Ever had network connectivity issues? I certainly have seen a good share. I'd like to take a minute to go over, my definitive guide on navigating network connection problems. I'm going to take a 'ground up' approach and assume nothing. If you have some knowledge of your own environment and know certain things are working, then you can probably skip large sections of this post, and get to the 'good stuff' near the bottom - where I normally start, since it's most likely the be the problem.
From the top, from the perspective of one PC not being able to reach the internet:
First question: Do you have a network card? This seems like a dumb question at first, don't all PC's have network cards? Not always; in addition, the network interface can malfunction or be disabled. While you may have a physical port for a network wire, it might go nowhere, so let's talk devices.
From your desktop as a starting point, if you go to start, and right click 'computer' you should be able to get to the computer's properties. For those not using Windows 7, go to control panel, and select "system properties", and you should end up in the same place... this also works for 7, but the other way is easier. Take a look at the left of the computer properties window, at the top you should have a link for "Device Manager" - go there. When inside of device manager, you want to see if your network interface exists. It may be listed as "NIC" or some brand-name of device under "network adapters", or if the device is lacking a driver, it may be under "other devices" as an "ethernet controller". I'll tell you how to handle each of these potentially problematic situations.
If you can find a network interface, and you're convinced it's correct; if that device has no errors or warnings, you can bypass this entire section. Go down to IP troubleshooting.
Device issues and troubleshooting.
Network interfaces is missing or doesn't contain a physical device. Several "software" network interfaces can appear here, like virtual adapters if you have VPN software installed. Ignore these, they are not relevant to this discussion, if the Network adapters section contains no items, doesn't exist, or only contains software adapters, then check device manager for "other devices" and determine if you have an unknown (yellow question mark) device listed as an "Ethernet controller". If so, you need drivers. You'll have to consult with your manufacturers website. Briefly, there's a few places you can look. If you know the make/model of adapter you have, you can easily look it up on google with the keywords: Driver download, and you should be able to find what you require to make the network interface work. For external (usb) devices, the make and model should be printed on the device; for internal, things get a bit more tricky. If the device is built-into the system, then you essentially have to look one of two places: if it is an OEM system (Eg. HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Asus, Acer, Dell, IBM/Lenovo, etc.) then you should visit that manufacturers website, and look up your model of PC and it should have the relevant drivers as part of a driver downloads section for that system (look for the system under 'support'). With Dell/HP this might be easier, since I know they use service codes to uniquely identify all PCs, you should be able to enter the service code in the support section of their site and get to the correct system. For custom built systems, you'll need to know what the Ethernet controller is a part of, and look under that; most commonly, this will be your mainboard. The mainboard should have the make/model clearly printed on it.
If the device is neither in "network interfaces" nor is it found under "other devices" is may be disconnected, malfunctioning or disabled on a hardware level. Most commonly, this will be a USB device that isn't properly attached, or a device that is disabled in the BIOS. Your mileage may vary, but at that point it is a hardware problem or malfunction that needs to be resolved. Check your BIOS if you know how to do so, and ensure that all network interfaces are enabled, and in the case of USB, ensure that you're using a known-good port, and using known-good cables (if there are any additional cables connecting the device to the system).
When you have proper drivers, there should be the network device listed in "network interfaces" under device manager; then we have a whole other list of issues that could occur. If the device is showing up with no warnings or errors, you can move onto the IP Troubleshooting section.
If the device has a small circle with a down arrow on it, it has been disabled. Right-click and select enable, then reassess.
If there is a yellow triangle on the device, it has an error or warning, open properties and check the warning. At this point, you may have to google the device name and the warning for a more in-depth understanding of what's happening, and what to do next.
At this point, either the device is working or you're googling for some answers on what error might be causing it to not work. So we move on.
So now, you have a network controller that has drivers and is working (not disabled). Excellent. Let's talk cables. You should have a known-good network wire connecting you to your upstream device - the upstream device, depending on configuration, could be a switch, a router, a modem or some other Ethernet connectivity device, or media changer/extender. On your PC, usually near the Ethernet controller port, you should have a green light. Sometimes the light is a different color, most commonly green. This indicates you have "Link" it might blink to show activity, or it may have an amber companion light that blinks to show activity. Not all Ethernet ports have lights, but most do. If yours does not, plug the cable in anyways, and go look at the light indicating connection on your upstream device. Some devices have one light to indicate multiple Ethernet connections - I can't help you here, but for almost every switch, router or modem I've encountered, with few exceptions, there are numbered lights. Ensure that the numbered port you've connected yourself to, is showing that the associated port's light is illuminated to indicate connection. The light may blink to show activity.
In the case of Wireless, you can "connect a wire" by selecting a wireless network to connect to. Typically this is done within windows, and you only need to select a small icon made of multiple "signal" bars, in the bottom right corner near the clock. left-clicking this icon should show a list of nearby available networks to connect to. Remember, wireless has an OPTIMAL range of about 100m (without the use of specialty equipment), so ensure you're close enough to your router or access point to be able to receive the signal with sufficient strength to connect. Wireless connectivity and reception issues are beyond the scope of this discussion. Ensure you have the correct passphrase or network password to connect and that it shows that you are connected to that wireless network. This is the wireless equivalent of "plugging in a cable".
At this point I assume you have a working device with the correct drivers and a reliable connection to your network, whether wireless or wired.
IP Troubleshooting.
Now we get into the nitty-gritty. This is where things most commonly go wrong. If someone calls me to get some assistance with their networking trouble, I start here, since typically, nobody touches their underlying networking configuration.
A great thing to do first, if you haven't already is to power-cycle the primary connectivity devices for your network. What do I mean by that? easy. Router, modem, switch if applicable. Whatever is between you and the internet, reboot it. try again. This is networking 101. in consumer environments, generally, the equipment has a fairly high failure rate due to glitches, bad programming, lack of updates, or poor quality hardware or worksmanship. This is the reality of low-cost equipment (by low-cost I mean less than ~ $500 for a router - which is what business/corporate grade stuff basically starts at). By restarting it, generally you can "fix" any minor issues in the equipment, and continue on your merry way with little to no further work. Enjoy.
For the rest of us, let's power on. Start with a command prompt (windowskey+R, then type "cmd" will bring this up, or find "command prompt" in your start menu): type "ipconfig /all" - we need the /all so we get gateway and DNS information too. Don't type the quotes :) .
Breaking down ipconfig:
IP Address: this is NORMALLY, something starting with 192.168.x.x. Depending on configuration. For most consumer grade equipment, you're going to be dealing with the Class C private range (which is 192.168.x.x) as defined by RFC 1918. All that blah blah being said, the IP address you have doesn't really matter, as long as it DOES NOT start with 169.254.x.x - these are what we refer to as "APIPA" addresses; Automatic Private IP Addressing. the keyword there is "private": meaning, you can't go onto the internet with those addresses. An IP address starting with 169.254 usually indicates that the DHCP server is not working; this is what gives you your IP address. The DHCP service is usually provided by your router or modem. You'll need to start investigating if those devices are working correctly, if you have a 169.254.x.x IP address. They might be able to power on, but they might not be working, a replacement is easiest, but most costly, if possible try with another system, another cable, and try to narrow down if it might be a malfunction in the network device in your PC, a bad cable, a bad modem or router, or if it's something with your PC. If you have a good cable, modem, router, and another system that gets DHCP, it may also be a firewall. Check for any firewalling applications (Norton, McAfee, ZoneAlarm, to name a few), and try uninstalling them (BE CAREFUL, if you're uninstalling an application you PAID FOR, ensure you have the product key from the application before uninstalling it, so you can reinstall and re-activate the software without having to pay for it again). If there's no firewall, there may be a faulty service on your PC, or the device may not be working correctly; services require a reinstall, faulty device can be bypassed by using (or borrowing?) another network interface (eg, a USB wireless device).
Assuming your IP is o.k.:
Gateway: the gateway is exactly that, your gateway to the internet. Ensure that you have one. It should have an IP that's similar, but not the exact same, as your system's IP address. Eg. if your PC is at 192.168.0.100, then your gateway might be 192.168.0.1. This is a common configuration but by no means the only configuration. Ensure that you have one and that most of the numbers are the same. Usually only the number after the last dot changes, but your mileage may vary, depending on the configuration of your network. If you have no gateway, but you have an IP. check if someone has set a static IP on your system. Go to Network and Sharing center, select manage adapters on the left, right click your network interface and find "IPv4", select it, and press "properties" - all the items on the next page should be set to automatic. If not, make note of what the settings are, then set them to automatic and retry your internet. If this is already automatic, and "gateway" is blank on ipconfig, then the problem is likely going to be that you did not receive a gateway IP from your DHCP server. in the ipconfig output, it should show which DHCP server it got a response from, go contact whomever is responsible for that server, and complain to them. Normally this will either be you (if it is a router) or your ISP (if the DHCP server is outside of your local network) - again, this will depend on configuration.
Next, ensure that you can reach your gateway, and that it is responding to requests by running a "ping" at the command prompt, followed by a space, then the IP of the "gateway" as reported by ipconfig. If this does not respond, then the gateway may not be working, consult with your ISP if your router/gateway belongs to them, and if not, consider getting a new router or gateway for your network, or resetting the one you have to defaults and setting it up from scratch.
Assuming you have a gateway that you can reach, check if you are on the internet at all. To do this, simply run a ping (from the command line) against any known-good IP address. Most ISP's allow you to ping google, but "google.com" is a name, not an IP. Google has DNS servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, that are known to respond to pings; so if you don't know of a known-good IP address on the internet try to "ping 8.8.8.8" and see if you get replies. The replies should say they're from 8.8.8.8, and should give the amount of time we spent waiting for the reply (usually in ms. usually less than 200. more and it could be a problem, contact your ISP for performance troubleshooting). IF THERE IS NO REPLY or replies come from another source with a message like "destination network is unreachable" then you may not be connected to the internet. Ensure all the appropriate lights on your modem are on, and try to communicate with your ISP for troubleshooting internet connectivity issues further. There may be an outage or other issue that is beyond your control if this fails.
Assuming you can connect to the internet by IP address, the issue could also be your DNS servers. You should have two listed in your "ipconfig /all" output, ping them, see if you get a response. Additionally, try the command "nslookup" to try to resolve a known network name (any website is fine) - eg: "nslookup www.google.com" - it should reply with an IP address. If not, and you get 3x (or more) "request timed out", then your DNS server isn't working. You may be able to change to something known-good, like google's... Google maintains two Anycast DNS servers. All that technical talk only really boils down to: Primary Google DNS: 8.8.8.8, Secondary Google DNS: 8.8.4.4. This can be changed under IPv4 properties, under "control panel", "network and sharing center", "Change adapter settings" (on the left), then selecting the network interface, and going to properties. you should find IPv4 and you should be able to get into it's properties from there. Just change the DNS settings on that page (at the bottom) to reflect google's DNS servers listed above, and re-test with nslookup. If this still doesn't work, your ISP may be blocking DNS requests to external servers, talk to them if that's the case, they may have DNS servers they want you to use.
If your DNS resolution works but internet pages still don't load in your favorite browser, you may need to adjust your "connection" tab settings in internet options. "Internet Options" can be found on the Control Panel. Select the "connections" tab, and check to see if there are any dialing rules - there shouldn't be, unless you are using dial-up, or certain types of DSL... you should know if you are. If you're using cable internet, or have a DSL modem that handles the PPPoE connection (again, if you use this, you should at least recognize the terms), then check "LAN settings". under most normal circumstances in consumer environments, the next dialog should have everything unchecked. "Automatically detect settings" is default, but I only find that it slows down my first connection to the internet, so I generally disable it. Unless you specifically have a proxy set up, or you've been told by your ISP or network administrator to use a proxy, there shouldn't be one set; if there is, it may be the problem.
I know Firefox has it's own set of this same type of dialog, but I am unfamiliar with it. I would ask Firefox users to test using another browser to ensure it's not JUST Firefox that's having the problem. If it's just Firefox, you will have to investigate that independently.
Lastly, I want to touch on Firewalls. The windows firewall generally only restricts unsolicited inbound traffic - meaning, when someone connects to your PC from across the network. It can be opened to allow the inbound traffic, but generally doesn't block 'outgoing' traffic, eg. from a browser. So the windows firewall should not ever stop you from connecting to the internet using your browser. Other firewalls (as I mentioned above, McAfee has one, Norton has one, and there are others, such as ZoneAlarm), will vary on their implementation, but understand that it is very possible for one of these firewalls to stop outgoing connections, eg, from your browser, and prevent applications from reaching the internet. If you have one of these installed, and you STILL cannot get connected to the internet, I would encourage you to either: disable it completely, OR, uninstall the application (be careful of any subscriptions you've paid for), OR, consult with the manufacturer on how to block/unblock programs from reaching the internet. Each program is different and managing your firewall is beyond the scope of this discussion.
At this point, you should be back online. If not, there may be something more major going on. If you have a firewall-based gateway, it may be filtering web traffic. Try another website, as your homepage might be down... There's a few items on this list I won't touch on, but they're very rare situations. For the vast majority, this should be a (probably far too) complete guide on how to get everything working again.
Enjoy.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Monday, April 6, 2015
VoIP.ms
It's been a while. Since the last time I posted, I've been experimenting with a Cisco CME deployment.
It's been.... interesting. While CME is doing things very predictably, and as expected by the documentation, what I had to kind of figure out on my own is how to interact with a VoIP provider.
I chose VoIP.ms. They're great actually. Very well put together service, no significant bells or whistles, and the service is geared towards the skilled technician. This means, not a lot is done FOR YOU; and the appropriate level of technical detail is included with the system - this means, SIP gateways on their end are well documented and redundant, they have the codecs and connection types and information all fairly well laid out, so if you know what you're doing, you can fairly easily acquire the information you need to get up and running.
No running around like a crazy person trying to hijack the communication to the upstream provider to try to determine codec information to try to emulate it with a PBX so you can finally use the system the way you want - which is how I would imagine buying a line from some of the 'all in one' VoIP solutions would be (MagicJack comes to mind).
All of that aside, some of the behavior isn't documented, and it can be EXTREMELY useful to know. I'm tired of hearing "That number, has not yet been assigned" - which I get CONSTANTLY from voip.ms servers.
I'm still working out my dialing rules, but from experimentation, the outgoing SIP connection needs to have a PRIMARY number (in CME) of the 6-digit login ID for the line; otherwise the connection to the outbound voice SP will fail (resulting in the message "that number, has not yet been assigned" - possibly one of the most infuriatingly unspecific error I've heard). However, when an inbound call comes, the DID phone number for the inbound call is used (10 digit number), if there's no such number (no match) in the destination PBX, then, the caller gets "that number has not yet been assigned". joy. this again.
The "best" solution to put all my eggs in one basket, so far, has been to create an extension with the SIP login ID for the primary, and the 10-digit DID number as secondary. That way, inbound, and outbound calls, all come from/go to the same extension. Obviously, this doesn't work if you need multiple outbound, but for a simple deployment, it would work.
Now I get to dive into the wonderful world of trunks, and dial-plans to try to sort through this mess to make it work the way I ACTUALLY want. I just wanted to document the difference between the incoming, destination number, and the outgoing numbers for VoIP.ms something I hadn't come across.
Enjoy your tubes.
It's been.... interesting. While CME is doing things very predictably, and as expected by the documentation, what I had to kind of figure out on my own is how to interact with a VoIP provider.
I chose VoIP.ms. They're great actually. Very well put together service, no significant bells or whistles, and the service is geared towards the skilled technician. This means, not a lot is done FOR YOU; and the appropriate level of technical detail is included with the system - this means, SIP gateways on their end are well documented and redundant, they have the codecs and connection types and information all fairly well laid out, so if you know what you're doing, you can fairly easily acquire the information you need to get up and running.
No running around like a crazy person trying to hijack the communication to the upstream provider to try to determine codec information to try to emulate it with a PBX so you can finally use the system the way you want - which is how I would imagine buying a line from some of the 'all in one' VoIP solutions would be (MagicJack comes to mind).
All of that aside, some of the behavior isn't documented, and it can be EXTREMELY useful to know. I'm tired of hearing "That number, has not yet been assigned" - which I get CONSTANTLY from voip.ms servers.
I'm still working out my dialing rules, but from experimentation, the outgoing SIP connection needs to have a PRIMARY number (in CME) of the 6-digit login ID for the line; otherwise the connection to the outbound voice SP will fail (resulting in the message "that number, has not yet been assigned" - possibly one of the most infuriatingly unspecific error I've heard). However, when an inbound call comes, the DID phone number for the inbound call is used (10 digit number), if there's no such number (no match) in the destination PBX, then, the caller gets "that number has not yet been assigned". joy. this again.
The "best" solution to put all my eggs in one basket, so far, has been to create an extension with the SIP login ID for the primary, and the 10-digit DID number as secondary. That way, inbound, and outbound calls, all come from/go to the same extension. Obviously, this doesn't work if you need multiple outbound, but for a simple deployment, it would work.
Now I get to dive into the wonderful world of trunks, and dial-plans to try to sort through this mess to make it work the way I ACTUALLY want. I just wanted to document the difference between the incoming, destination number, and the outgoing numbers for VoIP.ms something I hadn't come across.
Enjoy your tubes.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Cisco 881 and the wonderful world of DSL
We have a local DSL provider in my area that's just horrible.
ok, you got me, it's Bell Canada.
Anyways, I've been busy with a project I picked up to rewire an establishment; I'm doing it primarily for experience. While I know the theory behind proper home-run wiring, I have not had significant opportunity to actually DO IT. I wasn't going to pass up on this.
I had no idea what I was getting into. Word of advice: if you can pay someone to do the wiring for you, do it.
Anyways, as part of the package, I started looking around at other things that were not up to standards. The establishment doesn't need anything crazy, but I'm all about reliability, so getting older-generation Cisco equipment seems about right. I had a Cisco 881 in my lab setup that just didn't seem to do any of the things I wanted to do in my lab; so instead of hang onto this low-end router, I decided I would donate it to the cause.
The establishment in question is important to family, and therefore I am expected to give them certain.... special treatment. This 881 was going to be my ticket.
The config looked good, I set it up at home, but I have no DSL so I cannot test. I setup the WAN port (Fa4) for no ip address and setup the Dialer for PPPoE and put in the credentials. I then got onsite.
What I was presented with was a 2Wire modem/router .... I HATE these things. I start looking around for a guide on how to convert it to using bridge mode. So I reflash the firmware with one that will allow bridge mode, follow the directions step by step. I set the VCI and VDI, to 0/35 as instructed ( and as I recall from working with Bell in the past ) and perform the final steps of the configuration. The last step is to reboot to place the unit in bridge mode. So I do. and off we go.
Immediately after, I expect that the Cisco would pick up the WAN connection, dial the PPPoE and establish internet connectivity and everything would be amazing.... not so much.
I start troubleshooting, googling, maybe a different firmware, maybe I'm missing something in the config? I could only find configs for 1800 series and similar (I eventually found one for an 881... that was later) - all of them required the vpdn to include the following line:
vpdn accept-dialin protocol pppoe
I got stuck on getting the router to accept this command; I'm here to tell you that THIS COMMAND IS NOT NEEDED.
I eventually got fed up (after nearly 2 hrs of troubleshooting) and ran:
# debug pppoe
with all the pppoe debugging on, to my amazement, the Dialer was actually trying to initiate the connection. That means the configuration is complete enough for the Cisco to try. okay, so if we're trying and not getting a response, then what?
So I grabbed a random ethernet cable for a nearby (powered on) machine, and connected it directly to the modem; sure enough, I got an IP, I checked the management and sure enough the VCI and VDI were 0/100 (the default). Immediately I changed it back to 0/35 and hit save. seconds later, my console sprung to life with debug messages; I frantically typed to try to turn them all off.
Moments later, I rebooted everything to ensure the configuration would persist through power loss; it did.
2 + hours of troubleshooting because I had to use a custom firmware because Bell won't give us modems with bridge mode as an option....
Friday, June 28, 2013
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1
I swear I'll get back to blogging about low level network communication someday... today is not that day.
I just had to wrestle with my tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to connect to a 5Ghz wifi AP. I found the problem, even after googling, people seem to just give up... hopefully people having trouble, will find this. (for those looking for help, scroll down to the marker and start reading, a little backstory follows)
I have a pretty complicated network, as you might imagine; being that my wifi is mainly shared, I actually setup an Access Point that will automatically choose the "least congested" channel, so that my android devices can connect to it. Mainly my phone, since it will only connect to 2.4Ghz wireless. I do however, have 5Ghz routers, and one is on the network, and it's the only 5Ghz in my neighborhood (that I've ever detected). This is good because there's typically so many 2.4 Ghz networks that congestion will stop you from having a nice, clear, quality signal; as I've stated in previous posts, this will slow down your network communication to a crawl.
Well, that's exactly what happened for me today, I have one AP at 2.4Ghz auto-select "least congested" JUST FOR ME, and a household, shared AP, also 2.4Ghz, that I tend to avoid; primarily so that the bandwidth there can be used by others in the house, and I don't have to fight with their devices... in terms of contention. so there's that. But today, while using my tablet, I found that I was on the household AP, and trying to watch youtube clips was insanely slow (5+ mins of buffering for a 2 minute video). I said enough is enough, and went to check my network status; once I found I was on the household wifi I thought to myself "that must be why" and promptly switched to my "least congested" access point. To my disappointment, this yielded zero improvement. Without going through the motions of reassigning the wifi channels to all my devices to see if I can find something a little less congested (a very difficult feat in this environment); I decided to jump-ship and onto the 5Ghz. I set my tablet to only connect to 5Ghz networks.... voila. wait what? no networks? how is this right?
I logged into my 5Ghz AP and started tinkering.
---- FIX FOLLOWS (for those skipping my little story time) ----
After a little effort, I changed the settings to be more compatible, and the network popped up almost immediately. My current 5Ghz settings (that are working with my Tab): I selected a low-numbered channel, the second lowest, 36 I believe, changed the channel width to 20Mhz, and saved.
That's it. pretty much just pick a channel in the first dozen or so.
network popped up quickly, I connected and all my wifi woes went away.
Happy networking folks!
I just had to wrestle with my tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to connect to a 5Ghz wifi AP. I found the problem, even after googling, people seem to just give up... hopefully people having trouble, will find this. (for those looking for help, scroll down to the marker and start reading, a little backstory follows)
I have a pretty complicated network, as you might imagine; being that my wifi is mainly shared, I actually setup an Access Point that will automatically choose the "least congested" channel, so that my android devices can connect to it. Mainly my phone, since it will only connect to 2.4Ghz wireless. I do however, have 5Ghz routers, and one is on the network, and it's the only 5Ghz in my neighborhood (that I've ever detected). This is good because there's typically so many 2.4 Ghz networks that congestion will stop you from having a nice, clear, quality signal; as I've stated in previous posts, this will slow down your network communication to a crawl.
Well, that's exactly what happened for me today, I have one AP at 2.4Ghz auto-select "least congested" JUST FOR ME, and a household, shared AP, also 2.4Ghz, that I tend to avoid; primarily so that the bandwidth there can be used by others in the house, and I don't have to fight with their devices... in terms of contention. so there's that. But today, while using my tablet, I found that I was on the household AP, and trying to watch youtube clips was insanely slow (5+ mins of buffering for a 2 minute video). I said enough is enough, and went to check my network status; once I found I was on the household wifi I thought to myself "that must be why" and promptly switched to my "least congested" access point. To my disappointment, this yielded zero improvement. Without going through the motions of reassigning the wifi channels to all my devices to see if I can find something a little less congested (a very difficult feat in this environment); I decided to jump-ship and onto the 5Ghz. I set my tablet to only connect to 5Ghz networks.... voila. wait what? no networks? how is this right?
I logged into my 5Ghz AP and started tinkering.
---- FIX FOLLOWS (for those skipping my little story time) ----
After a little effort, I changed the settings to be more compatible, and the network popped up almost immediately. My current 5Ghz settings (that are working with my Tab): I selected a low-numbered channel, the second lowest, 36 I believe, changed the channel width to 20Mhz, and saved.
That's it. pretty much just pick a channel in the first dozen or so.
network popped up quickly, I connected and all my wifi woes went away.
Happy networking folks!
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Broadcom!
What an aggrivation.
I've spent the last day and a half trying to get Broadcom Advanced Control Suite to team four links together, turns out, the issue may be my OS.
Some time ago, for reasons only known to broadcom, they decided to disable teaming functions on all SBS servers. I'm quite baffled as to why.
Turns out that when BACS installer detects SBS, it disabled the option to install Broadcom Advanced Server Program; this BASP program is used to create the virtual interface for a team, that dictates the IP settings across the entire team.
So, anybody have a hacked BACS install that overrides the check for SBS?
I've spent the last day and a half trying to get Broadcom Advanced Control Suite to team four links together, turns out, the issue may be my OS.
Some time ago, for reasons only known to broadcom, they decided to disable teaming functions on all SBS servers. I'm quite baffled as to why.
Turns out that when BACS installer detects SBS, it disabled the option to install Broadcom Advanced Server Program; this BASP program is used to create the virtual interface for a team, that dictates the IP settings across the entire team.
So, anybody have a hacked BACS install that overrides the check for SBS?
Sunday, April 21, 2013
WiFi? or not to WiFi?
I feel as though I should really type this out once; and give everyone a good rundown of HOW wifi works, what should be changed, and what should not be changed. So here goes.
DISCLAIMER: This is for a fairly intermediate crowd, those who have setup wifi before, understand that wifi has channels, SSIDs, etc. - to those in the industry, that will be considered a beginner level. I'll try to explain things clearly.
First of all, let's talk about frequency. It's getting so confusing when picking a router, do I get "gigabit" or "Wireless N" or that fancy "Wireless AC" (whatever that is)... what do I need, and why? - I'm here to help with exactly that, and more.
There are two parts when it comes to frequency. First, is the capability of the router (or AP) - is it a "dual band", or "simultaneous dual band"? what's the difference and why does it matter? Well, with most older, common 'wireless' networks for households, you didn't have a choice of 'band' - everything operated on 2.4Ghz. Just like your radio, where stations operate at frequencies like "104.5 FM" (which is 104.5Mhz) - same applies to wireless, just instead of transmitting voice, it's data. 2.4Ghz is by-far the most common. It's internationally a 'free' channel. Which means, you don't need a permit to broadcast on the channel, anyone can use it, at any time, for any reason. This is why you'll see wireless phones toting "2.4Ghz" on the box, etc. This 'band' is the only frequency range available for the 802.11b/g (more affectionately known as 'wireless b' and 'wireless g'). In being so, earlier model routers, and inexpensive options will default to this range and this range alone; not having the necessary transceivers to operate anywhere but on the 2.4Ghz spectrum. "Dual band" comes from routers being able to operate not only on the 2.4Ghz band, but the 5Ghz band aswell. The 5Ghz band typically ranges from 5.180Ghz to 5.825Ghz, which is much more broad than the 2.4Ghz band (spanning 2.412Ghz to 2.472Ghz); the benefits of this is quite simple, more room for more networks; this leads us into our second point, then we'll have a small discussion on which is better in what situations.
The second part of frequency has to do with contention; contention is a fancy term to talk about interference - specifically the interference created by OTHER networks operating on the same, or similar frequencies. I've already mentioned that each 'band' is a span of frequencies; what I haven't said is that each of those frequencies boils down to 20Mhz segments. Let me start with an analogy. Think for a moment about our earlier discussion of radio. When you're in your car, as I'm sure you're familliar, if you tune away, just one step from a local radio station (one that comes in quite clearly) often, you can hear the station, both one-step above and below the actual 'channel' - this is because of BANDWIDTH. the station is CENTERED on the frequency you're tuned into - our earlier example was 104.5Mhz; this is the channel center. From there, the station occupies an amount of frequency range both above and below the 104.5Mhz mark, the further you get away from the station, the lower the effect of this, so it won't happen on all stations. You'll notice that at 104.3 and 104.7 (the next step in either direction), you can still hear the original station, though the transmission may be poor, it's there. Same thing with wifi, except the channels are 5Mhz apart, and the bandwidth is 20mhz - this means that there are a LOT of overlaps when it comes to 2.4Ghz. so much so, that in north america, there are only 3 viable "non overlapping" channels: 1, 6, and 11. Obviously on 5Ghz, there are many more channels, and while they overlap with other channels just as much, there are so many of them, there's a large portion more "non-overlapping channels".
So what does this all mean? how does it affect your decision on a router? well, quite simply put, depending on where you live and what you need, you may want to pick 5ghz, or you may require 2.4ghz. According to the scientific properties of electromagnetic waves, the lower the wavelength, the less likely it is to be scattered and/or misdirected - this means if you need high penetration, or longer distance, 2.4Ghz is likely for you. how long? about 75m (240 ft). you can attain longer links with directional antennas (eg parabolics . If you need shorter-range with more reliable access in a high-density environment (eg, a housing complex or apartment building), 5ghz is definitely the way to go.
Word of warning while choosing a frequency range - many small devices (such as smartphones and tablets) don't necessarily support dual-band. it would be worthwhile to look into this while picking an option. That said, if you're in a high-density environment, but need both high reliability and 2.4ghz for micro devices, a simultaneous dual band option would be best, as it will do both 2.4ghz and 5ghz at the same time.
Next, let's talk network names and encryption.
If you've ever setup a wireless network, you've dealt with these before. The key with network naming is to pick something unique for you, that you don't mind having other people see, that you will recognize as yours. I've seen people even put witty phrases as their network names. be creative; the sky is the limit here. Next, you'll have to consider encryption. DO NOT, and I really mean this, DO NOT USE WEP - if anyone tells you to use it, hit them for me. ALWAYS use WPA. WPA2 if possible. Don't complicate the wireless too much, if you're going to use a WPA/WPA2 mixed (or WPA2 Auto) set encryption to auto as well. for just WPA, use TKIP, for just WPA2, use AES. I cannot recommend highly enough to use WPA2 with AES. This is an industry standard (802.11i for those curious), and is the recommended configuration from apple, the wifi alliance and IEEE for wireless encryption. It is the newest and possibly the best wireless encryption standard to date and has yet to be broken. WITH THAT SAID, pick a good wireless encryption key sequence; the only known attacks on WPA2/AES to date, have to do with guessing passwords. Do not just use character substitution in a short word for the password. Eg: 'P@ssW0rD' is no more secure than 'Password' - use something long, and easy to remember. In the past I've used slogans and parts of mission statements, or peoples combined middle names (eg, the middle names of all the people that regularly use the wireless, with spaces inbetween) - ensure it's not something you'll hesitate to give out to guests who need wireless, but ensure it's not something someone who doesn't know you, will readily guess, or be able to pull from a dictionary. Even using a line from a song that the whole family enjoys, is more secure than a single word; whether that word has numbers and symbols in it or not.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough to use a strong wireless password. take some time and do it right, you'll never have to worry about it again.
Next, we're going to get into some more complicated stuff. You'll find most of these options in your "Advanced" section. I won't tell you which ones to pick to turn on or off, you'll have to decide on that from my description of what they do; no two networks are built for doing the same thing, and no two networks are designed for the same users; be careful when changing these options as they can also have adverse effects on performance - however, DO EXPERIMENT - the worst that can happen is needing to reset the router to defaults (a procedure you should look up first) and re-configuring it from scratch to get reconnected. Enjoy.
BEACON INTERVAL: This setting changes how frequently the Beacon is sent. The Beacon has two main tasks: 1. to inform stations that the access point is still active, and 2. to deliver 'wake up' messages to stations in 'low power' states. I'll deal with point #2 more in my next talking point "DTIM Interval". Basically, the beacon contains information about the network, the network name, it's wireless encryption types (only types, not the keys), etc. effectively everything required for a new station to connect. Higher Beacon intervals: less intrusive. the Beacon has a fairly high priority for transmission, as it not only provides information for new stations to connect it tells existing connections that it's still around, if the Beacon is set too low, the router or AP will spend all it's time and available bandwidth advertising that it's there, and spend no time actually moving information. Too low of a beacon interval, and connected stations may lose their connection at random. The beacon is typically measured in ms, and the default is typically 100ms (1/10th of a second), I've seen these as low as 250ms (1/4 of a second) or as frequently as 50ms. Depending on your needs, you may want to increase this number, if it creates a problem of dropped connections you may want to decrease the number.
DTIM Interval: DTIM's are wake-up messages for 'sleeping' devices. effectively it boils down to; if a small device is in a standby state or has activated a low-power state on the device will only power-up for two reasons: 1. to send information. 2. a DTIM request. Basically, the DTIM is telling the low-power devices, to connect to the AP, since it has a message for it. the device will 'wake' from it's low-power mode, connect to the AP and request the delayed transaction message. In low-power states, the device will only listen for beacons, nothing more. DTIM is set in frequency of beacon intervals; so a setting of 1, is every beacon, 2, is every other beacon. etc. Typically DTIM is set to 1 or 2, but can be set higher if you wish. KEEP IN MIND, this is also based on the beacons interval, if you have a higher interval, you may want to consider a lower DTIM, a higher beacon, you may want to consider a lower DTIM. I don't believe there are any adverse effects to a higher DTIM, except that low-power devices (such as cellphones and tablets) will take seconds longer to receive a message while in standby; this may not be important to you.
PREAMBLE: options are long and short. Long preambles are required for older equipment, and are more standards compliant. however, there are many performance improvements to a short preamble. Effectively, the preamble is a sync message prior to transmission, it's sent by the transmitting station (eg. your PC or the router), so that receiving stations can sync their clock rate to the transmission. newer hardware requires less preamble to sync. cheap hardware may also require a longer preamble. There is no significant change in router performance either way, short is better, but only slightly. If possible use short, if any device exhibits strange connection behavior, try a long preamble to try to correct the problem.
PROTECTED MODE: This is kind of a big topic, so try to hold on. Effectively Protected mode has two parts: 1. a "basic" rate, and 2. a request, then send, method of communication. Let me break this down a little. The basic rate is the MINIMUM require connection speed that a station must sustain to be able to participate in the network. Typical values are 1 or 2Mbps. This is low because, typically, you want a lot of compatibility. If you're on a computer with wireless, you can check your connection rate at any time, typically by opening your wireless connection status window; it will show the connection "speed" - if that speed is less than the basic rate of the network, your connection is not considered valid. The reason this is important is because of the second point. The basic rate is used for control messages for RTS/CTS (Request to Send, Clear to Send) requests. Protected mode, if set to auto, is triggered when the network detects that some stations cannot 'hear' other stations, and/or collisions (more than one station sending at a time) happens frequently. How this works is as follows. Your PC (let's just say, it works in reverse too) will transmit a RTS to the AP. That request contains all the information about the length of the transmission you want to send, etc. the AP will then transmit a CTS, which includes all the information from the request, plus a confirmation that you're clear to send. The AP does this so that every station on the network knows that someone is transmitting for X ms (whatever was defined in the RTS). All other stations will now wait (or "back off") for AT LEAST that length of time, before attempting to request to send. This is analogous to raising your hand to speak in a classroom. While just blurting out answers is faster, if everyone did that, you would not be able to understand anyone. This, while slowing down the overall transaction time for each message sent, ensures that only one "person" (or station) 'speaks' at a time. This ensures more reliable communication across the network, but can slow it down significantly. If you're in a situation where you have a lot of differing devices with differing capabilities, you may want to consider turning this on. If you're in a situation where you need faster speed of message transaction, you may want to turn this off. cases and results will vary.
Wireless Multimedia (WMM): Also known as WME (Wireless Multimedia Extensions) is an extension of the RTS/CTS found in protected mode. Effectively, what happens is an RTS/CTS request/response occurs, whether or not Protected mode is enabled, however, the main difference here is, rather than sending just one message, the station is requesting time to send a block of messages. - this VASTLY improves overall throughput for the one connection stream, however it greatly delays other transmissions. choose this option carefully. I highly recommend using an Ethernet connection for anything multimedia; but if you must use wireless to connect a media extender, be sure to enable this; I will leave you with a warning, if anyone is doing anything time-sensitive on the network (VoIP or Gaming), and this option is set to ON, they WILL NOTICE a significant drop in responsiveness in their data. For gamers, this phenomenon is referred to as "lag". Reduce LAG by turning off WMM.
There you have it. The comprehensive 'advanced wireless configuration for dummies' guide. I hope this helps some people in choosing the right wireless access points and network configurations. I don't think this is the first time I've posted this. In any case, have a great day, and may all your packets arrive with their checksums intact.
DISCLAIMER: This is for a fairly intermediate crowd, those who have setup wifi before, understand that wifi has channels, SSIDs, etc. - to those in the industry, that will be considered a beginner level. I'll try to explain things clearly.
First of all, let's talk about frequency. It's getting so confusing when picking a router, do I get "gigabit" or "Wireless N" or that fancy "Wireless AC" (whatever that is)... what do I need, and why? - I'm here to help with exactly that, and more.
There are two parts when it comes to frequency. First, is the capability of the router (or AP) - is it a "dual band", or "simultaneous dual band"? what's the difference and why does it matter? Well, with most older, common 'wireless' networks for households, you didn't have a choice of 'band' - everything operated on 2.4Ghz. Just like your radio, where stations operate at frequencies like "104.5 FM" (which is 104.5Mhz) - same applies to wireless, just instead of transmitting voice, it's data. 2.4Ghz is by-far the most common. It's internationally a 'free' channel. Which means, you don't need a permit to broadcast on the channel, anyone can use it, at any time, for any reason. This is why you'll see wireless phones toting "2.4Ghz" on the box, etc. This 'band' is the only frequency range available for the 802.11b/g (more affectionately known as 'wireless b' and 'wireless g'). In being so, earlier model routers, and inexpensive options will default to this range and this range alone; not having the necessary transceivers to operate anywhere but on the 2.4Ghz spectrum. "Dual band" comes from routers being able to operate not only on the 2.4Ghz band, but the 5Ghz band aswell. The 5Ghz band typically ranges from 5.180Ghz to 5.825Ghz, which is much more broad than the 2.4Ghz band (spanning 2.412Ghz to 2.472Ghz); the benefits of this is quite simple, more room for more networks; this leads us into our second point, then we'll have a small discussion on which is better in what situations.
The second part of frequency has to do with contention; contention is a fancy term to talk about interference - specifically the interference created by OTHER networks operating on the same, or similar frequencies. I've already mentioned that each 'band' is a span of frequencies; what I haven't said is that each of those frequencies boils down to 20Mhz segments. Let me start with an analogy. Think for a moment about our earlier discussion of radio. When you're in your car, as I'm sure you're familliar, if you tune away, just one step from a local radio station (one that comes in quite clearly) often, you can hear the station, both one-step above and below the actual 'channel' - this is because of BANDWIDTH. the station is CENTERED on the frequency you're tuned into - our earlier example was 104.5Mhz; this is the channel center. From there, the station occupies an amount of frequency range both above and below the 104.5Mhz mark, the further you get away from the station, the lower the effect of this, so it won't happen on all stations. You'll notice that at 104.3 and 104.7 (the next step in either direction), you can still hear the original station, though the transmission may be poor, it's there. Same thing with wifi, except the channels are 5Mhz apart, and the bandwidth is 20mhz - this means that there are a LOT of overlaps when it comes to 2.4Ghz. so much so, that in north america, there are only 3 viable "non overlapping" channels: 1, 6, and 11. Obviously on 5Ghz, there are many more channels, and while they overlap with other channels just as much, there are so many of them, there's a large portion more "non-overlapping channels".
So what does this all mean? how does it affect your decision on a router? well, quite simply put, depending on where you live and what you need, you may want to pick 5ghz, or you may require 2.4ghz. According to the scientific properties of electromagnetic waves, the lower the wavelength, the less likely it is to be scattered and/or misdirected - this means if you need high penetration, or longer distance, 2.4Ghz is likely for you. how long? about 75m (240 ft). you can attain longer links with directional antennas (eg parabolics . If you need shorter-range with more reliable access in a high-density environment (eg, a housing complex or apartment building), 5ghz is definitely the way to go.
Word of warning while choosing a frequency range - many small devices (such as smartphones and tablets) don't necessarily support dual-band. it would be worthwhile to look into this while picking an option. That said, if you're in a high-density environment, but need both high reliability and 2.4ghz for micro devices, a simultaneous dual band option would be best, as it will do both 2.4ghz and 5ghz at the same time.
Next, let's talk network names and encryption.
If you've ever setup a wireless network, you've dealt with these before. The key with network naming is to pick something unique for you, that you don't mind having other people see, that you will recognize as yours. I've seen people even put witty phrases as their network names. be creative; the sky is the limit here. Next, you'll have to consider encryption. DO NOT, and I really mean this, DO NOT USE WEP - if anyone tells you to use it, hit them for me. ALWAYS use WPA. WPA2 if possible. Don't complicate the wireless too much, if you're going to use a WPA/WPA2 mixed (or WPA2 Auto) set encryption to auto as well. for just WPA, use TKIP, for just WPA2, use AES. I cannot recommend highly enough to use WPA2 with AES. This is an industry standard (802.11i for those curious), and is the recommended configuration from apple, the wifi alliance and IEEE for wireless encryption. It is the newest and possibly the best wireless encryption standard to date and has yet to be broken. WITH THAT SAID, pick a good wireless encryption key sequence; the only known attacks on WPA2/AES to date, have to do with guessing passwords. Do not just use character substitution in a short word for the password. Eg: 'P@ssW0rD' is no more secure than 'Password' - use something long, and easy to remember. In the past I've used slogans and parts of mission statements, or peoples combined middle names (eg, the middle names of all the people that regularly use the wireless, with spaces inbetween) - ensure it's not something you'll hesitate to give out to guests who need wireless, but ensure it's not something someone who doesn't know you, will readily guess, or be able to pull from a dictionary. Even using a line from a song that the whole family enjoys, is more secure than a single word; whether that word has numbers and symbols in it or not.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough to use a strong wireless password. take some time and do it right, you'll never have to worry about it again.
Next, we're going to get into some more complicated stuff. You'll find most of these options in your "Advanced" section. I won't tell you which ones to pick to turn on or off, you'll have to decide on that from my description of what they do; no two networks are built for doing the same thing, and no two networks are designed for the same users; be careful when changing these options as they can also have adverse effects on performance - however, DO EXPERIMENT - the worst that can happen is needing to reset the router to defaults (a procedure you should look up first) and re-configuring it from scratch to get reconnected. Enjoy.
BEACON INTERVAL: This setting changes how frequently the Beacon is sent. The Beacon has two main tasks: 1. to inform stations that the access point is still active, and 2. to deliver 'wake up' messages to stations in 'low power' states. I'll deal with point #2 more in my next talking point "DTIM Interval". Basically, the beacon contains information about the network, the network name, it's wireless encryption types (only types, not the keys), etc. effectively everything required for a new station to connect. Higher Beacon intervals: less intrusive. the Beacon has a fairly high priority for transmission, as it not only provides information for new stations to connect it tells existing connections that it's still around, if the Beacon is set too low, the router or AP will spend all it's time and available bandwidth advertising that it's there, and spend no time actually moving information. Too low of a beacon interval, and connected stations may lose their connection at random. The beacon is typically measured in ms, and the default is typically 100ms (1/10th of a second), I've seen these as low as 250ms (1/4 of a second) or as frequently as 50ms. Depending on your needs, you may want to increase this number, if it creates a problem of dropped connections you may want to decrease the number.
DTIM Interval: DTIM's are wake-up messages for 'sleeping' devices. effectively it boils down to; if a small device is in a standby state or has activated a low-power state on the device will only power-up for two reasons: 1. to send information. 2. a DTIM request. Basically, the DTIM is telling the low-power devices, to connect to the AP, since it has a message for it. the device will 'wake' from it's low-power mode, connect to the AP and request the delayed transaction message. In low-power states, the device will only listen for beacons, nothing more. DTIM is set in frequency of beacon intervals; so a setting of 1, is every beacon, 2, is every other beacon. etc. Typically DTIM is set to 1 or 2, but can be set higher if you wish. KEEP IN MIND, this is also based on the beacons interval, if you have a higher interval, you may want to consider a lower DTIM, a higher beacon, you may want to consider a lower DTIM. I don't believe there are any adverse effects to a higher DTIM, except that low-power devices (such as cellphones and tablets) will take seconds longer to receive a message while in standby; this may not be important to you.
PREAMBLE: options are long and short. Long preambles are required for older equipment, and are more standards compliant. however, there are many performance improvements to a short preamble. Effectively, the preamble is a sync message prior to transmission, it's sent by the transmitting station (eg. your PC or the router), so that receiving stations can sync their clock rate to the transmission. newer hardware requires less preamble to sync. cheap hardware may also require a longer preamble. There is no significant change in router performance either way, short is better, but only slightly. If possible use short, if any device exhibits strange connection behavior, try a long preamble to try to correct the problem.
PROTECTED MODE: This is kind of a big topic, so try to hold on. Effectively Protected mode has two parts: 1. a "basic" rate, and 2. a request, then send, method of communication. Let me break this down a little. The basic rate is the MINIMUM require connection speed that a station must sustain to be able to participate in the network. Typical values are 1 or 2Mbps. This is low because, typically, you want a lot of compatibility. If you're on a computer with wireless, you can check your connection rate at any time, typically by opening your wireless connection status window; it will show the connection "speed" - if that speed is less than the basic rate of the network, your connection is not considered valid. The reason this is important is because of the second point. The basic rate is used for control messages for RTS/CTS (Request to Send, Clear to Send) requests. Protected mode, if set to auto, is triggered when the network detects that some stations cannot 'hear' other stations, and/or collisions (more than one station sending at a time) happens frequently. How this works is as follows. Your PC (let's just say, it works in reverse too) will transmit a RTS to the AP. That request contains all the information about the length of the transmission you want to send, etc. the AP will then transmit a CTS, which includes all the information from the request, plus a confirmation that you're clear to send. The AP does this so that every station on the network knows that someone is transmitting for X ms (whatever was defined in the RTS). All other stations will now wait (or "back off") for AT LEAST that length of time, before attempting to request to send. This is analogous to raising your hand to speak in a classroom. While just blurting out answers is faster, if everyone did that, you would not be able to understand anyone. This, while slowing down the overall transaction time for each message sent, ensures that only one "person" (or station) 'speaks' at a time. This ensures more reliable communication across the network, but can slow it down significantly. If you're in a situation where you have a lot of differing devices with differing capabilities, you may want to consider turning this on. If you're in a situation where you need faster speed of message transaction, you may want to turn this off. cases and results will vary.
Wireless Multimedia (WMM): Also known as WME (Wireless Multimedia Extensions) is an extension of the RTS/CTS found in protected mode. Effectively, what happens is an RTS/CTS request/response occurs, whether or not Protected mode is enabled, however, the main difference here is, rather than sending just one message, the station is requesting time to send a block of messages. - this VASTLY improves overall throughput for the one connection stream, however it greatly delays other transmissions. choose this option carefully. I highly recommend using an Ethernet connection for anything multimedia; but if you must use wireless to connect a media extender, be sure to enable this; I will leave you with a warning, if anyone is doing anything time-sensitive on the network (VoIP or Gaming), and this option is set to ON, they WILL NOTICE a significant drop in responsiveness in their data. For gamers, this phenomenon is referred to as "lag". Reduce LAG by turning off WMM.
There you have it. The comprehensive 'advanced wireless configuration for dummies' guide. I hope this helps some people in choosing the right wireless access points and network configurations. I don't think this is the first time I've posted this. In any case, have a great day, and may all your packets arrive with their checksums intact.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Blackberry 10
Working professionally as an IT technician awards me some interesting circumstances. Fleeting circumstances where I get a glimpse into someone's digital world, only to fix what is requested, and when I am done, walking away from the mess that is their world.
Today, that journey led me into the depths of Blackberry 10.
For those too lazy or tired to read it all, currently, I AM NOT a fan of BB10. the changes made to the data management, though minor, created hours of work for me and a few headaches.
okay, for those ready to follow along, let's ride.
First of all, how it was. It was a confusing mess. SOMETHING NEEDED TO BE DONE. So let us begin.
BIS. Blackberry Internet Service. This was a server/service that was purchased by your mobile telephone service provider, which allowed for blackberry devices on their system to interact with the rest of the world.
All blackberries, with the exception of the Z10 (currently the only BB10 device available), first send their information to the BIS server, before it leaves and goes out towards it's final destination. The purpose of the BIS server is clear: to encrypt and compress all data going to/from each device, and facilitate connection to the internet, email, BBM, etc. Without your mobile service provider having a BIS server, your blackberry would be little more than a really expensive dumbphone. It would be IMPOSSIBLE for any data communication to take place without the BIS server in the mix. This means no internet, no BBM, no messenger apps, no new apps at all, no email, nothing. just phone calls and text messages.
With the implementation of BIS, accounts were necessary to manage your account, for the purposes of transferring settings/restoring backups from a lost device to a new device. You could also login to manage email accounts and other mundane chores you can also find in the depths of the settings and setup menus. This also meant that blackberries were portable, that you could have them on your account, or remove them, transfer your settings to a new device... etc. each blackberry uniquely identified with an 8 digit hexadecimal PIN connected to an account.
Groups of accounts could also be managed under certain circumstances. eg. in business. a business could have a master account to manage several blackberries, each of those blackberries would still have their own account and login username and password. It gets complicated pretty fast, but I think you get the drift.
NEXT, we had the BIS servers, each with their own unique branding, by service provider, able to provide email addresses. Basically, if you were with, for example, Bell (I'm using Bell since it exists both in Canada and the USA), then you may have been able to get a blackberry with an email account like name@bell.blackberry.net - or something similar. The BIS servers would facilitate the delivery of email to/from these addresses and would provide backup for 2 weeks worth of email; this also meant if your blackberry was off, you would still have email, it would just buffer on the server until your device came back online to retrieve it. So now we have two logins for blackberries, one for your BIS account, the next for your email account.
In addition to these logins, you have two places to login to, one for email, one for account management. joy.
a number of years back, blackberry in their infinite wisdom decided to impliment a new account management system, separate from BIS accounts, called BLACKBERRY ID or BBID for short. your BBID would track ALL your email accounts and became a single sign-on to associate all your information, apps, passwords, emails, BBM, etc. all into one point of entry. Which is convenient if you're not near a PC and you want to get rolling as quickly as possible with a new device. get a service contract, setup your BBID, and you're off to the races.
This, of course, makes things confusing, since BIS and BBID basically do similar things, except BBID is a bit more broad, but convoluted, which settings are ACTUALLY backed up and to WHERE? these questions are not easy to answer, however, I do know that the quickest way to migrate from one device to the next was to transfer all the settings using the desktop app, then associate the BBID for the user. almost everything would set itself up. In theory, you never have to touch their BIS account, so many users STILL don't know what their BIS login even IS, nevermind what it can do, or why it would be important to them.
What's important to note here is that your Blackberry email addresses, which almost everyone has, whether they use it or not, plus the device management account, are both on the BIS server. with BBID taking up the rear, managed by Blackberry.
What RIM did with BB10 is to remove the requirement to have a BIS server entirely.
To the people who never even knew they had, or at least had the option of an @blackberry.net email address, and to those on the very high end (corporate-wise), they probably won't notice much of a difference, since corporate blackberries use BES already; more on BES in a minute. it's all the people in the middle that ACTUALLY USED their @blackberry.net email addresses that are going to get screwed by upgrading to 10. They don't even know it's coming.
I spoke to Bell today for a client, the only consolation the tech could offer me for my user was "I can forward from their blackberry.net address to any place you want" - thanks. that's not helpful. not in the situation I was in anyways (I won't explain). Quite frankly, in my opinion, this is a poor business move. quite frankly, the idea that, without anything else, a user could pick up a blackberry and get email for no other reason than they have a blackberry.... that's pretty good. now users will have to resort to one of the many free services, among others, hotmail, yahoo and gmail. Not to knock gmail, I use and love it, but if I want to present that level of professional image, a blackberry address makes a statement.
So, no more mail @blackberry.net. goodbye for good.... at least, until RIM determines it was a terrible idea and lose another massive chunk of market share...
seriously, do they not even realize WHY people buy their devices?
....okay, last note, about BES - BES or Blackberry Enterprise Server, is a separate product designed to integrate with in-house, IT driven mail solutions, such as Exchange, to facilitate Blackberry connectivity to existing accounts. The full version costs thousands to purchase, licence, and deploy, thousands more per year to licence, etc. it's not a great solution unless you're managing several hundred ore more blackberries. For smaller business there's also BES Express, which is a light-weight version of the BES server; runs out of a browser from back-end processes.... but it's free. Either way, the bastards that have a BES server plus exchange won't even notice, and should be able to migrate to BB10 without too much trouble (unless BES needs to be upgraded to support it).
Today, that journey led me into the depths of Blackberry 10.
For those too lazy or tired to read it all, currently, I AM NOT a fan of BB10. the changes made to the data management, though minor, created hours of work for me and a few headaches.
okay, for those ready to follow along, let's ride.
First of all, how it was. It was a confusing mess. SOMETHING NEEDED TO BE DONE. So let us begin.
BIS. Blackberry Internet Service. This was a server/service that was purchased by your mobile telephone service provider, which allowed for blackberry devices on their system to interact with the rest of the world.
All blackberries, with the exception of the Z10 (currently the only BB10 device available), first send their information to the BIS server, before it leaves and goes out towards it's final destination. The purpose of the BIS server is clear: to encrypt and compress all data going to/from each device, and facilitate connection to the internet, email, BBM, etc. Without your mobile service provider having a BIS server, your blackberry would be little more than a really expensive dumbphone. It would be IMPOSSIBLE for any data communication to take place without the BIS server in the mix. This means no internet, no BBM, no messenger apps, no new apps at all, no email, nothing. just phone calls and text messages.
With the implementation of BIS, accounts were necessary to manage your account, for the purposes of transferring settings/restoring backups from a lost device to a new device. You could also login to manage email accounts and other mundane chores you can also find in the depths of the settings and setup menus. This also meant that blackberries were portable, that you could have them on your account, or remove them, transfer your settings to a new device... etc. each blackberry uniquely identified with an 8 digit hexadecimal PIN connected to an account.
Groups of accounts could also be managed under certain circumstances. eg. in business. a business could have a master account to manage several blackberries, each of those blackberries would still have their own account and login username and password. It gets complicated pretty fast, but I think you get the drift.
NEXT, we had the BIS servers, each with their own unique branding, by service provider, able to provide email addresses. Basically, if you were with, for example, Bell (I'm using Bell since it exists both in Canada and the USA), then you may have been able to get a blackberry with an email account like name@bell.blackberry.net - or something similar. The BIS servers would facilitate the delivery of email to/from these addresses and would provide backup for 2 weeks worth of email; this also meant if your blackberry was off, you would still have email, it would just buffer on the server until your device came back online to retrieve it. So now we have two logins for blackberries, one for your BIS account, the next for your email account.
In addition to these logins, you have two places to login to, one for email, one for account management. joy.
a number of years back, blackberry in their infinite wisdom decided to impliment a new account management system, separate from BIS accounts, called BLACKBERRY ID or BBID for short. your BBID would track ALL your email accounts and became a single sign-on to associate all your information, apps, passwords, emails, BBM, etc. all into one point of entry. Which is convenient if you're not near a PC and you want to get rolling as quickly as possible with a new device. get a service contract, setup your BBID, and you're off to the races.
This, of course, makes things confusing, since BIS and BBID basically do similar things, except BBID is a bit more broad, but convoluted, which settings are ACTUALLY backed up and to WHERE? these questions are not easy to answer, however, I do know that the quickest way to migrate from one device to the next was to transfer all the settings using the desktop app, then associate the BBID for the user. almost everything would set itself up. In theory, you never have to touch their BIS account, so many users STILL don't know what their BIS login even IS, nevermind what it can do, or why it would be important to them.
What's important to note here is that your Blackberry email addresses, which almost everyone has, whether they use it or not, plus the device management account, are both on the BIS server. with BBID taking up the rear, managed by Blackberry.
What RIM did with BB10 is to remove the requirement to have a BIS server entirely.
To the people who never even knew they had, or at least had the option of an @blackberry.net email address, and to those on the very high end (corporate-wise), they probably won't notice much of a difference, since corporate blackberries use BES already; more on BES in a minute. it's all the people in the middle that ACTUALLY USED their @blackberry.net email addresses that are going to get screwed by upgrading to 10. They don't even know it's coming.
I spoke to Bell today for a client, the only consolation the tech could offer me for my user was "I can forward from their blackberry.net address to any place you want" - thanks. that's not helpful. not in the situation I was in anyways (I won't explain). Quite frankly, in my opinion, this is a poor business move. quite frankly, the idea that, without anything else, a user could pick up a blackberry and get email for no other reason than they have a blackberry.... that's pretty good. now users will have to resort to one of the many free services, among others, hotmail, yahoo and gmail. Not to knock gmail, I use and love it, but if I want to present that level of professional image, a blackberry address makes a statement.
So, no more mail @blackberry.net. goodbye for good.... at least, until RIM determines it was a terrible idea and lose another massive chunk of market share...
seriously, do they not even realize WHY people buy their devices?
....okay, last note, about BES - BES or Blackberry Enterprise Server, is a separate product designed to integrate with in-house, IT driven mail solutions, such as Exchange, to facilitate Blackberry connectivity to existing accounts. The full version costs thousands to purchase, licence, and deploy, thousands more per year to licence, etc. it's not a great solution unless you're managing several hundred ore more blackberries. For smaller business there's also BES Express, which is a light-weight version of the BES server; runs out of a browser from back-end processes.... but it's free. Either way, the bastards that have a BES server plus exchange won't even notice, and should be able to migrate to BB10 without too much trouble (unless BES needs to be upgraded to support it).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)