Polak?s Great Networking Adventure

[Polak]

To make a long story short, I got hired for a position that normally you would need lots a certifications/degrees for. Now I?m not stooge when it comes to networking, but admittedly I?m biting off a lot to chew. Not familiar with the dynamic on this forum but lets not start the next post off by saying, ?such bullshit, that this guy is even doing this type of work, he should have to do?. Etc?.?; I got it and in your position I would think the same thing. But moving on:

What I?m doing

I got hired by a logistics company to go to Qatar and be one of the first on the ground members of a ex-military team whose mission will be to reorganize a small trucking company into an organization capable of maintaining over 1500 vehicles.

During the first 4-6 months we?ll be working out of a small office space that I?ll have to network as soon as we hit the ground. This office is about 1 mile away from the existing trucking facility(small 75 trucks). There will have to be one computer at the trucking facility to receive information from Dossiers that will be installed on-board each truck to track mileage and other data.

After 6 months we?ll break ground on the larger (huge) maintenance facility housing 1500 trucks. Moderators let me know if I can post employment opportunities here.
As the last time I did any of this stuff was when I was 14 jerking around with IRC xdcc server rooting and hosting I needed to bring myself up to speed on current server administration. I?ve set up a demo in my home to test the initial set up for the small office space.

Demo Set-up

I?m not messing with a wired network/switches etc for a temporary small office as its only going to have 20 people at the most using it, for very non-data intensive operations.

I have 2 IP addresses running to my home, they are dynamic but each has a 4 day lease so for testing its fine.

• 
  One IP I have going to a PC/Router running server Windows Server 2008. (PC1)

• The other IP I have going to another PC/Router running Windows Vista x86 (this computer simulates the single terminal in the existing small trucking facility) (PC2)

• I have one Vista x86 laptop logged into the domain running on PC1. (LT1)

• I?ve managed to figure out setting up the DNS server, Active Directory, Users, OU, Group Policy, etc? Also I have a network shared drive and a network backup working perfectly. Things like WSUS are working perfectly as well.

• Routers on PC1 and PC2 have a hardware IPSec gateway to gateway VPN tunnel connecting them, this is working as well as I can tell.

Problems (I will post more as they arise but at the moment)

1. 1. The VPN tunnel between PC1 and PC2 works because PC2 can log into PC1?s hosted domain, access itself in Active Directory and be logged into by users in Active Directory. However, PC2 and PC1 do not see each-other, the computers do not appear on their respective screens in shared files, I can?t ?manage? PC2 gives me the RPC error. I can?t add PC2 to WSUS even though it is connected to the domain through the VPN and logged in. I can?t even remote desktop to PC2. How does one fix this?

1. 2. I?m running 2 Linksys WRVS4400N?s for this test, as they are the only wireless routers I am aware of that are capable of 5 VPN tunnels with 50 clients on each and a IPSec gateway to gateway connection. However, I?m having trouble with Windows OS to Windows OS transfer speeds. LT1 can only transfer to PC1 @ around 300-400KB per second (and is glitchy). When I use LT1?s Mac OSX partition to transfer to PC1 that jumps to 10MBs per second. I?ve tried most of the fixes for the Vista slow copy/network file sharing issue (i.e. differential compression, netsh, updating all computers to service pack 1) nothing has helped to improve wired or wireless transfer speeds (Mac OSX to PC1 wired gets 12-13MBs per second).

• a. Are my 10MB per second over wireless in OSX to PC1 normal because wireless-N is a draft and I am not using Linksys wireless adapters?

• b. Why are my wired OSX to PC1 speeds not much closer to 1000mbit Ethernet speeds?

• c. What can be done about windows file sharing, as I imagine that all data not just large files shared wirelessly are traveling this slow?

 

[JackMDS]

Welcome to AnandTech's Networking Forum.

In a situation like this, I would find a good Network Pro that has experience in this segment of Networking, and get few hours of paid private tutoring.

 

[Shyatic]

I think I'm helping him figure this out on IM

 

[Polak]

Thanks for your help today Scribe; its funny that we know each-other, but after a whole day of troubleshooting, I'm nowhere on the PC2 to PC1 networking issues; I have learned alot in the process of troubleshooting though:

I did not have a DHCP server running on the server, this was because after the demo i was not going to be running Server 08 in my home. So I just statically mapped IP's to LT1 and PC2, through the linksys routers by MAC address. Then in-order to connect to the domain I pointed all my preferred DNS servers to 192.168.1.5 (this is the servers IP). This way I could access the AD and be added to the domain. Since I installed a DHCP Server this is no longer necessary as the clients can just resolve everything automatically now. HOWEVER;

Since adding the DHCP server I've discovered, that even though the link between the Routers on PC1 and PC2 is a-okay, without PC1's Router serving DHCP IP's I can ONLY resolve the AD if i set PC2's preferred dns to 192.168.1.5. I'm guessing some of my networking issues are a result of this, can someone advice on how I can correctly connect to the AD on the server if i'm not using 192.168.1.5 as my preferred DNS.

Here are some symptoms that can help narrow the problem:

When I try to "manage" PC2 I get access is denied(5). {FIXED NO LONGER OCCURING}
I can manage LT1 and PC1 from PC2 if i search the AD.
PC2 can browse the internet and otherwise do all the thing you would want.
PC2 is getting Group Policy both default and the one i have assigned to that OU.
PC2 is getting System time from PC1
PC2 is getting updates through WSUS.
ALL Computers can Windows Remote Desktop with each-other however they have to use IP's not the computer names to do so, otherwise I get invalid credentials because it assumes servername\accountname not domainname\accountname
PC1 and LT1 do not show up in PC2's network (the reverse is also true) (This is my main gripe)

That should give someone a hint...... I'm hoping?
and before anyone asks all firewalls are off, through Group Policy, on the Server and all Clients. Also disabled on the Linksys Routers.

 

[Polak]

Post Scriptum:

Less progress made on Problem number 2 concerning windows file sharing. However, I further confirmed it to be a windows OS to windows OS problem as i can shutdown PC1s Server 2008 and boot PC1s Vista Partition and the speeds from LT1(vista) to PC1(vista) are just as slow. However if I boot LT1s Mac OSX partition speeds are 10mb a sec (wireless) from LT1(osx) to PC1(vista or server 08).

 

[kevnich2]

Sorry to tell you this but if your looking to be able to post all of your issues that you have with your new job and expect people to here to help you or do your job for you, your sadly mistaken. If this is your job now and your being paid to do this, then you yourself need to get the training required to do the tasks. Either take a training course, read, read, then read some more or hire someone else to do the networking on the servers. I know I won't give you much advice here and I really doubt anyone else here will either. It's not that we don't like helping, but if your being paid to do this, it's your responsibility to either do the work or be man enough to tell your boss, I don't know how to do this work and you shouldn't have hired me. I'm off my soap box now. Have fun!

 

[Polak]

Like I requested in my first post I don't need a speech, but thank you for giving one anyway, your really told me something I didn't know. And to your point I have sitting in-front of me 10 large textbooks on the matter the subject at hand that I've read as needed; they don't mention how to perfect file sharing through a VPN hardware tunnel, or anything about abysmally slow transfer speeds in windows LAN file sharing. Your post is condescending and hypocritical as you are helping a member a few threads down for a single job he's charging for. If people were only to post issues they were having at home unrelated to work, there wouldn't be too much technical info on server OS as you can find through search; I rarely see people running that at home. I don't know what more you want from me I'm perfectly capable of doing the work that I've already done to get a test domain up and running, I don't feel like going to get training for 2 years so I can have a cert would allow me to do it any better, admittedly it would allow me to do it quicker with less troubleshooting though.

So I've come to a place where there is a wealth of knowledge and experience to help me LEARN on a demo that I've set up in home, to better prepare me for a job that I'll begin shortly,
I do not wish to degrade this thread into a pissing war about how one should be qualified to hold an IT position, so if you'll kindly delete your rant I will kindly delete mine and get back to the matter at hand.

 

[RebateMonger]

Polak,

Based upon your posts so far, my advice to you (or ANYBODY ELSE who posted similar questions) is:

Hire an experienced IT consultant to assist you in setting up your network. You are going to waste huge amounts of time and money solving simple networking problems and you are likely to make some serious mistakes.

Kevnich2, myself, and every other frequent poster here, are open to helping people, both professionals and home users. We do it all the time and attempt to answer all kinds of questions, boh basic and advanced. What most of us won't do, however, is encourage folks to take on a complex task that they aren't qualified to do.

That's great that you want to learn networking and servers. Do so, and find an entry-level job where you can learn more and get experience.

 

[Polak]

Well I solved my two problems, heres a reference to anyone who encounters the same.

Problem 1: IPSec/VPN computers not displaying in Windows networking.
This has to do with NetBIOS, windows network sharing center relies on NetBIOS names and therefore needs a NetBIOS broadcast. NetBIOS names are not routable and therefore won't be sent over the VPN. What is of course sent is DNS info, therefore all you have to do is go to "Network" and type in \\dnsnameofcomputer in the address bar and you will be-able to browse it just fine.

Problem 2: Windows to Windows file sharing speeds over wireless
As I mentioned this was a laptop running a dual boot. When I installed the Vista partition, and it booted for the first time you insert the MAC OSX install dvd and run a application called bootcamp.exe. This installs all the drivers you need to get the functionkey volume play/pause etc... button working. It also install several drivers. It should install a broadcom driver for the wireless card. But it didn't, I assume because the default windows broadcom drivers were a newer version and it would not overwrite. I ran the broadcom installer off the OSX disk and then tired a LAN transfer again and boom I get 5 MBs per second.

So my only questions that remain and would be educational are:

a.Why are my windows to windows wireless transfer speed only 5MBs per second, while my OSX to windows wireless speed is 10MBs a second?

b. Are my 10MB per second (80mbits) over wireless in OSX to PC1 normal because wireless-N is a draft and not all hardware is spec'd in the same way to reach the theoretical (300mbits)?