While carrying out the steps to move our network devices from a flat network to one with purposeful VLANs I had changed the IP address of one of our HP CP3505 printers (using the web based management console) to discover that with the new IP I could not print to the printer over the network. Oddly enough the web based… Read more
Tag: HP
Server Room – The latest
Work is coming along nicely with the Server Room, we’ve now removed the last Cisco switch from our infrastructure and the HP 5400R series switch is deployed replacing the 2530 that was in its place; over time we’ll be bringing more fibre from our edge switches into this room as well hence the number of SFP+ ports on the 5400R…. Read more
Server Room Progress – Photos
With the front to back patch panel installed and T430s rack mounted the server room is coming along quite nicely. Next up will be a tidy up of the cables at the back of the rack bringing all of the power cables to one side and the network cables to the other. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!
Automated backup for your network switches with WinSCP and PowerShell
Although it may not be the most glamorous side of IT every sysadmin will appreciate the value of a rock solid backup system. All too often though these systems do not extend down to the ’embedded’ systems like network switches and firewalls. However with a little WinSCP (and its fantastic .NET assembly automation package) and PowerShell combined its pretty easy… Read more
Dell T430 Hyper-V Host Looses Network Connectivity (or more precisely the Broadcom NetXtreme Network Adapter does)
Have been having a bit of an interesting issue over the past few weeks whereby our Hyper-V Hosts (Dell T430 Tower Servers) would loose network connectivity at seemingly random intervals; the only resolution was to restart the server or to remove and replace the network cable. After much investigation looking at the servers and associated network switch we discovered that… Read more
Where I work…
Well the new school term is upon us and I have (at last!) had the time to do a photo of my office setup. In the photo above we have- 2x HP 23bw 23″ IPS monitors These beasts recently replaced a pair of 1440×900 resolution monitors – given that I’m doing a lot of database work at the moment it only… Read more
HP ProCurve 2610 – Basic Setup using console cable
In this guide I am going to show how to perform a very basic setup of a HP ProCurve 2610 Layer 2 network switch using a serial to console cable. First up you will need a serial to console cable and a PC that has a serial port. If you don’t have a PC with a serial port (old HPs… Read more
4 SSIDs 1 Secondary Academy – Public WiFi Setup
This final network is quite possibly the ones that most Schools will shy away from on grounds of ‘security’ – where I work however that just isn’t an option as we have paying users of the school facilities right the way through the evening and weekends. Indeed the weekend after we put this public network in place we have ~110… Read more
4 SSIDs 1 Secondary Academy – BYOD WiFi Setup
The BYOD network is quite possibly the hardest to setup (and thanks to the Smoothwall support guys for spotting an obvious mistake I made on my DHCP config the first time round!) of all 4 of the SSIDs by also the most rewarding when you see 300+ students and staff connected on their Phones, Laptops and Tablet PCs. In a… Read more
4 SSIDs 1 Secondary Academy – Mac WiFi + Bonjour Gateway Setup
By comparison to the Domain WiFi setup the configuration for the Apple network is much simpler. The one tiny little exception is that the Apple Discovery Protocol (Bonjour) is by design unable to traverse VLANs. In many networks this wouldn’t be a problem however we have a item of software called AirServer on our Windows clients that ties into the… Read more