Clarkson University Internet Teaching Lab
MP152 (1 Credit)
This semester I was enrolled in MP152 for one credit. I have contributed in many ways to keeping the lab running for classes and getting the server room set back up.
End of Semester Report (05/02/2007)
Cleaning and Maintenance
One of my projects this semester was general cleaning. At the beginning of the semester I came up early to clean the lab. Throughout the semester, I have continued to pick up garbage and unnecessary clutter around the labs. I have also helped clean up the server room. At the end of spring break Cyrus and I removed a lot of the old equipment and moved it down to the old VR lab. I also racked all of the ITL equipment on the rack myself in exception to the two new gigabit switches which Cyrus helped me with; however, I did learn that the best way to get certain equipment to the right height is to stack other equipment underneath it. One major problem we had this semester was the AC in the server room stopped working. This caused major problems because of how much heat the equipment puts out. We even had one night where the temperature was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I did a little work concerning the HVAC system in the labs; however, the extent of it was talking to the guy that was up here fixing it about problems with it. Currently the HVAC is working again and the server room is around a cool 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Networking
One of my other projects this semester was getting some of the new networking set up. This semester we got two new forty-eight port Linksys Gigabit switches to use for the internal network and server room network. I have learned some of the basic configuration such as Vlans and link aggregation from Cyrus and will to continue to learn about them over the summer. OIT finally managed to ran our new networking; however, there were some minor problems. OIT managed to mislabel a lot of the outlets to what they correspond to on the patch panel. They also did not inform us that they would not be running the networking from the wall to the computers and giving us patch cables. This caused some minor delays that we are still working on. A few weekends ago Cyrus and I reran a most of the networking that is need for the servers in the server room. A bunch of us also began running the networking to the computers in lab to the new network jacks. Currently all of COSI's computers have one network connect wired and almost all of the ITL has a new network connection run. We are currently in the process of ordering new patch cables so that we can stop using the old ones and to distinguish through different colors which cables run to each network. Over the summer, we plan to get the rest of the network wired up and the remaining equipment hooked up.
Lab Build and Servers
This semester I have also been maintain all of the Windows side of the lab build and part of the Ubuntu side. I implemented a few new tools such as New SID and the Windows XP Shared Computer Toolkit. Most of the work on the Linux build is done by Nate Wilson; however, on the Ubuntu side of the build I usually only update it before I ghost and prepare it for ghosting. This semester we also decided to give up on trying to keep Fedora Core on the lab build because it was extra to maintain and we had trouble getting it to work early in the semester. I also began working on a lab build for some of the old ITL machines that are up in the lab; however, it was so late in the semester I decided to work on it over the summer once OIT allows us to install Microsoft Office 2007. I have also continued to use UDPCast for ghosting the lab. At the beginning of the semester, I actually was able to get UDPCast to boot out of the GRUB menu but it later stopped working when UDPCast updated to a newer Linux kernel.
I have also been working on getting some servers set up in the ITL. I set up a Ubuntu Linux server known as itlfs2 which I made out of one of the old ITL computers and some spare hard drives. Learning how to set up a Linux server was very simple due to the ease of installing Ubuntu. I am currently using it to backup some files and capture and send UDPCast images. I also continued to try and set up itlfs1 which would contain about a terabyte worth of hard drive space. I ran into problems with itlfs1 not detecting all the hard drives which I later figured out. I learned that the cause of blue screens I was getting in Window Server 2003 was due to a bad stick of ram which has been replaced. Recently, I have run into the problem of it randomly restarting which I have determined could be because of problems with the power supply or with the motherboard. Due to these problems, I'm thinking of giving up on using that box and putting the hard drives into one of the old ITL computers over the summer. I have also been continuing to learn about Active Directory even though most of that has been on hold due to waiting for the new networking to be run earlier in the semester. I have recently learned how to attach to Clarkson's AD but am unsure whether to support it next semester due to our lack of control it has over the ITL's computers. I will be experimenting with it over the summer.
Misc.
This semester I have also been reconfiguring the ITL's printer, ITL's wireless access points, and the ITL webcam. I reconfigured the ITL print server to a static IP address along with locking down the print server. I also reset the ITL webcam and configured it to a static IP address and updated the ITL website to use the correct IP address for the live pictures. I appear to still be having issues with the webcam though and I'm planning to sort them out over the summer. I also update the firmware on the ITL's wireless access points and reset them when they stop working. Next year we will be using a new wireless router which supports N but I plan to only configure it to use B and G since N is still experimental.
This semester I also worked on updating the content of the ITL website. Many of the pages didn't validate and a good portion of the content was not updated. I updated a good portion of the pages and fixed ones that didn't validate. I am hoping to find someone who is willing to redesign it sometime soon. I also started a record of who is using what static IP address on the lab's static IP addresses which are located on the 128.153.145.* subnet. I was in charge of assigning people address when they requested them and requesting static dns names for them at OIT. I also helped with an open house at the beginning of the semester but missed the last one because of staying up all night cleaning up the server room. I also have continued to monitor the lab on a regular basis and deal with general problems that arise.
ITL Spring 2007 Mid-Semester Page