Minutes Waterloo Polaris Advisory Group June 20, 2001

Attendees:

Regrets:

Submitted items:

Q: (Tim) It is time to select a new chair and meeting recorder.
A: (Erick) Motion to nominate Nevil as the new chair.

(Hon) Seconds the motion, no objections.
(Tim) Motion to nominate Daniel as the meeting recorder.
(Erick) Seconds the motion, o objections.

Q: (Steph) What is the preferred way to install software on Nexus. Is it possible to corrupt AD by using a template machine, installing software locally on the template machine and using WinLE to lift off the installation and package on teh RemInstall directory?
A: (Steph) Sorry, since requesting an answer to this, I have found that Ray White has document the proper way to do this with the following web site Windows 2000 page.

(Tim) Is there any tracking to show who is modifying programs?
(Hon) There are auditing logs on the server. One just has to go through the lines in the logs. As for a template machine, it does depend on the software. Some software will want to touch AD and the schema. You can figure this out by looking at what it does (through the WinLE creation files). If the program needs integration, like MSMail, the installation will want to modify the schema. If one installs with the !account you can see what it will want to modify, thus one should use this account and not install local to the machine. Using the !!account will make changes to the schema without any warnings and this is not advisable.
(Hon) I would like to suggest at this time that we plan for the Windows2000 Polaris Domain to be shut down by September 2001. The reason for this suggestion, DNS is a tricky thing now. Some errors are now showing up in the log due to the Win/Unix differences. Engtest will be used thereafter (which was the orginal testing domain) to straighten out the DNS problems. This will be the equivalent of Apex. As an aside, Engtest will probably be using EIDE for the hard drives, since SCSI are quite expensive.

Q: (Steph) Do we currently (or are we thinking about) some way to track/notify who is installing which piece of software on Nexus, to limit duplication of effort?
A: (Hon) Currently, the system involves a blank file to note what is installed. Works in progress are also listed on Ray's Windows2000 page (given above). This can be used to add to a software list.

(Nevil) With a file in the pakages directory, it may be better to have info contained in the file about the package.
(Hon) Yes, this is a good idea. We are only doing this so far, to know what is currently on the machine. This does not prevent GPO's from running. A check of the file in existence, would make the process run smarter, so as not to run the installation twice.

Q: (Nevil) Does anyone yet care about multiple logins to Windows2000 in their public labs, or is anyone looking for a solution to this?
A: (Erick) I am looking. My first few ideas have not panned out.

(Erick) I do have a new idea currently, and will follow through with it.
(Nevil) At least for students a GPO that allows only one login.

Q: (Nevil) We need to find a solution for Math/Env students and their N drive. Arts currently supplies space for students taking arts courses, however this may/will mess up math students taking computer courses. This was discovered approximately two weeks ago. We have been providing Math students with N drive space, but these students should have their own Math space.
A: (Jim) Yes, they should be provided for by Math. Once we switch the ONTAP version of the OS, Hooke will be able to supply the N drive space. I am unsure of the Nexus experience at this time to say for sure that it will wor. Currently our students have 10-15 Meg quotas. Have any of you tried connecting to Hooke anonymously? As far as I know, this should not be an issue.

(Steph) Just tried and successfully got into \\hooke\system (June 25, 2001).
(Hon) How much is your Q: drive using with respect to your NetApp?
(Jim) Typically, about 17-20 Megs.
(Hon) You will free up this space if you move the Q: drive to another machine.
(Jim) We have been thinking of new disk space for Hooke, so this is not an issue. There will be no big purchases till the Fall as this is the timeframe Math is looking at.
(Hon) It has been almost three years since Engineering has put together a new Q: drive server. The new system is two machines that each support two drives, one 36 Gig and one 73Gig drive. The plan has been to use the 36 as the master and use as Q: drive for the old Polaris W95 users. This has been expensive, but the price has dropped for a 73 Gig to approximately $1250. Using a CUVDL4x motherboard for the new box has given a fairly fast FreeBSD machine. This board has two controller chips, which gives the ability for 36 possible connected devices.
(Jim) Dual bus is a good feature to have, since the bus speed does not slow down if using both drives.

(Tim) Does ES no longer have a NetApp?
(Trevor) Our NetApp is currently being tested by IST to see if they can get it to work the way we want it to (problems with unix vs. NTFS permissions). We still need to figure out how ES works with Nexus.
(Nevil) I have noticed that there is a Geography OU under Arts and an Arts Biology OU in AD.
(Trevor) Yes, it is possible for someone to register under Arts Geography (instead of ES Geography). So, a Geography OU may exist under both Arts and ES.
(Nevil) Can the Arts Geography students be brought back into the Arts OU.
(Erick) Yes, this can be taken care of.

Q: (Nevil) Is there a way for syslogging of logons, etc. to be done like in Polaris W95 to a single source?
A: (Erick) Yes, this will be adden in the next month or so.

(Hon) Currently, you can Open event viewer, then point to the machine you are interested in and look at the logs on your DC. Use event viewer to the machine you want to look at who is logging on and off of it.
(Erick) We are planning on using this for the monitor in the halls.
(Nevil) Do you have an idea of when, since we have Coops to help if needed.
(Erick) This should be soon, since this is mostly a cut and paste from my old programs.

Q: (Nevil) I have a command line logon/start up script method of adding printers and setting defaults if anyone is interested.
I found the info for this in the Server Resource Kit book "Operations Guide" pg 217. This line will add a printer (our default printer for our labs) and I have included it in a start up script for our labs

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n\\nxsartsapp\q_arts_2k

This is my script for adding two printers if the user is a member of either the aco or sociology employees groups. The ifmember command is also a resource kit tool

@echo off
if not exist "n:\windows2000\Application Data\aco" md
"n:\windows2000\Application Data\aco" > nul

ifmember aco
if not errorlevel 1 goto :notaco
if exist "n:\windows2000\Application Data\aco\p_aco_2k" goto :notaco
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n\\nxsartsapp\p_aco_2k
echo p_aco_2k > "n:\windows2000\Application Data\aco\p_aco_2k"

:notaco
ifmember "NEXUS\sociology employees" > nul
if not errorlevel 1 goto :notsoc
if exist "n:\windows2000\Application Data\aco\q_soc_2k" goto :notsoc
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n\\nxsartsapp\q_soc_2k
copy "\\NEXUS.UWATERLOO.CA\SysVol\NEXUS.UWATERLOO.CA\Policies\{D72DFA7C-0206-4141-8692-E7E2508861FD}\User\Scripts\Logon\sociology department printer instructions.txt" "c:\temp\sociology department printer instructions.txt" > nul
start wordpad "c:\temp\sociology department printer instructions.txt"
echo q_soc_2k > "n:\windows2000\Application Data\aco\q_soc_2k"
:notsoc

(Nevil) I found this command line way to put printers on, which one can use a GPO to install. This even checks for members of a group (ifmember) and then uses the the rundll32 command. I will send this out to the newsgroup. The ifmember can solve some other problems i.e., mapping of extra disk space.

Information items:

(Jim) Ray's information web page will be a good start, is there any other ways that you know of to start and learn?
(Nevil) The resource kit has been great, and then Hon is also an excellent resource.

(Hon) A third party book by NewWriters gives very good general ideas and the faults of active directory design and implementation. For the nitty-gritty, one should use the resource kit.
(Nevil) I do have one difficulty with printing some stuff. The printer preferences for front-to-back (back-to-front) is not working as expected.
(Jim) This sounds like a driver problem. Try writing to 'file,' I would like to have a look at it. This may not be at the printer end, but really with the implementation of the driver being used.
(Nevil) The default ends up being the reverse of what the screen information says. If one goes about changing from the printer preferences, then it will work properly.

(Nevil added 2001/06/26) It turns out that on the 2000 server that is distributing a printer to the active directory there is a button for Printing defaults under the Advanced tab which fixes my listed problem.

Created by: sempson@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 2001/06/25
Revised by: sempson@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 2001/06/26