion, I worked in a school where the language lab had a gigabit connection via fibre to the main PDC in the server room (one building away), and still had some useage problems at times (high yield times such as early morning logons, which we solved by logging the machines on remotely in stages before registration ;-) Our situation was similar in that 250 machines were used in the language/design block, and so we set up a local workgroup server, answerable to a PDC running NT 4 Server that had quad Xeon processors and 512MB RAM! The local server was just a PIII 450 at the time with 512MB RAM, and *seemed* to run ok. SCSI was used in both though. The switch used was a CISCO 1900 Catalyst, and this being manageable remotely via telnet helped in admin from a central location. The switch cost £400 second-hand. Anyway, let us know how the whole thing goes--I'm interested at least! Take care, Paul, CCNA

2 1

network design
by Phil Driscoll 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Hi Can anyone point me to some good reference material on network design? Alternatively, thoughts on the matter are most welcome! The story so far (approximately) is that we have about 200 network points wired with CAT 5 most of which come through to racks in the server room, although a couple of remote areas (language lab and D&T dept.) have their own racks with fibre to the server room. Broadband (well a 2Mb circuit anyway) will arrive at the school RSN. Of the 200ish computers about 50 are Acorn on 10M network cards and the rest are PCs on 100M cards. There are essentially 5 IT suites including the language lab accounting for about 3/4 of the machines, the remainder are in small groups (1 to 5ish) in classrooms. I hope that we can persuade the powers that be to let us have the majority of the PCs running Linux, although a language lab and a 'success maker' lab will have to run Windoze. You may remember from an earlier posting that we plan to have one Linux server for each year group which will handle pupil storage and login. A further machine will be a proxy, and separate NT/2000 servers are required for the language lab and success maker room. What yeargroup is using what set of machines at a given time can be considered as random for the purpose of this exercise. So the issues for us to resolve (since the wiring is already in and will not be changed) are things like switch configurations, where to logically site the servers and so on. Cheers -- Phil Driscoll

4 12

RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Re: Network Design
by Coulton,G 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Anyway, you are right that your multimedia accessing school users will need some good bandwidth, and if it's any consolation to this discussion, I worked in a school where the language lab had a gigabit connection via fibre to the main PDC in the server room (one building away), and still had some useage problems at times (high yield times such as early morning logons, which we solved by logging the machines on remotely in stages before registration ;-) Hi Paul, What speeds was your network cards? Did you use dual 10/100, or did you have a gigabit network card? Thanks Gary :)

1 0

Re: Vmware
by Paul Munro 01 Jul '01

01 Jul '01

It's probably best *not* to copy the Vmware demo, and instead obtain it from either the SuSE Linux distro or else from the Vmware site itself. If you want to buy it afterwards, you can then just pay the money for the license (well worth the cash I think) or just not use it at all. Free/Open Source does not mean that we can treat such software, or commercial software for that base, as copyright free. I don't mean to sound dull, but it's just I've seen a lot of Linux users go down this track for a while now, and they take software such as Vmware and think that because it is in with Linux mags, distributions or other disks etc., they can copy it. Not so. I'm sure no-one here would advocate that at all though :-) Vmware is an excellent piece of software though, and I'm going to be buying the workstation edition soon myself. I've already tried out the demo, and it works very well. Anyway, if push comes to shove, I know that there are many on this list who could send on a full copy of the SuSE distro with it on, or some other magazine disk for you to try it from. Good luck anyways!! Paul Using that damned Windows 2000 Server right now :-/

1 0