8:00am - Helped a couple presenters get set up for presentations. The phone rang, and the tech from one district called to let me know that the power had gone out over the weekend, and now the server had an "IP Conflict" error on the screen. This is never a good sign and usually means a computer on campus is infected with software that makes that computer think *it* is the server.
I was able to remote into their server from my office and I could see the server was trying to acquire an IP address on a secondary network card. That is not normal for a server, as servers should have assigned addresses. I checked the settings and everything seemed okay. The tech unplugged all the wires from the main switch (including the router at one point, which gave us both a chuckle since suddenly my connection dropped!), and then plugged them back in one-by-one until the error message came back up again. Or, that was the plan. The error never came back up.
8:45am - I had to interrupt the phone call in order to help one of the presenters. After that, I met briefly with the Early Childhood Coordinator to talk about our upcoming office move.
8:55am - I called the tech back at the school. Everything looks good, right? Nope. The server still showed it was trying to get an address. I disabled that card, and then PINGed the server's address. BINGO! Another machine was using the same address. One-by-one, I had the tech unplug a connection, then I would PING again. When she unplugged her tech workstation, the PINGs stopped replying. We found the culprit!
I had the tech check the properties and sure enough, under "Alternate Configuration," the workstation had been set to use the server's IP address. I have no idea how or why that was set like that. I had her change the setting back to "Private" and the conflict went away. I re-enabled the network card on the server and everything worked great. Almost.
The tech machine would no longer get an address from the server. When all else fails, reboot. After the computer rebooted, it grabbed a new address and everything worked fine so far as we can tell! Wahoo!
Now, at some point, we need to flush DNS and DHCP so the server can attribute the correct names with the correct addresses, but that's something we can do later. They don't really do anything using DNS internally, so it does not "actually" affect their network. (Yes, I know that's not exactly right, but for the pinch, it works).
*Mental mistake on my part: I did not fully understand that her tech machine (located next to the server) was the one giving the error as well. This would have saved some troubleshooting steps - namely, we would not have had to unplug each of the connections at the switch. Call it a learning experience.
9:30am - Finished the phone conversation with the tech, typed up the summary above, then called Asus because I have yet to receive the shipping instructions to send back the 1201N I worked on last week. I gave the tech my RMA number. he was very friendly and sent a new email out with the information. Now, I just have to wait to see if it gets here. If it is not here by noon, I will call back with my yahoo address.
9:45am - Called AT&T to let them know the address our new building changed - not the physical location, mind you, just the numbers associated with our new building. This may be one of those times where *not* saying anything would have been the right path to take. Guess we'll find out come Friday when the services are scheduled to be moved.
10:00am - Began installation of OpenOffice in the computer lab for a training taking place tomorrow.
10:45am - During install, called to Director's office to meet regarding a spreadsheet to keep track of Medicaid billing forms. The meeting also covered topics related to moving into the new building.
11:00am - Returned to computer lab to finish OpenOffice installation.
11:30am - Returned a phone call to AT&T about the new building address. And, just as I had suspected earlier, I have muddied the waters. There now seems to be confusion about physically moving the wiring that is already in place at our new building. So much for trying to do the right thing....thus far. We'll see how it goes from here. Had to leave a message. Will wait for return call.
11:40 - Began cleaning out SPAM filter. 12:10pm - finished (also had a brief meeting with the Workforce Ed coordinator regarding upcoming move during that time)
Around 1:00pm, I took a package over to the UPS store to have the malfunctioning laptop sent off to ASUS. Turns out the reason I was not getting the RMA information is because the email comes from a .TW domain, and we block those. Good thing I have an alternate offsite address to use.
Around 1:15pm, I headed over to the new building. I spent over two hours working with the alarm guys, elevator guy and meeting with the Director about other issues.
At 3:20pm, I made it back to the co-op to wrap up the day. Whew!
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