During my time at the University of Oregon I spent a large number of hours maintaining our computer lab. The Honors College maintains 8 iMacs with dual-boot 10.5 and XP along with 7 other Mac computers that run 10.4. Maintaining dual-boot lab machines has proven to be fairly time consuming. Once a term I would apply the most current patches to the OS and software, and once per year I would update our image and completely reimage the lab. This proved to be quite time consuming, but necessary due to our use of roaming profiles. For management of the 7 Macs that did not dual-boot we used Radmind. In ths case I would update the Radmind image on the server once per term to patch the OS and software and then simply reboot the client computers. The updates were then applied and all was well. In the last three terms I have only had to solve network connectivity issues with those computers. Otherwise, they consistently work as needed and maintain a steady, stable OS that is not bogged down by the roaming profiles.
Radmind is designed for Unix workstation managment and is very similar in function to Deep Freeze (a Windows workstation management software). When run, Radmind will completely examine the client file system and return the workstation to its original state. This is incredibly useful in a Lab environment. At the same time it allows you to pick and choose which files you want to be managed by Radmind, thus allowing you to enable users to have selected preferences.
Configuration of Radmind is by no means simple. In fact, it takes hours and the process is poorly documented. You first begin by installing the Radmind Server software on whatever machine is going to act as your server. The box you install it on should be able to handle (at worst case) all of your client machines connecting simultaneously. Therefore if you are only going to use it for a few computers you can use just about any computer as a Radmind server. Best practices of, course, would be to install it on server grade hardware to prevent failure of the system. The next step is to load the Radmind client software on the client machines and create the main transcript files. There are two types of transcript files – positive and negative. The positive transcript contains the information for all of the files on the client machines that should always be equivalent to what is stored on the server. The negative transcript lists the files that should never be touched by the Radmind software. For instance, you want Radmind to keep your main OS files the same regardless of what a user may do to them, but at the same time you may want the list of printers to be managed by each user. Once you have created the transcripts you then create a command file that tells which transcripts to apply and to which machines. This allows you to manage multiple computers and have different software configurations on different groups of computers. Thus if you have a computer lab that is supposed to have a certain software set and a group of office computers that are supposed to have a different software set you can set Radmind to differentiate the two groups and maintain their software accordingly. Finally you install the Radmind client side software on the client machines and connect them to the server. The machine will then be updated to the configuration pushed down by the server.
I really like Radmind. It is an effective solution to mass computer deployment, but it requires some serious tech chops. If you decide to use Radmind be prepared for some long days of frustration and suffering as you learn how it works. I have been working on a wiki posting concerning Radmind, but that is slow going and done only in my free time. If you have questions feel free to post and I will do my best to help you out.
FLOSS, OS X, Software
I was welcomed to DC by my good friend Michael Thompson with a greeting that has stuck with me. He said: “Welcome to the Capitol of the Free World, my friend!” I like that. Now, on a lighter note, what I have learned in the first week of living here:
- When walking, never watch where you are going. The sites are far too interesting, and besides, nobody really cares if you walk right into them or weave back and forth across the path/hall/sidewalk.
- Never for any reason pass up the opportunity to take a picture. As soon as you can see the monument/building/cool photo opportunity, stop in the middle of the path/hall/sidewalk and take the picture. Again, no one cares if you inconvenience them.
- At some point, rent a bike. Bike’s are incredibly useful in DC, especially in large crowds of people who are walking. There is nothing more fun than dodging and weaving in and out of groups of people.
- Mumble consistently and concisely. Never speak clearly, politely or in full sentences. When ordering a sandwich don’t say: “I would like a Tuna sandwich, on wheat bread, please.” Instead say: “Gimmeatuna.” When asked what you said, slow it down only a little, DO NOT stop mumbling: “Giimmeeaattuunnaa.” Slowly make the person taking your order guess what you really want. That’s a fun game for all involved, especially those standing behind you in line – they LOVE IT!
- Learn to honk. If you don’t use your horn every 5 minutes or less, you will stick out as an out-of-towner. Even if you don’t drive that day, make sure to set off your car alarm to help contribute to the noise of the city. Remember, everyone must do his or her part.
- Sing to yourself while walking. Don’t worry, no one will think you are crazy because there is a much crazier looking/sounding/acting person less than a block away (regardless of time of day or location within DC)
Personal
Check out these links I’ve found!
OS X, Personal
Links
Conficker has been reeking havoc on unpatched Windows machines for the last couple of months. As I’ve mentioned before that’s because people don’t update on a regular schedule. So those of us who get called in to deal with viruses (either in person or via phone) have our usual array of tools to clean up the machine. One really easy way to tell if your computer has been infected with the Conficker worm is to go to the Conficker Eye Chart. If you see all of the pictures you are safe, if not better download MalwareBytes.
Windows
Virus
Culture shock. That’s all I have to say. We went to the National Cherry Blossom Parade today which was as fun as a parade can be. I’ve decided that parades should only be an hour, cause that’s about how much I can stand before I become bored, tired of standing, and grumpy. After the parade we moved with the huge mass of people over to the Tidal Basin to look at the blossoms (this is an event I do not understand – cherry trees blossom all the same – once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all). Unfortunately, we quickly got fed up with all the people and jumped on the metro and went to H&M so that Kendra could shop. Again, we struck out and didn’t find anything that either of us wanted to purchase.
Once we were fed up with shopping, we tried to get back on the metro to go home and ended up experiencing the nastiness of getting on the metro with a thousand other people. Pushing, shoving, yelling, and a few choice words from people pretty much had Kendra and I disgusted with humanity and by the time we made it home we were quite tired. Oh but wait, I forgot to talk about grocery shopping. Prior to getting home we went to Harris Teeter (a Market of Choice like store). What joy! I never realized how incredibly fun packing your groceries 15 blocks can be. I’ve been missing out all of these years while I used my car. You ought to try it sometime, I highly recommend it. By the time you get home you are so overjoyed to be there that you’ve completely forgotten about your disgust with humanity and your hope that you never have to ride the metro again. Instead your right arm is about 4 inches longer than your left and your shoulders feel like a bum made a fire on them to keep warm. Give it a try, I’m certain it will lighten your mood.
All in all though, the day has been good. Hopefully we’ll adjust quickly and more importantly our stuff will show up this week. Otherwise I may be taking a couple of friends up on their offer to go strong arm the moving company. We’ll see…
Personal
One of the last things I worked on before leaving the Honors College was installation and configuration of a Xerox 5665 WorkCentre all-in-one copier, printer, scanner, and fax machine. The all-in-one machine has become a necessity in most office environments and I highly recommend leasing over purchasing one of these machines. Compared to the Kyocera Mita 4030 that we were using the Xerox was a massive upgrade. The Xerox machine will allow scan to email, scan to network share (via SMB), copy, fax, print, all completely networked and easy to use. Configuration of the Xerox machine required a little help from the Xerox Tech Guy who helped with connecting the machine to our LDAP server to allow access to the global email address book (so awesome!). Other than that, configuration involved going through the web interface one step at a time and choosing the desired settings, which, if you have any knowledge of all-in-one copiers is fairly easy.
We ran into some problems with the machine jamming in the first few days. Somehow a roller set was damaged during transport and the copier would print very inconsistently. At times it would work perfectly and then at others it wouldn’t. Of course, its failures always seemed to align with its use by our less tech savvy staff members, which hindered our ability to troubleshoot the problem quickly. To their credit Xerox got the machine fixed quickly and as far as I know it is still working well. I’d highly recommend looking at a Xerox all-in-one if you are in the market for a high quality, networked, copier/scanner/fax.
Work
Xerox
Tim Seymour lives in Washington, DC. He works as a Systems Administrator for 
