YeOldeStonecat
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 6,691
- Location
- Englewood Florida
So I get a call from a small law firm yesterday....I knew the guy, years ago he moved into a new office and called us to quote "installing his system"..wiring, etc etc. Guess our quote was too high, never heard from him. He went with a competitor. Since then that competitor got out of doing his "side business" of IT...went to work for some big place, so this lawyer had basically been doing the little IT things himself.
So he calls me yesterday morning first thing..saying he lost internet and his phones the afternoon prior, spent tons of time with ISP support trying to figure it out, nothing works unless plugged into cable modem.
So I get there...and get shown his server closet. Basically server and network stuff in the small kitchen. Old Dell rack mount server mounted to the wall sideways with leftover cabinet lumber. 20+ year old patch cables (cat5) coming down out of ceiling, horribly done terminations...straight into old PowerConnect switch.
Netgear residential wndr4500 or something router.
Cisco valet residential grade router hanging off that (from wan port) for wireless
Netgear 5 port switch between cable modem and Netgear router.
I plug my laptop into one of the LAN ports of the main Netgear router... no DHCP running. I shake the mouse on the server to wake it up, log in..all sorts of errors, 0 bytes free on C drive, very naked desktop, event viewer 99.9% red entries. All I want to do is find out the IP setup of the network. He doesn't know.
So I bring up network properties of the server, and as I do that...I notice that it is Microsoft Small Business Server 2011. I bring up TCP/IP properties..and it's set to "obtain auto!"
I turn and ask him.."Did Atlantic BroadBand support have you change this?" He nods "Yes".
I chuckle! And give him the speech "never let ISP support past anything else that playing with your modem! Don't let them have you change a router or anything on your network..ever!"
So...what IP was the server? Of course he doesn't know. And no "notes" left from the prior IT guy. So I bring up DNSMGMT and look for the a-record for the server...now I know what its IP was.
I bring up DHCP....and that confirms what the IP was (would be the DNS server to hand out to clients)..and it tells me the gateway, 10.50.10.254.
So now I can configure the servers TCP/IP back to what it should be...I bounce a bunch of services and they come alive again. Slowly. Ain't rebooting this server yet with 0 bytes free on C drive.
I ping the gateway...no reply.
I ask him if the ISP support had him reset the router..he nods "yes".
Nutgear default IP should be 192.168.1.1...so I add second IP to server....ping it, get replies. Go to log in...nada. No user/pass challenge. Run a hard reset of the router...still no love. Yup it's dead.
He has an old wrt54gl over on the shelf..I grab that, configure it...temp internet access and network working ..while I run back to HQ to snag an EdgeRouter and a Unifi..and dash back and swap out.
Rewire network a bit more streamlined, all computers/printers/phones back in action. Phones were ring central. And free up some space on the servers C drive.
Between my two trips back 'n forth, and trying to figure out his network without notes, and with so many things reset to default...there's a lesson there for businesses. What should have been a quick 1x hour + hardware cost bill..turn into a 4 hour bill. What a mess!
Hopefully I can reel this guy in as a regular....he had just moved his e-mail off of the SBS box to O365...so I can add him over to our CSP soon. Get some backups going...some basic MSP I hope.
So he calls me yesterday morning first thing..saying he lost internet and his phones the afternoon prior, spent tons of time with ISP support trying to figure it out, nothing works unless plugged into cable modem.
So I get there...and get shown his server closet. Basically server and network stuff in the small kitchen. Old Dell rack mount server mounted to the wall sideways with leftover cabinet lumber. 20+ year old patch cables (cat5) coming down out of ceiling, horribly done terminations...straight into old PowerConnect switch.
Netgear residential wndr4500 or something router.
Cisco valet residential grade router hanging off that (from wan port) for wireless
Netgear 5 port switch between cable modem and Netgear router.
I plug my laptop into one of the LAN ports of the main Netgear router... no DHCP running. I shake the mouse on the server to wake it up, log in..all sorts of errors, 0 bytes free on C drive, very naked desktop, event viewer 99.9% red entries. All I want to do is find out the IP setup of the network. He doesn't know.
So I bring up network properties of the server, and as I do that...I notice that it is Microsoft Small Business Server 2011. I bring up TCP/IP properties..and it's set to "obtain auto!"
I turn and ask him.."Did Atlantic BroadBand support have you change this?" He nods "Yes".
I chuckle! And give him the speech "never let ISP support past anything else that playing with your modem! Don't let them have you change a router or anything on your network..ever!"
So...what IP was the server? Of course he doesn't know. And no "notes" left from the prior IT guy. So I bring up DNSMGMT and look for the a-record for the server...now I know what its IP was.
I bring up DHCP....and that confirms what the IP was (would be the DNS server to hand out to clients)..and it tells me the gateway, 10.50.10.254.
So now I can configure the servers TCP/IP back to what it should be...I bounce a bunch of services and they come alive again. Slowly. Ain't rebooting this server yet with 0 bytes free on C drive.
I ping the gateway...no reply.
I ask him if the ISP support had him reset the router..he nods "yes".
Nutgear default IP should be 192.168.1.1...so I add second IP to server....ping it, get replies. Go to log in...nada. No user/pass challenge. Run a hard reset of the router...still no love. Yup it's dead.
He has an old wrt54gl over on the shelf..I grab that, configure it...temp internet access and network working ..while I run back to HQ to snag an EdgeRouter and a Unifi..and dash back and swap out.
Rewire network a bit more streamlined, all computers/printers/phones back in action. Phones were ring central. And free up some space on the servers C drive.
Between my two trips back 'n forth, and trying to figure out his network without notes, and with so many things reset to default...there's a lesson there for businesses. What should have been a quick 1x hour + hardware cost bill..turn into a 4 hour bill. What a mess!
Hopefully I can reel this guy in as a regular....he had just moved his e-mail off of the SBS box to O365...so I can add him over to our CSP soon. Get some backups going...some basic MSP I hope.
