Lesson_7_Basic_windows_administration

#What does system administration mean

Typically system administration covers anything from creating a network to managing a domain controller. So instead of covering system administration which is more about managing bigger network we are going to talk about managing home networks which typically have windows as their main OS.  

#Things to take into account when evaluating the physical setup of your home network

The first thing to keep in mind when dealing with the setup of your network at home is what kind of range devices have and where you place things at. You need to know the range of devices so that for example if you have a wireless access point with a range of 100 Feet, it should be placed in the middle of the general area people will access it from not in a closet in some remote rarely visited part of the home. By knowing the area of coverage  things can be set up so that you have the same quality of connection in most of your home instead of having random coverage or needing to buy a lot more wireless access points you can just maximize a select number of them. Something else you should be aware of is what different parts of your home is made off because things like concrete will greatly reduce the strength of a signal ensuring you should just use an Ethernet cable to provide internet connection to places like that. Next cable placement which covers not only where you put the cable but how you secure it is also important since improperly placed cables are a trip hazard and will make it far more likely that your cables (power, Ethernet and etc ...) get yanked out or messed with by any pets or children that are over.  

#Logical setup of your home network 

Now when it comes to your home laptops and desktops in most homes these machines will have a windows operating system. The first thing you should ensure you do is have at least three separate accounts comprised of Administrator, User and a Guest account. A guest account is in place so that when you have visitors over you have an account they can use to browse the web but not change or download anything on your computer. You do this so that your well meaning guest do not cause any lasting harm/damage with strange programs they installed. Next the user account will be one you create for each person who uses your computer, it will be an account to log in on for everyday use. This account is created so you can first ensure someone can only install software by logging in as administrator and second so that files created by each person that uses the/each computer will not be accidentally looked at/modified by any other normal user. Another benefit is that you ensure that if a normal users account becomes compromised less damage will probably be caused in comparison to if the administrator account was compromised. Lastly the administrator account is there so that to make sure there is only one account that can be used to install things, that can access everyone's files and can make serious changes to the computer. Also when it comes to your home network make sure the range of any wireless access points/routers you have do not extend to the outside of your place since it makes it easy for any random passerby to access your network. 

#Maintaining your home setup and trying to ensure it is operating efficiently 

Once you have ensured that your network is setup in a way so that only a select few administrator user accounts have complete control of your personal computers and that the physical placement of cables and devices help ensure cables are not accidentally knocked down or placed in an area that gives a better WiFi signals to anyone located outside your home instead of someone inside. You will need to choose one set time to look for and do all of your updates so that you can not only keep track of what you have installed, what needs to be updated but also make sure that you do not have any out of date or a particularly vulnerable version piece of software. Something else worth doing setting permissions on certain folders or files if you want everyone who uses your computer to be able to/have to read/interact with/edit a file or folder. This is a way to ensure that you can put out information to approved users by just having them check a folder they all have read access to and will contain a file/files about changes like I moved your pictures here or the new password for our wireless is this. Lastly make sure to leverage windows built in firewall since it allows you to explicitly state what programs can and cannot access/make use of your network. While normal antivirus should still be used, strictly controlling what can interact with remote machines is important and should be monitored so that nothing is able to share information/have access to your network if you do not allow it. 

#Documentation best practices 

There are five things you should almost always keep records of to make life easier for yourself in the future when you will more than likely have to do again. First make sure to document how to do things like choose what programs windows firewall will allow, how to set certain settings through the command line and if necessary through the gui. Documenting how to do things ensures that you do not have to worry about remembering everything and can instead just quickly go to your collection to see how do I set an IP, or how to configure a router so that it will send traffic from one vlan to the next vlan. Next you should document what problems you face and how you fixed them so that you never have to struggle to fix the same problem twice, by just going to your collection of records/documents. The third thing you should document is a general outline of how your network is setup, things like your ip addresses scheme would be recorded here but not passwords so that while looking at this document will let anyone know the layout of your network it will not give them credentials. It is important to have a document/map of your network so anytime you have a question or wonder where something is or what something is you can just reference this instead of going just off of memory.  Fourth you should keep a record of the point of contact for each piece of equipment you interact with and what equipment they are the designated to answer questions on (normally the company responsible for/creators of the equipment will have a helpdesk and sometimes you will find a particularly knowledgeable individual through it so you should make sure to keep a way to contact them and stay in their good graces since they will probably be able to help you when it comes to dealing with their equipment in a more efficient manner than most of their coworkers). This is a good habit to keep so that say 3 years after you meet a cisco expert if you kept up a connection with them and suddenly needed help with cisco because you stayed in their good graces and kept their contact information you can now just contact them for help. If they are unable to answer your question they should be able to point you in the right direction which may be a person, site or particular document about it. The Last thing you should always document is a general summary of everything you did, on what computer you did it on and the approximate time. By doing this you will have a timeline you can use to figure out when problems occur or what changes may be the reason a problem happened or was fixed accidentally. 

#Conclusion

This has been a general overview of some basic home administration/management things you can do to help ensure it is operating more efficiently. While most of these things are not windows specific by the time a person has become comfortable enough with other operating systems like linux they will have stumbled across most of these problems and figured them out the hard way. Just keep in mind to know the capabilities of the devices you use and how to best utilize them so that none of them are wasted, document things to help yourself keep track and do it again later. Lastly don't give every account complete control of your machines and also do not use an account that has complete control unless you are actually making changes.