http://www.robgolding.com Technology Consultant Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:15:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en While improving the network at my house (an indeed, the network which supports this very web server), I started to explore the world of network monitoring and reporting. I had heard quite a bit about Cacti before, but never considered installing it. That was mostly due to the stories I ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2008/04/14/cacti-and-network-weathermap/ Okay, so if you're anything like me - and like things to be done properly first time (and also to look neat), then you'll know what I mean when I talk about the separate _msdcs zone in DNS on a Windows AD DNS Server. Of course, you have to ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2008/02/10/restoring-the-separate-_msdcs-zone-in-dns/ As an update to the previous post regarding the installation of a new IPCop as my network firewall, I have finally completed the configuration of its VPN service for use as a Roadwarrior. I can now connect to the IPCop machine from my laptop, using the OpenVPN client from anywhere ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2008/01/30/roadwarrior-with-ipcop-openvpn/ My latest project, to replace the bulky overpowered ISA firewall on my home network with a lean mean IPCop machine, was declared a great success a few days ago. I am familiar with IPCop, as I used to use it a long time ago. Since then it has matured somewhat, ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2008/01/18/new-ipcop-firewall/ As a matter of curiosity more than anything, I often wonder whether other people's methods and practices for setting up AD are similar to my own. I will explain as best I can my own procedure, in an attempt to see how it compares to the rest of the IT ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2008/01/11/active-directory-practices/ For the first time in 7 months, I've finished writing a new article for my resource site - maxms.net. The article is entitled Folder Redirection with Group Policy in Server 2003 - it's purpose should be explained fully in the title! If this helps just one person out there, I will ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2007/12/26/new-article-up-on-maxmsnet/ Seeing as I’m getting into virtualization more and more recently, I decided to give the new beta of VMware Server 2.0 a go. I have a virtual machine for testing purposes on my desktop machine (a Dell Dimension 9200, E6600, 2GB RAM) – so this should prove a perfect test ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2007/11/16/vmware-server-20-beta/ OK, so seeing as the last post is about worrying errors reported by the RAID controller on my main server, Zeus, I've decided to do something about the heat that caused the errors in the first place. The drive caddy in Zeus holds 4 drives, but they are far too close ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2007/11/08/server-cooling-and-network-rewire/ Error occurred on Primary Master device on adapter 0. Primary Master - CDB 2a 00 01 58 aa 5d 00 00 01 00. This is what I was greeted with in my inbox, as I started the day yesterday. It looks like at some time around 4am, the primary drive on ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2007/11/03/raid-saves-the-day/ The new core switch that was due to arrive has finally come, with no real delays which is surprising, since it was sent using Royal Mail. The new Netgear has really good management features, and the web interface is pretty detailed. Most of all though, I'm enjoying the ability to ... http://www.robgolding.com/index.php/2007/10/12/core-switch-installed/