Zsoldier's Tech Blog

So I have 3 accounts total on a single domain. One that is a domain admin, one that is a general server admin, and my day-to-day login account. Interesting issues occur when you run this way. One issue I came across was trying to install the OSD tools on my local SMS Console. My day to day account has administrative privileges to my local machine, but every time I tried installing the OSD tools I would get an error, " This product requires Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or greater " like pictured below: Pretty much anything I tried, I would get stopped by this error message. I then tried running the install by my server admin account. SUCCESS! It seems that OSD tool installer actually makes a connection to the server to check SP level which I guess can't be pulled down w/ my day to day accounts rights.

Not sure if this is mentioned anywhere, but when you create a SMS Protected Distribution Point (PDP) with no boundaries, it seems to default itself as a Distribution Point (DP) for the subnet that it is located on. For example, if the server has an IP Address of 192.168.1.25 /24, the server becomes a DP for 192.168.1.0 even w/ no boundaries defined. Until a boundary is defined, the server is just considered a DP for 192.168.1.0. When a boundary is defined, then the server is marked as a PDP. Interestingly enough, even if the defined boundary is 192.168.2.0, the server then becomes a PDP for both 192.168.2.0 and 192.168.1.0. This is at least what I have experienced/observed from SMS 2003 SP3, the DPInfo table, and Swimage in SQL. [Update]: This may be a Swimage related issue only. Swimage may only be looking at the IPSubnets column of the DPInfo table to determine which DP it should pull it's packages from.

So I'm trying to connect my mac to a 802.1x record. Being as techinical as I am, I go about trying to set it up through Network Preferences... --> Advanced... blah blah blah... Needless to say, every time I tried setting it up through the advanced method, it would never save the setting "Enable 802.1x Login". In the end all I had to do was click "Join Other Network", type the SSID, and select 802.1x WEP for security. Typed my username and password and bam!! I'm in... It's a strange feeling when you're so used to doing what is somewhat technical in the windows world and the mac just comes, slaps you in the face, and says "Now wasn't that easy?"