What’s been going on the past few months? Not much, really. I still haven’t done anything with the Cisco switch or the Linux server. The power supply died in my Windows print server a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t even looked at it. I guess I should get off my ass.
Lately I’ve been rethinking what I want to do with my network. Do I really need a server to act as a domain controller? I can live with a workgroup. With only a handful of computers, I don’t have a problem with setting up accounts on each comptuer. There are no domain resources other than the shared printer and the print share would still work under a workgroup. Data is on the NAS which is not a domain resource. All the domain controllers really do is provide a centralized place for network accounts and, for the time being, a time server and local DNS. Then again, setting up a Linux server would be interesting as a learning experience. I guess I’ll think on it some more.
I’ve got a Windows box set up to replace the W2K machine. I still need to install a lot of applications and things for ripping tapes and records, scanning slides and stuff. Support for Quicken 2008 ran out last month so I bought the latest version and put it on the new computer. I considered putting Office on it but decided on OpenOffice instead. I’ll learn to work with the differences.
Filed under: Projects Tagged: | domain, Linux, network, servers, Windows, workgroup
At least one of my domain controllers seems to be on its last legs. I’ve investigated what’s involved in going from a domain to a workgroup and it essentially involves migrating the profiles to “local” user accounts while the domain is still active. I can modified the login script to run on each computer at bootup for drive mappings. I’ll set up a Linux-based DNS server on something. Once everything is off the domain and working, I’ll decommission the DCs, wipe the drives and take them to my favorite computer recycler.
I’ve got my Windows print server running on an IBM laptop. It seems to be holding up pretty well. And the Cisco switch is still sitting idle. Yes, I’m a lazy geek.