Improvements to the Resource Center – Progress Report 

We now have four “new” rack-mounted servers installed and ready for operation in the Resource Center (RC). This proved to be much more work than I imagined. The first operating system installation is Windows Server 2003 R2 (release 2) on two machines. This first machine will replace the server that is the heart of network in the RC for several years. The old server will hang sometimes on a reboot which is a real bummer when no one is at the RC to hit the hardware reset button. We have nursed this machine for long enough, so our first task is to move the RC domain from the old server to the new one. When I tried this, I got an error message about doing something with the Active Directory schema. If you want to learn about Windows domains using the very latest Microsoft technology, come to the next Server SIG meeting and help me learn too as we accomplish these tasks.  

Meanwhile Rob Limbaugh is working on installing the virtual server environment on one of the other servers. This is where his talk on virtualization at the general meeting gets down to the bare metal. I guarantee that the more people who come and help, the more we will all learn. Read the Server and Networking SIG report for more on our last meeting. 

Routers, Routing and getting from here to there 

Despite my best efforts I don’t know any more about this problem this month than I did last month. Here is my insite for the month: routing, the key to the Internet, is the most unfathomable topic in all of technology. String Theory is easier to understand. It seems that the various manufacturers implement routing protocols (oh, yes, more to learn!) like RIP, BGP, ISIS and more slightly differently from each other. Whether this is because the specs leave room for interpretation or they want to lock you into their brand of router is a topic for another day (gosh, that’s never happened before, has it?). Suffice it to say that documentation on all this has so far eluded me. Stay tuned – same bat channel, same bat time! 

An offer for DACS members 

I hope at least a few of you will take advantage of the offer in my column last month and “trade in” your old wireless router. You get money to upgrade to the latest, fastest, longer range, all the more wonderful wireless equipment being offered today and I get to use your old Linksys router for a project. Can anyone say win-win? 

Playing with old computers 

Remember the Good Old Days of data processing where the computer was locked away somewhere guarded by the anointed (or so they thought!) and you did your work on a terminal? Well I have one of those computers in my basement. A few months ago I followed an ad on Craig’s List for a free DEC Micro-VAX. After two trips to New Jersey I now have a µVAX 3100 Model 80, four terminals, two terminal servers, and four printers in my basement. At one time, the company that gave all this equipment away had about thirty people working on terminals or PCs connected to this computer. In December I wrote about “The Green Screen Experience”; well, this is the computer. A couple of nites ago I finally got the basement organized enough that I could turn it on. 

When I picked it up, they had it running just to prove that it would boot. It still boots and reports that it is running OpenVMS 5.5, a fairly recent version of Digital’s VMS operating system. Unfortunately at least one of the hard drives is not responding so it complains about no swap space and refuses to do much – not that I know much to do on it! Thus my first task is to figure out which drive out of about five is the bad one and replace it. On Windows I would open Device Manager and look to see which drive is reporting a problem, or watch the SCSI bios messages during boot up. Unfortunately it does not appear to be quite so obvious on the µVAX. If you have experience with VAXen, PLEASE contact me. As a last resort, I have a bunch of manuals to read, but you could save me from that fate.