CF Web>NetworkingLabSystemAdministratorDocumentation (2013-07-04, DrewPilcher)

Networking Lab System Administrator Documentation (DRAFT)

This lab is meant for students taking CS 456, which provides an introduction to the fundamentals of network architectures and protocols. With it students may test their assignments.

Networking Lab System Administrator Documentation (DRAFT)

System Specifications

Hardware

There are two towers inside the lab, each with a KVM. Each tower contains:

6 PCs
- For use by students
- Tower 1's PCs are on switches 1 - 6 I may have mixed these up. Do they look right you you?
- Tower 2's PCs are on switches 2 - 7
A gateway PC
- Tower 1's is attached to switch 7
- Tower 2's is attached to switch 1
- 250GB hard drive
A router
- What model?
What else?

Software

The gateway in each tower uses Ubuntu 12.04 Server and each is a clone of the other. They are programmed to wipe each of the 6 PC's and re-install their operating systems every night. Please make sure this is right

Authentication and Authorization Information

Many systems demand authentication before they can be accessed. List the information required to gain access to the system. Please do not put passwords on this page. This page will be public and accessible by Google.

People

Administrator: Omar Nafees; Peter as well?
Point of contact (expert): Omar Nafees
Stakeholders:
- CS 456
  - Uses the lab so that students can test their assignments
  - Students have access to any of the PC's in either tower.

Guides to the Completion of Scheduled Tasks

Are there any?

Guides to the Completion of Common Requests

Backing Up a Tower

The gist of this how-to is that you will copy the entire drive (not a partition) of one of the towers' gateway onto an external hard drive using Clonezilla. Please note that this how-to is specific to version 2.1.1-7 of Clonezilla and slight variations might exist. There are options to do this process with a samba server but it has not yet been tried.

Boot the gateway of the tower into a live boot of Clonezilla Live. The Clonezilla website provides instructions on how to do so.
- You will need to press F11 while the gateway boots to change the boot order if it has not been changed already.
Clonezilla will start by asking which version of it you would like to operate. In my experience, the best version is "Clonezilla live (Safe graphic settings, vga=normal)". Go to "Other modes of Clonezilla live" and select that option.
Select your language
You are probably using the US keyboard layout, which is actually the default. Select "Don't touch keymap"
Select "Start_Clonezilla"
Here you are being asked if you want to immediately clone one disk to another or if you want to make an image that you can use later. Since we are backing up the drive we just make an image, select "Device_image"
Choose "local_dev" to copy the backup to an external drive. and then insert your external hard drive if you have not done so already.
Find the destination drive in the list and press "Enter". Clonezilla will ask you where you want to store the drive's image. Make sure that you will be able to find this directory again for when it is needed.
Press "Enter".
Use "Beginner Mode"
Clonezilla will now ask you whether you would like to backup the whole disk or whether you would just like to back up a partition. Backup the whole disk with "savedisk"
This next prompt is asking you to choose a name for the backup image. The default will probably be fine so simply hit "Enter"
Now you are going to choose a source drive to copy. It's hard to tell the different disks apart, so your best indication is the size of each disk. Look for the one that is approximately 250Gb in size, since that is the size of the hard drive in the computer.
The choice here is up to you, but I selected "Skip checking/repairing Source File System"
Select "Yes, check the saved image"
At this point Clonezilla will begin copying over the disk. Just wait until it's finished. It will take approximately a half hour. Once it is finished simply follow the prompts until you can reboot the computer.

Restoring a Tower From a Backup

In summary, your goal is to use the image of a drive from one of the towers to copy it over to the destination drive. Please note that instructions can also be found on the Clonezilla site at http://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/02_Restore_disk_image if these prove to become outdated.

Boot the gateway of the tower into a live boot of Clonezilla Live. The Clonezilla website provides instructions on how to do so.
- You will need to press F11 while the gateway boots to change the boot order if it has not been changed already.
Clonezilla will start by asking which version of it you would like to operate. In my experience, the best version is "Clonezilla live (Safe graphic settings, vga=normal)". Go to "Other modes of Clonezilla live" and select that option.
Select your language
You are probably using the US keyboard layout, which is actually the default. Select "Don't touch keymap"
Select "Start_Clonezilla"
Here you are being asked if you want to immediately clone one disk to another or if you want to make an image that you can use later. Since we are restoring a drive from an image, elect "Device_image"
Choose "local_dev" to copy the backup to your internal drive and then insert your external hard drive if you have not done so already. Wait 5 seconds and press "Enter"
Find the source drive in the list and press "Enter".
Select the folder with the image stored on it.
Press "Enter"
Use "Beginner Mode"
Select "restoredisk"
Select the image that you plan to use.
Select the destination drive to install the image.
Clonezilla will ask you to confirm twice before proceeding. After you do this, the restoration of the backup will commence. In your case it will probably take approximately 20 minutes.
Press "Enter" and then select whichever option you would like.

Common Failures/Bugs & Troubleshooting

Can you think of any?

Current Discussions Related to the System

Maybe a description of how using a Samba server to backup instead of an external drive would be good here.