Microsoft Group Policy became very useful with the launch of Windows server 2000 and as more and more businesses were moving away from the workgroup environment and into the domain environment. Group Policy gave network administrators a way to control settings on all computers and servers that exsist within there network domain. Over the years group policy has evolved and become very customizable where each OU within Active Directory can have its own group policy. So if you need to hadle the computers within the accounting department different than the computers in the maintenance department, group policy can do this. For the purposes of this article I will be discussing the newest version which is what is included in Windows Server 2008 64-bit. Although there are not a whole lot of changes (except the look) betweeen Server 2003 and Server 2008 I am willing to do a Server 2003 Group Policy article if enough people would like to see it.
Archive for the Category ◊ Networking ◊
For those of you who do not know what a MAC address is, it is the burned in address that every networking piece of equipment has that is unique. No two pieces of equipment should every have the same MAC address. There are many reasons someone might want to change the MAC address of the network card or wireless card. Maybe they are trying to connect to someone’s wireless network that only allows certain MAC addresses. You can also change your MAC address to test your own security settings, and even DHCP settings. So there are many reasons why you might want to change your MAC address.
Symbol is a large company when it comes to technology products and even wireless devices. Symbol offers a more affordable alternative to Cisco while still including some of the functionality of Cisco products. Symbol like Cisco and unlike Netgear or the Linksys models does not have a switch on the back to allow you to simply reset the wireless to factory defaults. Link Cisco equipment you have to have physical access to the wireless to reset it if you have forgotten your password. Here we will step you through reseting a Symbol AP 5131 Access Point.
Printers are a common problem when it comes to writing scripts for them. Most of use know the NET USE command to map a printer but did you notice that it does not display in Printers and Faxes after you have used the NET USE command. It has been mapped and you can print to LPTx and have it print out but the printer is not listed for Windows use.
So I was called in over the holiday for a Windows Server 2008 update error that a client was receiving when they attempted to update their server. This error is very well documented by Microsoft and there are alot and I do mean alot of things that can cause this error. Well when I started troubleshooting this server it had not been updated since September 2009 which is quite a while to go without any critical updates to a very important server. So this article will talk about trouble shooting this error on a Windows 2008 server incase you ever run into this problem.
MAC addresses are burned in addresses that are associated with your Network card, whether it be wireless, wired or even bluetooth. Each device has a specific MAC address that is unique to it only and no other device has that address. Most systems allow you to change your MAC address but it is purely software based, it will not changed the burned in address on your card. But when you change your MAC address and you connect to a network it will give out the changed address.
Microsoft Exchange 2003 is a full email hosting application that allows small businesses to handle their own email in house without paying a monthly charge. Small businesses all around the world host their own email server in house saving them money in the long run. Microsoft Exchange is by no means a cheap program to purchase and to purchase the hardware to run it on is not cheap either. But it allows you much more control over your email and calendar that you would get from a monthly service.
The OSI Model or Open System Interconnection Model is a graphical and logical representation of how network information flows. It also explains how networks transfer from one device to another, if you want to be involved in computer networking you really should understand the OSI Model.
I spoke about IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention Systems) a few days ago in a question posted by a user. So I thought I would dive a little deeper into the subject with a specific application that I have personally used – Snort. Snort is a very powerful IDS that in later versions can act like an IPS.
Nmap or (Network Mapper) is a free open source tool that is used by many network administrators for security analysis created by insecure.org. Nmap can be used in may different ways, including checking a range of IP addresses to see what hosts are on the network. It can also be used as a post scanner to tell you which ports are open on a specific host computer. Nmap has been made to run on most popular operating systems such as Windows, MAC OS, and Linux.