Re: [seul-edu] Opportunity to make a difference

[Doug Loss <drloss@home.com>]

Dave Prentice wrote:

>     A number of schools have set up their own unauthorized LANs with local
> servers. It's my understanding that there are several different versions of
> Windows being used on these. In some cases, whoever set them up put in DHCP
> servers, but either didn't know or didn't care about how to make sure that
> acceptable IP addresses were being issued. [...]
> Since some of these have been running for quite a while, he doesn't want to
> have to order them to disconnect their LANs from the Internet. The angry
> outcries would add to his woes. I suggested that he require those LANs to
> use static addresses, but he said that then somebody would need to keep a
> database of assigned IP addresses, adding further to the chaos.

Does the district run its own DHCP server(s)?  If so, require the offending
schools to shutdown their own DHCP services and get their IP addresses from the
district, setting up whatever router configurations are necessary for that to
work (it's fairly simple on Cisco equipment to have "helper addresses" assigned
to various networks that will allow remote DHCP servers to issue addresses to
those networks).  If they're not willing to do that, cut them off till they
change their minds, citing the increased network load and disruption of the
larger system their misconfigurations are causing.  As this should lessen the
work required to maintain the school network properly, they may not complain at
all.  Of course, if they just turned it on and walked away as so many do, they
may not see that as a win for them.  I guess the big question is whether the
local vs. district control of addresses question is technical or political.  If
technical, it's easy to solve; if political, all bets are off.

--
Doug Loss                 Always do right.  This
Data Network Coordinator  will gratify some people
Bloomsburg University     and astonish the rest.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain