Latest news from Daniel

Dear Readers,

I am pleased to write and share with you my experiences over the past month working on site and practicing in lab, here at NATC.

Diagnosing Printers

As part of my daily routine, I was sent to an organization by the name of PSI to assist an end-user with a printing issue. When I arrived on site, the client explained that the printer is a multi-purpose printer with various useful office capabilities.

Unfortunately, with the exception of photocopy, none of the other functions were actually functioning. 

Clearly, this machine was out of order and needed the NATC touch!

The first thing I did was check the printer network status. Next I observed the network cable to see if there was a loss of connection, but cable was good and the IP address was visible.

So, I connected my PC to the network, found the printer on the network with its IP address. I then installed the printer on my machine and all features were fully functional on my laptop.

Then I began to wonder if there were multiple networks within the office? So I conducted a scan to locate available networks.

In doing so I found that the user was connected to a different network.

Eureka!!!   That’s it, the user was connected to the wrong network and therefore his access to the printer capabilities were limited.

The printer was fine. It was the user who had a malfunction. I asked him to kindly disconnect from the external network and reconnect to the PSI office network. After reconnecting to the PSI network, he became a satisfied user of the HP 500 color LaserJet printer.  Once again, NATC saves the day!

Install and configure Windows Server core using command line

I am attending one of the world’s leading vocational IT Institutions; NIIT.  They founded a satellite school in 10^th Street, Sinkor, Monrovia under the name “BLUECREST UNIVERSITY COLLEGE”. It has long been my dream to become one of Liberia’s top IT professionals. The management of New Africa Technology Company (NATC) has given me the opportunity to make my dream come to true. Currently, I am Studying Microsoft Windows Operating Systems and thus far, it has been a very interesting learning experience.

Very often, I make use of screen shots when trying to explain my work.  Some of my colleagues laugh and poke fun, but I find it very helpful to utilize visual aids along with our lecturer’s guidance during our practice sessions.

I think it is very important that each student find the tools and practices which work best for their effective learning. Everyone is different but I have found something that works well for me.

                                         Using Microsoft Command line or Command Prompt 

You are provided with a kernel and a command line to manage the server. It is slim and bare bones and allows you to configure Windows concisely or smoothly.

When you first run through the installation of Windows Server 2008, you have two options for installation but our practice on Server Core. They are:

• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (Full Installation)
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (Server Core Installation)

These screen shots walk you through the installation of Windows Server Core.

After the installation, the main window for your new installation appears and you are ready to login as shown. The initial login is Administrator and blank password. You are required to change the password and set an Administrator password on initial login.

Now that you are logged in, you are ready to configure the date and time. In the command line type the following: controltimedate.cpl and set the options accordingly.

If you need to configure and change the keyboard layout and settings, type the following in the command window: control intl.cpl.

Here is where you can change the server name. The default name is a bunch of random letters and numbers so it would be advantageous to change the name to a local standard. You can view the current hostname by typing the following:

c:windowssystem32hostname

For now, let's use the name ssw-svr15. We will perform this option in the command line (Figure O) by typing the following: 

c:windowssystem32netdom renamecomputer %computername% /NewName:ssw-svr15

Figure N

After choosing to proceed with the task completed successfully. You now need to reboot or restart the server using the shutdown command. For the proper syntax, type:

shutdown /?

After reviewing the syntax, I will type the following: shutdown /r (switch for shutting down and restarting the computer) /t 10 (wait 10 seconds to shut down and restart) /c "Change Sever Name". The total syntax will look as follows:

shutdown /r  /T 10 /C "Changed Server Name"

GREAT!  Now let’s configure our networking so we can join this server to a domain. In order to see what interface you have to configure, (Figure P) type 

netsh interface ipv4 show interface

Figure P

The Local Area Connection that we are going to configure has an index value of two. Let proceed and configure TCP/IP for this connection. Type the following command to set the TCP/IP information:

netsh interface ipv4 set address name="2" source=static address=192.168.1.199 mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.168.1.1

Follow the same example to configure DNS (Figure R):

netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name="2" address=192.168.1.1 index=1

Figure R

you type ipconfig /all, you will see the newly added information    

Let's link it to a domain! In order to perform this function, we will take advantage of the netdom.exe. 

The syntax is as follows:

netdom join ssw-svr15 /domain:watchtower /userd:Administrator /passwordD:Password01

Note: Always reboot the server using the following command:

Shutdown /r  /T 10 /C "Added to domain"

As a final step, do not forget to activate the server by typing the following:

slmgr.vbs -ato

Using this tool doesn't even scratch the surface or installation of Windows Server Core installation but it begins to show you how powerful command line is with a small Windows kernel. 

I can’t wait to be certified as a Microsoft Server Administrator.

by Daniel Collins