Best Practice Ezine #93 Ipconfig -setclassid and seven other switchesThe purpose of this week's
ezine is three fold: - To give readers another chance to download my free ezine.
- To thrown down three more challenges.
- To encourage you to apply my Litmus test idea to life in general.
Three more ChallengesMy Litmus Test theory predicts that Professionals can find and configure the following ipconfig commands. Meanwhile, amateurs will struggle to get the switches working.
1) Ipconfig check the eight switches:
all, release, renew, displaydns, flushdns, registerdns, setclassid and showclassidAmateurs are not aware that Ipconfig has switches. Professionals regularly select the best Ipconfig switch for the job. You may have been
using Ipconfig to troubleshoot TCP/IP since NT 4.0. Yet you may not have noticed that Microsoft have gradually extended the range of Ipconfig switches from
Ipconfig /all Ipconfig /release and /renew
To include a family of DNS
troubleshooting switches.
Ipconfig / displaydns, flushdns and registerdns Hardly a week goes by without -flushdns helps me to cure a connection problem. What -flushdns does is delete stale cached information. Bear with me if fall back on the backslash instead of the hyphen,
for example ipconfig /displaydns works, but purists wrap my knuckles for not using
the modern,
ipconfig -displaydns. DNS has a trilogy of Ipconfig switches, -registerdns being the final member of the trio. Resuming my theme that Ipconfig keeps on developing new capabilities, Vista has a
new switch called Ipconfig -allcompartments.
Windows Server Training
Ipconfig -setclassidWhile all IT staff probably know of Ipconfig, I bet that
few could name all eight switches. For example, hardly anyone uses -setclassid. The idea behind setclassid is to create two or three User Classes. The point is that you can then give
machines different DHCP options, for example a desktop class and a laptop class. To give a more specific example, managers' machines could have a default gateway to allow internet connection but other machines
are confined to the company network. What the setclassid does is tell a client (XP) machine at boot up which classid to pick up from the DHCP server.
This is a gross digression, but it is does have a relevant point. I once knew an Irishman called Paddy. It was winter in Ireland, and every day he went out into the wood next to his house and dug a hole,
then filled it in. It seemed truly pointless, at least to me. When I questioned Paddy he said he dug the holes just to keep his hand in as every spring he came over to England and worked Tar-Macadaming
the roads. You see there was no work for Paddy in Ireland in the winter, and at that time his road gang only worked in the summers. Now when it came to hiring men for the spring job in England, who
do you think was the first name on the foreman's list? You don't have to be a mastermind champion to work out that it was Paddy. Now the convoluted relevance is that you could keep your skills
up-to-date by setting up setclassid, actually it's quite a challenge to configuring the DHCP end. Who knows, you may even discover a killer use for this setclassid switch.
I
have prepared detailed instructions on creating classids here. 2) Netstat -obe I selected Netstat -obe just because I like the acronym
-OBE (Order of the British Empire).
Seriously, with switches you often need someway of remembering obscure letter combinations. The real meaning is, O for owner, B is the executable and E is for Ethernet stats. Netstat is handy for gathering information for troubleshooting and -obe filters the information to a size that I can absorb with
one glance.
Calculating IP Address
ranges is a black art, which many network managers solve by creating custom
Excel spreadsheets. IPAT cracks this problem of allocating IP addresses
in networks in two ways:
For Mr Organized there is a nifty subnet
calculator, you enter the network address and the subnet mask, then IPAT
works out the usable addresses and their ranges.
For Mr Lazy IPAT
discovers and then displays the IP addresses of existing computers.
Download the Free IP Address Tracker
Shoe salesman. A non-computing example of a Litmus test.Over the
last three week's my mission has been to introduce the concept of Guy's Litmus tests. I expect that you have noticed that most of my examples have a serious business purpose, yet I hope you pickup on their lighter aspect
of having fun while learning. My greatest hope is that you will actively look for Litmus tests of your own. Moreover, you can apply this Litmus test idea to every walk of life. To finish this topic, I have distilled a recent test from
a visit to a shoe shop. Suppose you are
faced with a choice between a $40 shoe, which is comfortable, but is last year's model, or the very latest design that costs $75, has the more fashionable logos, but cramps your toes. The amateur assistant says, 'The $75 shoe
looks really smart and your toes will soon adjust to the shoe'. They lie, if a shoe is uncomfortable when you buy it the problem always gets worse, never better. The professional assistant says, 'If
it is really more comfortable, choose the $40 shoe'. They say this because the assistant knows there is a good chance you will return to their shop for more shoes.
If you are looking for handy network utilities, try some of the free downloads at
Tools4Ever
Will and Guy's Humour
Appropriately, this week we feature - 39 Things you should know by now
See more interesting DNS, DHCP and IP articles
• E 194 Delete Accounts •
E 136 IPv6 •
E 93 Ipconfig • E 52 Wins • E 51 WINS •
Ezines
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E 44 DHCP •
E 42 DNS • E
33 DHCP • E 32 Tools •
Free CSV Import
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8 Security Permissions • Free
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Review of Permissions
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