@Kelly said:

@PSX_Defector said:

@Kelly said:

I've also been looking at PowerBroker Identity Services from BeyondTrust. It is where Likewise ended up after a series of acquisitions. It looks like I'm going to have to be building a virtual network and trying some of this.

I've used this in multiple companies, from an airline in America to an oil exploration company.

Works like a champ, it's built on Winbind, but now has actual support versus calling RedHat and hoping for the best.

Did you use PBIS Open or the paid version? The paid version is significantly more than I can afford at about $1,600 per server instance.

This was back in the Likewise days. So free.99.

@Kelly said:

I've also been looking at PowerBroker Identity Services from BeyondTrust. It is where Likewise ended up after a series of acquisitions. It looks like I'm going to have to be building a virtual network and trying some of this.

I've used this in multiple companies, from an airline in America to an oil exploration company.

Works like a champ, it's built on Winbind, but now has actual support versus calling RedHat and hoping for the best.

@Brains said:

It's just bad timing and we are in the healthcare market and subject to Texas's Workers Compensation craziness, so its been a rough year or two for us.

Then you best not be using PPTP. Compliance audits will come down on you hard.

If anyone will be at Lone Star PHP in Texas this weekend, let me know. Ill be there and will buy you a beer.

I thought you were talking about Big Texas Beer Fest, which was last weekend.

@Jason said:

@PSX_Defector said:

A 500 error usually means that your application pool isn't setup properly.

Got an extended error output?

Nope. Found out the guys webconfig was all messed up. I fixed it. There a lot of stuff off in how this guy was doing things.

That would do it. The config file is what controls the pool. If it's misconfigured, it's gonna throw 500 errors.

When in doubt, always turn on the whole error message:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/294807

A 500 error usually means that your application pool isn't setup properly.

Got an extended error output?

@Brains said:

It looks like we are going to settle with the LRT224 due to cost concerns....

Waste of money. Had one, got rid of it because it wasn't powerful enough to handle what I wanted to do.

Better off getting a Mikrotik if price is a concern. $70 for much more useful hardware.

@travisdh1 said:

@coliver said:

@travisdh1 said:

@coliver said:

@travisdh1 said:

@JaredBusch Just out of curiosity, have you every actually looked at the budgets for your local schools? It was eye opening for me. Something just isn't right if you can't give a good education for 1/3 of what our local schools are funded at.

Did you happen to notice how much of the budget was going to non-teaching related "stuff". Look at the percentage of the budget that goes toward sports for instance. I'm not saying sports are not important (that's another argument entirely). Look at the percentage that goes toward administration. The teaching budget by comparison is tiny.

Schools around here have threatened to shut down the sports programs in order to get voters to approve another tax hike...... only most schools either break even or make a little money from the sports programs (we're a bunch of US Football fanatics around here.)

We're talking high school right? Rarely do the cost of ticket fees and concessions do anything to put a dent in the cost of busing, uniforming, coaching, etc.

Let's just say, you don't want to be driving by a high school between 8 and 9 PM on a Friday night around here. I do agree that this is not the norm for most of the country.

F*** [moderated] that shit, it's pretty much from 5:00PM to 12:00AM around here.

@Brains said:

The Peplink 305s were over $1500 each from the distributors we called. Have you found them cheaper?

Nope, that's the price.

The 305 supports 1Gbps worth of total bandwidth and much more L2L VPN bandwidth. Plus a bunch of other fancy tricks.

If you are just needing some way to bond two pipes together, like with the RV082, then go with the ONE. If you need anything more than that, go straight to the 305 or 380 even.

@Brains said:

we really don't have too many VPN users, just IT Staff and the marketing director. Occasionally other users, but not often. So adopting a new protocol is not very difficult for us. I would like your best recommendation for configuration so that I can research it and integrate that into my report.

Roll your own OpenVPN server:

https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html

Much more secure and pretty simple to deploy to a few devices. This would require a client to be installed on the machine, but that's easy enough.

@Brains said:

@PSX_Defector I am admittedly not the most knowledgeable when it comes to VPN. We would prefer for Windows to handle the connection to the VPN without additional software and configurations. What would you recommend?

@PSX_Defector said:

The other part to keep in mind is the bandwidth limits on these things. I found out the hard way my Peplink had a 20Mbps cap on how much data could flow through it. After I got an RV082, I hit the ~50Mbps limit on that one, then the RV042's 100Mbps limit. I had to go up to using a Mikrotik to support the large ass circuits I was getting from AT&T and TWC.

20Mbps cap??? Really? Wow. We would like one that can handle our new 200/15 Mbps connection.

Well, it was a Peplink 300, which is very very old and one of their first devices. It was replaced with the 310, which supports ~350Mbps.

http://www.peplink.com/products/balance/model-comparison/

You could go with a ONE or 310. The 310 supports more fun stuff, although I would seriously consider picking up a 305.

For your VPN client, I'm guessing you are using RRAS on Windows or have in the past. PPTP is the protocol used by RRAS and Peplink's VPN daemon. So if you are using it now, it's pretty easy to implement. Keep in mind PPTP is pretty weak security wise, you might want to still get an OpenVPN service behind the firewall to make a more secure method of connection.

@DustinB3403 said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@BRRABill said:

@scottalanmiller said:

I drink a lot That's the real solution. If you are not drinking heavily, IT is likely not for you

Do you drink and IT?

I drink and everything.

Scott has just admitted to drinking and driving folks.

f[moderated], if that's all it takes.

I usually am drinking while I'm driving. No f[moderated]s given.

Inbound VPN? OpenVPN or PPTP? Mushroom supports OpenVPN, Peplink only does PPTP. Every vendor supports outbound IPSec tunnels.

You can easily get Peplink gear from anywhere. I buy them a lot, easy to get one in a few days. My usual vendor has them right now:

http://www.ispsupplies.com/brands/Multi-WAN-Routers/PEPLINK-BALANCE-20.html

The other part to keep in mind is the bandwidth limits on these things. I found out the hard way my Peplink had a 20Mbps cap on how much data could flow through it. After I got an RV082, I hit the ~50Mbps limit on that one, then the RV042's 100Mbps limit. I had to go up to using a Mikrotik to support the large ass circuits I was getting from AT&T and TWC.

This is part of the understanding of how Microsoft has changed things. The on demand upgrades since Vista means that every version of Windows has code for every version. Features are just turned on as you do things. The only difference is Enterprise, be it 7 or 8.1 or 10, which is very specific. Odds are if you need an Enterprise version of Windows, you already have the image. Same goes for Server, where one can change from Standard to Enterprise to Datacenter without having to reinstall.

A positive side effect of this is that now ANY media will work with ANY license. My VL downloaded media will install OEM versions. An OEM version will work with retail media.

@wirestyle22 said:

@Dashrender said:

@PSX_Defector said:

Better get rolling then

Will you just play for me.. I think you have better luck.

RNG is NEVER in my favor

Craps is ~1% to the house on the pass line, about as best as you can get for straight up random. Play well, and you can take some of that edge off, like betting your hardways on point, making sure to take odds on the back, and diversify your rolls. Avoid the field, don't get suckered into hoppers, and occasionally bet the don't pass.

I make enough playing craps to fund my blackjack runs.

@Dashrender said:

@PSX_Defector said:

Better get rolling then

Will you just play for me.. I think you have better luck.

7 a winner!

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_7-windows_install/how-to-create-a-universal-windows-7-installation/15183b74-4478-4647-84dd-6d6431f1cfa4

Make your own.

You can also block it at the SIP level with your provider. Do that along with international dialing, save yourself some headache.

Better get rolling then

@Jason said:

@aaronstuder said:

@Jason True analog

Then there's nothing much to setup. Plug it in to an FXS port and make it auto answer (many ATAs won't do this as you normally need something to do the off hook).

Agreed. That's the quick and cheap way.

This would be the more elegant method:

http://www.voipsupply.com/paging/ip-paging-gateway

As in old school drug dealer stuff or PA paging systems?