Slashdot Mirror
Management Tools for Computer Labs?
dorko72 asks: "I have been put in charge of setting up a small computer lab (30 workstations) for a local community. The benefactor is providing the hardware (dell workstations and one server) as well as the operating system for these systems (Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Advanced Server) All the equipment is used, but not too old. I would like to find out what some of you guys use to monitor and manage the lab usage (ie provide realtime stats of which station is in use, etc). I would plan to set these machines in a Windows domain using Win2k Advanced Server as the controller via Active Directory. There must be some way to access AD and find out who is logged in to what machine in the domain. Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated."
Dameware : manage the machines from a remote location.
netusers.exe and some perl or python thrown in to deal with the output of netusers. You can get all your user stats and stuff from this.
With those tools you can develop some scripts to track usage, avaiable comptures and throw it all up on a web site.
At the most basic level this would work: /T >>H:\LOGINLOG.TXT /T >>H:\LOGINLOG.TXT
You can include a script to run in the startup folder that does the following:
rem --
net use h: \\SERVERNAMEORIP\SHARE
echo [INSERTCOMPUTERNAMEHERE] had the following user login:>>H:\LOGINLOG.TXT
echo %USERNAME% >> H:\LOGINLOG.TXT
date
time
rem --
every user that logged into the domain would need write access to the share tho.
There are tons GPO+VB script ways to do this
I'm a supervisor at a similar computer lab at a college and all my machines have the Centurion Guard. No matter how badly the students screw up the computers every day, one press of the reset button solves all the problems. They all run WinXP (shudder). I'll tell you one thing though. The Centurion Guard is one way to keep a Windows box totally virus free. As for me, when I'm supervising the lab, I run Knoppix on top of one of the WinXP machine so I can get my coding done. It sure is nice being able to work on personal projects and not actually have to supervise what people are doing. Just reboot the computers once (or more) a day. ;)
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
There are forums there you might ask about lab admin as well.
No, seriously...
/etc/squid/blocked_sites.txt. List the file extentions to block in /etc/squid/filetypes.txt in regex fashion (something like \.(exe)$ to block .exe files). Not a complete fix, but a good quick way to safeguard web access.
Bring up your favorite distro. The important bits of immediate concern are Squid and syslog. Prevent direct access to the net from the client machines and force them to go through the proxy using a GPO in ActiveDirectory. Configure Squid how you like, but best to at least add the capability to block certain sites and prevent certain file types from being downloaded:
acl hosts_deny dstdomain "/etc/squid/blocked_sites.txt"
acl filetypes urlpath_regex -i "/etc/squid/filetypes.txt"
http_access deny filetypes
http_access deny hosts_deny
List the domains to block in
Now run over to sourceforge and grab ntsyslog. This handy tool exports your Event Viewer logs to a remote syslog server. It installs as a service and it's a cinche to setup. Stick is on your domain controller. On your Linux box add a line like the following to syslog.conf (for sysklogd):
user.alert -/var/log/domain.log
By default, ntsyslog uses user.alert, but you can change that to whatever you like. Also make sure your syslog is configured to receive messages from remote clients. Now, in your default domain policy on the domain controller configure it to audit logon events as well as account logon events, successes and failures for both.
Now you've got web access managed by a central proxy with full logging and minimal blocking abilities and all logon success/failures being reported to Event Viewer on the DC and forwarded to the syslog. If you want to see who is logged into a machine at any given time you can either quickly parse the logs or use something like NetUsers or LoggedOn.
Popular local opinion says that you're likely to have more problems/attacks with/against your Windows server. Having your Event Viewer messages forwarded means you can diagnose problems in the event something happanes to that server. You'll probably want to at least MRTG the Linux box to get an idea of bandwidth usage too. Then enjoy whippin' up your own set of shell scripts to play with your logs (hint: real-time monitoring)!
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
I suggest you check out NetOp School. I manage 8 computer labs for a community college in Gainesville, FL and we use this in several of them. At a glance, the instructors can tell who is logged in & where (uses machine name and windows login name information). Additionally, NetOp School provides controls, i.e. lockout and demo mode. You can run commands on the remote machine, transfer files, etc. Also, you can create breakout sessions where small groups are formed, and one person in that group would be granted all of the above controls.
It installs remotely (from the "instructor" station) and runs as a service. Our instructors love it. I think you should check it out.
In Soviet Russia, the signature reads YOU!
I have to second depefreeze - i did student work in the networking dept at my college last semester and worked with deepfreeze a lot. it's great for keeping morons from effing up stuff they shouldn't, easy to use, and very difficult to screw up.
To initially install the OS and software for a full lab, we would use a program called Ghost. It works by taking an iso of an existing setup and writes it multiple machines at once over a hub. i'd set up a lan with 12 machines at a time and would write the image to all of them at once. much much faster and easier than one at a time.