1. Lecture 4:
Clients &
Workstations
Network Design & Administration

2. Overview
• What are Workstations / Client machines?
• Anything that an actual user sits at!
• Potentially Windows 7 Professional / Ultimate,
Network Design & Administration
Vista Business / Ultimate, XP Professional, Linux
and OS X.
• Have to be able to communicate with Servers
and use their services – otherwise standalone.
• Much more likely to cause problems because
user is directly involved.
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3. New Workstations
• May already be bought with an operating system
on.
• Generally need to install OS if:
• Home version of OS – unsatisfactory.
Network Design & Administration
• Not corporate standard – e.g. Vista rather than
Windows 7.
• User preference – only if corporation allows
• Need multiple boot.
• Bought bare – will use volume licencing.
• Want to ensure consistency. i.e. starting from a 3
known state[1].

4. What do you get?
• Microsoft – basic versions of standard tools. E.g.
works, outlook express…
• Linux – full set of free standard tools.
• Apple – complete turnkey system.
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• Microsoft expect you to buy full Office suite and
use Exchange server if used within a corporate
environment.
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5. Life and Death of a
Workstation[2]
New
Rebuild
Update
Build
Entropy
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Initialise Unknown
Clean Configured
Debug
Retire
Off
• Computer is only usable in a configured state.
• Entropy occurs as workstation gets modified over time (failed
installs, malware, inappropriate software). 5
• Need to have processes / procedures to bring back to
configured state as efficiently as possible.

6. User Expectations
• A configured machine must:
• Have the corporate standard word processing
package, in the standard corporate setup (e.g. with
foreign language support if required by business).
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• Allow use of the standard email package with no
extra user initialisation.
• Have any business-specific software already
installed.
• Have any corporate purchased anti-virus, anti-
spam, malware software.
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• Have appropriate web access.

7. User Expectations
• The workstation must not:
• Force the user to do anything except log on to
start working.
• Allow the user to install their own choices of
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packages (unless authorised).
• Encourage the user to keep files locally. i.e. it
must, wherever possible, default to sending work
to file servers.
• It may be worthwhile to provide users with a do /
don’t list when they first get a new workstation. 7

8. File System Formats
Historical (nearly)
Still used
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Necessary for servers
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9. Hard disk geometry[4]
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• Hard disks usually have a number of platters contained within them.
• Each side of a platter is used and will have it’s own read/write head.
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• Each surface will contain a number of tracks and sectors.

10. Magnetic Disks[4]
Network Design & Administration
• Example of two sectors on a portion of a disk track
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11. File Allocation Table Example
Boot Sector FS Info FAT 1 FAT 2 Data
Directory
Table
Cluster Next Cluster Cluster size is usually between 2KB and 32KB
Start 2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 … 2
autoexec.bat of file
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cmd.com 3 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 … 3
…
4 7 56 A3 AA 09 7C 32 C0 0C 8A … 4
5 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 … 5
6 FFFF C3 FA 77 09 4A 32 1A BB FF FF 6
7 10 3F 33 6E 23 5D 10 19 FB 84 … 7
8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 … 8
9 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 … 9
10 6 56 33 77 09 77 32 11 00 84 … 10
11 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 … 11
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12 87 45 22 56 78 44 88 99 34 … 12
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12. Installing the OS
• There are a number of ways of doing this:
• Locally – by typing in parameters as prompted
during the process (media option)
• Using Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK)
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• Can deploy from:
• Media (unattended flash drive/ISO/DVD)
• Network (deploy image via a network)
• Server (deploy via a server)
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13. Windows Systems Image
Manager Architecture[3]
Network Design & Administration
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14. SIM Interface[3]
Network Design & Administration
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15. Integrating Linux
• Easy to add Windows workstations to an Active Directory Domain!
• It is not so easy to integrate other Operating Systems (e.g. Linux)
Considerations for integrating Linux:
1. Authenticate against the AD server
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• Setup Kerberos package (install using apt-get)
• Configure Kerberos with realm for domain
• Configure key server and domain details
• Generate a new Kerberos ticket
2. Setup SMB file access (via Samba)
• Configure smb.conf with realm details
3. Configure nsswitch.conf
• Add WINS, DNS and BIND information
4. Join domain. 15
5. Still have to set up file shares etc!

16. Summary
• Many different methods of installation.
• Can depend on starting point (e.g. upgrade or
bare machine)
• More automation has more pre-requisites.
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• Increased automation reduces Total Cost of
Ownership (TCO)
• This is critical in a business environment.
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17. Next Time & References
• Corporate architecture
• Domains and Active Directory Domain Services
[1] “The Practice of System and Network Administration”, Limoncelli,
Network Design & Administration
Chapter 3.1.1.4
[2] “The Practice of System and Network Administration”, Limoncelli, p42,
Figure 3.1 (from Evard, 1997)
[3] Windows SIM architecture, Microsoft help file (WAIK)
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766157%28WS.10%29.aspx)
[4] “Structured Computer Organisation”, Andrew Tanenbaum, 2006
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