In order to keep closer contact with IT network administrators in Macau, we've created a network admin newsletter and I've taken the liberty to add you to our netadmin-news mailing list. If you'd like to unsubscribe or recommend friends to subscribe at any time, just email me.
--- Simon Tam, Chief EditorStarting from Windows 2000 Domain, time synchronization between the domain members and the Domain Controllers is very important. By default, the max deviation allowed is 5 mins.
Then, how can you assure the time synchronization? The answer is easy. You don't need to worry about. When a computer joins a Windows 2000 / 2003 domain, it will start automatically synchronize its real time clock with a Domain Controller in the domain, which holds the Primary Domain Controller Emulator (PDC Emulator) role. So, every member computer in a domain will synchronize their RTC with the PDC emulator.
But, what happen if your environment consists of more than one domain? The time synchronization within each domain has no problem. But, there will be cross domain access. e.g. When a user on one computer in domain A wants to access a shared folder on another computer in domain B. The user authentication takes place between the computers and the DCs in both domain. If the time deviation between these computers is more than 5 mins, then, the authentication will fail.
So, how to prevent this problem. We need to make sure the RTC of the computers within the two domains are synchronized. I.e. We need to synchronize the RTC of the PDC emulator in each domain. We can configure the PDC emulator to synchronize its RTC with public time servers with Network Time Protocol. There are a lot of public time servers on the Internet, e.g. time.smg.gov.mo is the public time server provided by Macau Observatory.
But the problem is how to find out the PDC emulator and how to configure it to synchronize with the NTP server?
To find out the PDC emulator, In "Active Directory Users and Computers", right click the domain and select "Operation Masters", then select the "PDC" tab, you can see which computer is the PDC emulator.
To configure the PDC emulator to synchronize with an NTP server, create a Group Policy that only affects this PDC emulator, (can be a local Policy on the PDC emulator), in Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Windows Time Service | Time Providers, edit the setting "Configure Windows NTP Client".
Do you know how well is your network equipment running?
Does the hardware resources satify your system software requirement?
Can you imagine that your webserver is power down but no one knows until your users give you a complain half hour later?
What don't you monitor your network equipment and servers in a tight manner? Tell you that it is very easy for you to know everything about your equipment. You will receive an email notification or even a sound alert immediately if your server is power down. You can fix it in a short time and resume your service without complains (hopefully).
Zabbix can help you. Zabbix is software for application and network monitoring. Zabbix supports both polling and trapping techniques to collect data from monitored hosts. Zabbix is freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Only one Zabbix server is needed for all your network device. Zabbix can monitor external network services such as FTP, SSH, HTTP, DNS, LDAP, etc. If you install Zabbix agent on your servers or hosts, you can gain more information about the host, such as CPU/RAM/Disk utilization, Network I/O, etc.. SNMP standards are also supported.
In cyberlab, a Zabbix server is installed on a Linux server in Cyberlab. Over 10 servers which locate on three different offices are monitored through network. Administrators can receive email notifications and a sound alert in Cyberlab office when there is any event on those servers. All the configuration works are done in a web interface. ZABBIX provides excellent visualisation of statistical and real-time information, ranging from simple graphs to complex views containing graphs, maps and text information. All graphical information is accessible from WEB interface. We can easily gain so much information about servers located in remote sites. It helps a lot on analysis problems on the systems.
To know more about Zabbix. Please refer to http://www.zabbix.org.
CPTTM will host a Network Pringin Managment Course in September. The course will teach you manage network printing effectively in a certralized manner.
For details of the course, please visit our course web site.
http://www2.cpttm.org.mo/training/sdb/showCourse.do?courseCode=CM248-09-2006-C
This book is a self-study solution you need to prepare for the Oracle Database 10g Administration I and Administration II exams. These Study Guides were developed to meet the exacting requirements of today's Oracle certification candidates. In addition to the consistent and accessible instructional approach that has earned Sybex the reputation as the preferred publisher for IT certification exam candidates worldwide.
You can
borrow this book from the CPTTM
IT Book Shelf at Cyber-Lab.
Archive of the CPTTM Network
Admin Newsletter is available at http://www2.cpttm.org.mo/cyberlab/netadmin-news.