Setting up a small server for a school, help needed

[TwOne]

Hello, LTT. I am an intern at a school, and we have about 40 network connected PCs running a custom shell on Windows 7, but also about 5 or 6 standalone PCs, which we might deploy more of. I want to put these standalone PCs in their own network with the server as PXE boot server.

 

The plan is to get a clean image from one of the PCs, and put it on the server, then set the PCs to boot from the network, so we get a clean image that children cannot easily screw up. I told my supervisor I will try to find more info first, as I never really worked with a server outside of Server 2008/2012 in VMware.

 

However, I have almost no clue on how to do this. I have access to an old HP ProLiant ML350 G4p that has god knows what specs, as I am waiting for it to boot into Server 2003 (it's the first boot in years).

 

What OS is the best one to use? Server 2003 is old, and the internet is probably going to be routed through the server anyway (once I figure that out).

 

Specs (from Speccy):

2x Intel Xeon 3.0GHz Irwindale with Hyper-Threading (Socket 604)

3GB DDR2-400MHz

ATI Rage XL PCI 

some Hitachi 135GB hard drive software RAID thing.

 

If you want to know the full specs, Here's a pastebin with the .txt file I got from Speccy.

http://pastebin.com/VZQffW1n

[desertcomputer]

FreeNas is free you can go try that btw shouldn't you get larger HHD? 

[gibbsy81]

Windows Mass Deployment is your friend.

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/a9d526c9-6adf-459e-a031-ccfc927adf36/windows-7-installation-and-deployment-through-network?forum=quebecservicingdeployment

[TwOne]

I updated the OP, it was a little unclear at first.

 

So, I want to make a PXE boot server basically.

However, HP only supports Windows Server 2000 and 2003, Novell NetWare, VMWare Virtualisation and Linux (primarly Red Hat and SuSE).

 

I don't want to run an unsupported OS, because we might assign more features later, that require connection to the internet.

 

EDIT: We have a GeForce G210 around that I could use, it's way better supported than the integrated ATI Rage XL. It doesn't look like it has support for Server 2012 though.

EDIT2: Nope, server only has PCI-Express x8 (like half-length) and PCI-X ports. God I dislike HP now.

[ColonelPanic]

I wouldn't stick with Win2K3, because it no longer receives security updates from Microsoft, and if you're going to have it hooked up to the internet, could have risks.

There IS however an optional download for Windows Deployment Services, which is probably the software you should be using for your PXE boot idea.

 

Where are you getting "HP only supports Windows Server 2000 and 2003, Novell NetWare, VMWare Virtualisation and Linux (primarly Red Hat and SuSE)." from? What exactly isn't supported?

 

If it's the on-board graphics compatibility with other operating systems, then the best thing you can hope to do, is back up the drive (if you're worried about it's contents) and then install a fresh copy of either Win Server 2008R2, or even 2012, and see what works and what doesn't.

 

If you're just looking for a quick solution, keeping Win2K3, then there's a piece of software I've never had the chance to look at, called CCBoot, hopefully somebody here will have heard of it, but it looks like it'll be compatible with 2003.

[dzonidev]

-snip-

 

It's not bad, I mean it works. However free licence is limited to 5pcs. These guys made CCProxy as well I think.

 

-snip-

 

I'm not getting two things, why are you limited to what HP supports and how does connecting to the internet affect things?

 

CCBoot might be the solution for you. Before that try Windows AIK, maybe you can get it to load Windows 7.

 

A word of advice, upgrade. Windows 2003 is relatively fine for giant corporations, they have their own software support and can patch their internal servers. You can't, and you're planing to connect it to the internet.

[Gladiateduke]

What you could try is a program called deepfreez. This will essentially load a fresh image everytime you reboot the computer. If the computer has not been rebooted in a while, you can set it to manually restart either through a gpo (if its attached to a DC), a local group policy or a simple script that will run when all users are logged off. This way, no matter what is done on that computer, when rebooted a fresh image will be loaded and all changes made will be reset. Now there are a few issues with this. First, if a user saves to the c: drive, they will lose all of their work so you will have to have a file server set up for all users to save their work to. Second, you will have to update your anti-virus on the default image and then deploy it to the hosts manually. This means you can just let your anti-virus do the updates automatically and not worry about it.

 

If you do not want to go the deepfreez route, you can look into VMware VMI. This way, all users will have virtual session on a server. When they boot up the computer and log into their account, a virtual session will be made on a server that will run from a default image. This is more resource intensive than deepfreez but might be less of a hassle in the long run. 

 

Sorry if this wasn't what you where looking for but they are suitable alternative to what you had in mind. If you have any questions feel free to pm me or just reply to my post.

 

Good luck!

[Blake]

Hello, LTT. I am an intern at a school, and we have about 40 network connected PCs running a custom shell on Windows 7, but also about 5 or 6 standalone PCs, which we might deploy more of. I want to put these standalone PCs in their own network with the server as PXE boot server.

 

The plan is to get a clean image from one of the PCs, and put it on the server, then set the PCs to boot from the network, so we get a clean image that children cannot easily screw up. I told my supervisor I will try to find more info first, as I never really worked with a server outside of Server 2008/2012 in VMware.

 

However, I have almost no clue on how to do this. I have access to an old HP ProLiant ML350 G4p that has god knows what specs, as I am waiting for it to boot into Server 2003 (it's the first boot in years).

 

What OS is the best one to use? Server 2003 is old, and the internet is probably going to be routed through the server anyway (once I figure that out).

 

Specs (from Speccy):

2x Intel Xeon 3.0GHz Irwindale with Hyper-Threading (Socket 604)

3GB DDR2-400MHz

ATI Rage XL PCI 

some Hitachi 135GB hard drive software RAID thing.

 

If you want to know the full specs, Here's a pastebin with the .txt file I got from Speccy.

http://pastebin.com/VZQffW1n

1. Get rid of windows server 2003. It is EOL. When you leave and the next guy needs to support your system. oh, 2003, I have an issue I need to contact MS about... well out of luck. not something you want in a production environment. Upgrade the RAM a little and throw 2012 R2 (should run fine on this system, 2008 R2 will perform about the same so may as well get something that is supported for longer - http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04284160.pdf worst case would be running ESXi - just grab the HP build on their website and it should run fine - and 2012 R2 on top of that. Assuming you don't already run esxi you can get a free licence for esxi for 1 box).

2. Assuming you have a modern file server, host all the files there, 40 all downloading from that media will take a while (unless you want to have all systems boot in the morning and do the re-install before any kids get into the school).

3. Use MDT to create a thin image, make sure to configure to inject the drivers based on the model/make of the system (if your unsure run 'wmic computersystem get model/make'). Setup MDT on the server. Setup a custom task sequence to auto install the os, domain join, and install any applications that can be installed (some will be easier to deploy through GP).

4. Install Windows Deployment Services on the server, as you are not going to be running dhcp on this system you need to configure the port, see http://windowsitpro.com/networking/configuring-dhcp-and-wds. Get the WinPE iso that MDT makes and load it into WDS.

5. configure all the clients to PXEboot as first preference, and lock it. 

6. Make sure you have folder re-direction enabled, as otherwise the kids will loose all their data/profile every re-boot, which is good, but they want to keep that assignment.

 

for this type of network, don't bother looking at third parties like Deepfreeze, the licence fees will destroy the cost : benefit ratio, your team has better things to spend the money on, you can look into these later on when you have more clients.

 

 

EDIT: We have a GeForce G210 around that I could use, it's way better supported than the integrated ATI Rage XL. It doesn't look like it has support for Server 2012 though.

EDIT2: Nope, server only has PCI-Express x8 (like half-length) and PCI-X ports. God I dislike HP now.

That server is from back when HP was god-tier (their servers are still very good, can't say that about their laptops, desktops or website...), it is pre-dual core, them xeons are single core chips, this is at least 10 years old. There wont be any drivers for the GPU, but just manage it via RSAT and your fine, just run it headless.