I did well with this chapter, with 13/15 in the assessment questions at the end. I put that down to a bit of an obsession about machine performance, and the developer background. Starting, stopping and killing processes is the fare of the development process.

And performance monitoring with its graphs and counters is the nearest you get to a proper computer with flashing lights, so I’ve always had a play in there too.

And on a more serious theme I’ve used all of this stuff when those big multi-processor servers aren’t doing what is expected with a web site. All those subsystems in a web infrastructure can cause a problem, and I’ve sadly dealt with too many infrastructure dudes who stop at the base O/S and won’t go any further up the application stack. And of course, the appropriate remedy isn’t always a rebuild, even if you have a machine image and can get it back in 30 minutes. To the base O/S of course.

So you have to know how to use these tools to get your web farm, associated DC and database cluster all running sweetly.

These days I take the availability of a VPN for granted, but in the early days of my Internet experience things were different. At the time Demon Internet ran actual Points of Presence (POPs) which were modems sat at the end of a leased line, usually run by some sort of early enthusiast. The leased line would normally connect to something like a PIPEX backbone, and the modems would allow early internet punters to call a regional number (between local and long distance) to get internet access.

Back then sharing a 64K backbone wasn’t a problem, especially when a fast modem was 14.4k, the norm being quite a bit less than that.

I’ve just covered the chapter in my Windows 2000 Server book on Routing and Remote Access, the thing you can manage dial-up access from. Delightful settings such as ring-back options, dial-in hours, and IP allocation to remote connecting users – the stuff of legends.

Even VPN stuff, though I think this has been a bit different with the advent of ISA server.

Congrats to Robbie Gibbon, a colleague based in Edinburgh who just got his MCDBA.

The way things are going I should be there soon too!

After the damage I did to the Virtual PC that is my domain controller (still booting from a virtual floppy) I’ve made great progress today with another six chapters of my book.

I got organised recently with my employer to devote a day a month over the next couple of months to training, so this was my first today and it made a real difference concentrating on it mid week.

I covered topics from file and print serving, with associated settings and permissions. And thrown in was a bit of IIS, network protocols and finally Terminal Services in its two modes. The flexibility around the topic of printing was impressive, I take that stuff for granted but the driver management and multi-platform client support is great.

Only three chapters to go, then I will do my standard two pronged approach at this stage. I hit the Transcender simulation exams, and more or less at the same time I book the exam to give me a target to aim at.

I’m on to the chapter in my book about disk management, so for a bit of fun I went for the “convert basic disc to dynamic” option. That appeared to work fine, did the reboot and didn’t restart. Something about NTLDR missing.

And of course now I can’t see those shiny dynamic NTFS volumes what I’ve made. I’m working through KB 301680 in a hope I can get it back.

After a brief sabattical for family stuff (and purchasing stuff at Hein Gericke in Glasgow and riding the bike!) I’ve run through another chapter of my book in pursuit of the 70-215 2000 Server Exam.

I’ve just covered off Local and System Policies, so now I know where those system admins set those annoying password policies that make you come up with something brand new (and less and less secure) by remembering the last 20 passwords and making them last only 30 days. Oh and apparently there are things called GPOs (Group Policy Objects) which aren’t used to buy stamps.

Password policy options such as “Enforce Password History” remembers a specified number of passwords, “Maximum Password Age” keeps the password for a number of days. Although annoying from a user perspective, and consequently making a bit of a mockery of strong password choice, I’m impressed at the number of policy items up for grabs in 2000, which is after all a few years old now. And again impressed at the tools available to help the guys trying to keep their servers up and running despite the best efforts of the users.

The Security Configuration and Analysis tool is an excellent tool for checking how well you’ve spread the multitude of policies in meeting a standard. All top stuff. On to Managing disks now, which looks like it will be fun.

It has just occurred to me that all of these short posts on my virtual network installation are the equivalent of wittering on a blog 🙂

I’m in the process of building a member server on my domain, with a slight hiccough at the moment. For some reason the member server isn’t joining the domain, but this could be because I’ve forgotten what I called it!

I’m running the two VPC’s together in a configuration suggested by Simon Guest, with two NICs per machine.

Putting the service pack on now, excellent – making progress at last. Now for the fun configure and networking over multiple virtual PCs bit!

I’ve been watching this install in Virtual PC for what must be hours now. I’m beginning to think I should have spent that extra 30 minutes finalising the boot disc to get smartdrv configured.

Win2k setup advises you run with smartdrive, I didn’t quite understand till now how much of a difference it makes.

I’m getting myself back into the MCP exams again, this time a little different with an exam on the MCDBA track, the last I need, which is a windows server exam.

I got a cheap study guide off ebay for the Windows 2000 Server exam, and with virtual PC and an msdn copy of Windows 2000 Server Standard edition have been starting the build of the domain controller.

First problem! As the MSDN version on DVD includes several versions of Windows 2000, apparently with that version you can’t build a server by constructing boot floppies. You have to boot from another OS with CD support, then run the install from there. The actual error kicks in during the install of Windows 2000 Server, when it stops after an attempt to display the EULA.

I thought I was doing well creating an image file from a directory structure and mounting that into Virtual PC, but I’m now in the throes of trying to construct a boot floppy that has just enough for me to go to the next stage. More rusty skills working with a dos prompt – all those nice editors in windows have spoiled me. Even notepad is quite funky compared to the dos editor.