Mastering NT Server

A two-day guide to designing, configuring, running, and repairing networks based on NT Server in combination with Windows 95/98, NetWare, and corporate intranets

Note: this course is currently only offered as an on-site seminar; please contact our office at Assistant@Minasi.com or (757) 426-1431 between 1-5 Eastern time weekdays for prices and schedule information
What's Inside...

Why is this the best NT network administration course for you?

If you're like many companies, you've either replaced your old network servers with NT server machines, or you've added NT server machines to your current network. The number of servers running NT has grown at triple the rate it did in the previous year, and with good reason -- NT's got a lot to offer.
But once you start installing those machines, you probably discovered what many businesses have: qualified NT administrators don't exactly grow on trees. The shortage of NT administrators has lead some people to demand (and get) outrageous salaries for their NT expertise. Most of us can't afford that, so what's the alternative? Simple: teach your existing network administrators how to run an NT network.
This course is designed to provide succinct, right-to-the-point technical skills transfer: in three days.  Your staff will be able to install NT Server on a machine, create and manage user accounts, design and implement security to protect your data, control and troubleshoot shared printers, and take charge of your domain’s servers and workstations with the built-in NT tools.
You'll learn from the entertaining lecture style of instructor Mark Minasi.  Mark is the author of Mastering Windows NT Server, a book which has consistently outsold all other NT books in version 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0. Mark also writes the popular Inside Out, En Garde, and This Old Resource Kit columns for Windows NT Magazine. Both Computerworld and BYTE magazines have cited Mark’s opinions when writing about NT. Come to Mastering NT Server and benefit from his experience, in person!
The information you receive in this seminar comes from an independent source, industry consultants who do not work for either Microsoft or Novell.

This seminar is for you if…

  • You are going to install, or are considering installing an NT Server system.
  • You are a network manager at a firm using NT Server.
  • You are a user support person at a firm using NT Server.
  • You manage user and LAN support people.
  • You are a user of Windows NT and need to know more about how it works, and how to make it work better.

Key benefits from attending this seminar

1. Learn how to master NT; getting more out of NT Server and Windows NT
2. Learn how to configure client/requester software for workstations running DOS, Windows, Windows for Workgroups, NT, and Windows 95/98 on an NT Server (NTS) network
3. Find out how to manage a network containing both Novell NetWare and NT Server servers
4. Understand the roles of NT's DNS and WINS servers
5. See how to design a domain model that works best for your organization
6. Know how to build a disaster recovery plan for your enterprise network, and how to recover from failures under NT Server.
7. Understand which NTS functions sound good, but require NT workstations in order to use them
8. Learn how to utilize DHCP and WINS in your TCP/IP environment
9. Understand how to create user accounts on NTS, set user/group permissions for files, directories, and printers, control shared printing under NT Server, build a printer pool
10. Understand how to create a server directory structure that will enable you to provide all the data access that you need, but that preserves your security options
11. Grasp the concepts of Microsoft enterprise networking, including groups, NBT, NetBIOS, NDIS, profiles, trust relationships, domains, the hive, and the system registry
12. Know the limitations of NTS - what can't it do yet? What will future versions of NT bring?
13. Build the skills necessary to plan an enterprise network incorporating NTS
14. See how to support remote logon via modem or ISDN connection to an NT server with Dial-Up Networking/RAS.
15. Find out how to write logon scripts for NT Server.
16. Know the details of hooking up your Macintosh computers to NT Server.
17. Learn how to use the command line "NET" interface to control workstations under DOS and OS/2
18. Understand the differences between disk mirroring, disk striping with parity, and directory replication.
Your course handbook – over eight hundred pages of essential information

The course handbook is Mastering Windows NT Server 4.0 by course director Mark Minasi. This seminar is taught from the first ten chapters of this best-selling book, which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in its three versions. Filled with real-world advice, and step-by-step "How Do I" sections, this book has been cited for its extreme readability.

Comprehensive Seminar Outline

I. NT Server Overview

NT Server (NTS) is Microsoft's flagship networking product, part of a line of products that include LAN Manager and Windows for Workgroups. In this first section, you'll learn what NT Server can do that previous Microsoft networking products could not.
A. NTS capabilities
1. Multithreaded multitasking
2. NetBIOS and TCP/IP options
3. Massive memory space
4. NDIS protocol support
5. RAID support
6. Macintosh connectivity
B. Enterprise networking features
1. Event and account logging
2. Remote access services (no more Carbon Copying to the network!)
3. Domain and workgroup-based administration features
4. Protocol compatibility with 3+ Open, LAN Manager, Windows for Workgroups, and OS/2 LAN Server
5. Relatively low price for server and client software
6. NetWare connectivity
7. Centralized user profiles

II. Microsoft Enterprise Networking Basic Concepts

All of the Microsoft networking products share a whole bunch of scary-sounding terms like "SMB," "Domain," "NetBIOS," and the like. In this section, you'll become fluent in "speaking Microsoft."
A. Domains and Workgroups
1. Simple networks: networks without domains or workgroups
2. Problems with simple networks
3. Network browsing and name services
4. Microsoft's name service: the browser and workgroups
5. Security in workgroups
6. Centralized security: domains
B. Network citizens
1. User names
2. Machine names
3. Passwords
C. LAN protocols made easy
1. Network board drivers
2. Network binding interface (NDIS, ODI)
3. Transport protocols (NetBEUI, IPX, TCP/IP, DLC)
4. Network API (NetBIOS, WinSock, IPX sockets)
5. Network applications (redirectors, shells, network file system, mounters)

III. Installing NT and NT Server

Installing NT Server is simple ... if you do your homework beforehand. This section provides a step-by-step plan for getting a single server up and running. This section is also valuable if you are installing NT on a workstation.
A. Preparing the memory
B. Preparing the disk
C. Setting up the LAN card(s)
1. Initial setup
2. Adjusting the network settings with Control Panel
D. Choosing and installing network protocols
1. Initial setup
2. Adjusting the protocol settings with Control Panel
3. Rearranging binding order
E. Post-Setup setup
F. Choosing and interfacing a UPS
G. Cautions for backing up data before starting the installation
H. Choosing a domain name
I. Choosing NTFS, HPFS, or FAT
J. Setting administrative options
K. Choosing a page file size
L. Installing client software
1. DOS
2. Windows/Windows 95
3. OS/2
M. Installing NT on workstations over the network with WINNT.EXE

IV. Using the Disk Administrator

The Disk Administrator allows you to set up drives other than the boot volume. The Administrator lets you choose how you wish to format your drive and control a number of advanced and fault-tolerant features. In this section, you'll learn how to combine multiple drives into a single "volume set," and how to set up stripe sets, stripe sets with parity, and disk mirrors, and what you'll need in the way of hardware before you can implement those features.
A. Working with NTFS
1. Creating an NTFS volume
2. Long name support
3. Extended attributes and file forks
B. Spanning multiple hard disks with volume sets
1. With previously unused space
2. Using volume sets to enlarge the size of an existing drive without losing data
C. Using stripe sets to increase disk throughput
1. Creating a stripe set
2. Deleting a stripe set
D. Implementing directory replicators
1. What is a directory replication?
2. Setting up directory replication
E. Keeping your data safe with RAID
1. RAID level 1 setup
2. Recovering data from a damaged mirror drive
3. RAID level 5 setup
4. Regenerating data from a damaged stripe

V. Controlling your server with the Registry Editor

Now that your NT server is up and running, you'll have to start "tweaking" it. In earlier Microsoft products, you learned to work with a cumbersome multitude of INI files. Under NT, there's a new option: the registry. The system's registry replaces all the old INI files that you've grown to know (and dislike) under Windows and DOS, using instead a database of configuration information. You work with the registry with the Registry Editor, an application supplied with NT. It doesn't show up on any groups, but it's of paramount importance in customizing how your system works and looks. Knowing how to manipulate the registry database is essential for anyone supporting NT or NT Server.
A. What is the Registry editor?
1. Understanding the Registry Editor
2. Starting up the Registry Editor
3. Using the Registry Editor
4. An example: changing the logon screen in your server
B. Standard registry items
C. The hive
1. Understanding the Registry Editor
2. Starting up the Registry Editor
3. Using the Registry Editor
4. An example: changing the logon screen in your server

VI. Creating and managing user accounts

A network administrator must create user accounts. You'll use the User Manager for Domains (UMD) to manage user accounts, adding and deleting users, modifying user access rights, and writing logon scripts. The UMD allows you to control with which other domains you have a trust relationship - a linchpin of enterprise networking. The UMD is part of a trio (including the File Manager and the Print Manager) of programs that secure your network; this section shows you how to use it.
A. User Manager for Domains features
B. Creating/deleting users
1. Assigning groups
2. Passwords, times, and permissible logon locations
3. Creating home directories and logon scripts
4. Advanced user rights
5. Auditing user actions
C. Building logon scripts
1. Using the logon script variables
2. Sample logon scripts
D. Managing groups
1. Local versus global groups
2. Creating and deleting groups
3. Types of predefined groups
E. Managing trust relationships
1. What is a trust relationship?
2. When to establish trust relationships
3. Permitting another domain to trust a domain
4. Trusting another domain

VII. Creating and managing shared directories

One of the major reasons to have a network in the first place is to share data - but not to share too much! Unravel the mysteries of share-level versus directory-level permissions in this section. Find out in this section how to set up a server that can as easily manage the files of five users as five hundred.
A. Designing disk structures on a server
1. User rights and privileges
2. A sample server disk structure
B. Sharing disks and directories
1. Sharing a directory
2. Setting access privileges
3. Making a directory visible to only one user
4. Controlling access rights for a single file
C. Creating false directory roots
D. Putting "hidden" shared directories on the network
E. Auditing disk access

VIII. Creating Shared Printing Services on NT Networks

Like all networks, NT Server offers print sharing capabilities. But NTS includes some new and powerful features not found in other systems, as well as the inevitable support problems. You'll learn here how to keep the shared printers up and running on your network.
A. New print sharing features under NT Server
1. NT workstations do not need printer drivers
2. Direct support of printers with network interfaces
3. Totally integrated printer support in one program
B. Setting up a shared printer
1. Loading the printer driver
2. Configuring the printer driver
3. Setting share names
4. Pooling printers for faster output
C. Connecting to a shared printer
1. From DOS
2. From Windows for Workgroups
3. From Windows
4. From OS/2
5. From NT
D. Controlling access to the printer
1. Ensuring that you can control permissions on a printer
2. Setting print job priorities
3. Hiding a shared printer
4. Setting printing hours
5. Logging and auditing printer usage
E. Creating separator pages
F. Setting time-outs for DOS workstations
G. Solving common shared printing problems

IX. Connecting PC Workstations to an NT network

Like all networks, NT Server offers print sharing capabilities. But NT includes some new and powerful features not found in other systems, as well as the inevitable printer support problems. You’ll learn here how to keep the shared printers up and running, connect clients to them, and to leverage the new features that NT brings to printer sharing
A. Attaching DOS workstations
B. Attaching Windows for Workgroups workstations
C. Attaching Windows 95 workstations
D. Attaching Windows NT workstations

X. Connecting Macs to NT Networks

Making your Mac share a server with your PCs has never been easier than with NT Macintosh File Services. Mac support software comes right in the box for NT; here's how to use it.
A. Preparing the server to support your Mac
B. Setting up the Mac for NT connection
C. Transferring data between Macs and PCs with NT Server

XI. Using the Server Manager Program

Where the User Manager controls long-term user access, and the File and Print Managers provide long-term resource access control, the Server Manager is a utility that allows minute-by-minute monitoring and control of user access and relationships between servers. The Server Manager is also the tool that allows you to take remote control of data sharing on other servers.
A. Server Manager capabilities
1. View who's using a server
2. View resources used on that server
3. Change available resources on local or remote server
4. Send messages to users
5. Send alerts to workstations
6. Add or remove servers to the domain
7. Control directory replication
B. Viewing a server
1. Used resources
2. Active shares
C. Sending alerts to a workstation
D. Sending messages to users
E. Disconnecting users from a server
F. Managing domain members
1. NT Servers
2. NT workstations
3. LAN Manager servers
4. Creating backup domain controllers
5. Synchronizing security databases
G. Remotely changing shared resources on another server
H. Starting and stopping services
1. What are the services?
2. Important services
I. Scheduling events for predetermined time
1. How to set up a scheduled event
2. Example: a prescheduled tape backup

XII. Designing and Managing Multi-Domain NT Networks

Now that you know how to run an NT network, next you'll learn how to design and run an NT enterprise network. In this chapter, you'll see how to use the NT domain model and trust relationships to build as big a network as you need - and you'll see how to keep it under control!
A. Trust relationships
1. What they do
2. Creating them
B. Extending rights and permissions across domains
1. Extending file permissions with the File Manager
2. Extending share permissions with Server Manager
C. Managing users across domains
1. Multiple accounts/users
2. Single accounts in multiple domains
D. Managing groups across domains
1. Local groups
2. Global groups
E. Design criteria for multi-domain NT networks
1. Domain limitations
2. Domain models

XIII. NetWare Connectivity with NT Server

Novell NetWare owns most of the file server world, but database servers are becoming just as important as file servers and there are more programming tools for NT or OS/2 than for NetWare. This means that many of us will have networks built of NetWare file servers and LAN Manager or NT Server database servers. In this section, you'll learn how to make Novell NetWare and NT Server work together.
A. Installing NWLINK
B. Pros and cons of installing the IPX/SPX stacks
C. Troubleshooting NWLINK
D. Administering NT Server and Novell NetWare from a single workstation
E. NetWare 3.12 and 4.01 considerations

XIV. TCP/IP and Internetting with NT

More and more networks are using TCP/IP for its LAN/WAN flexibility and interoperability with the Internet and corporate intranets. While Internet management has been the province of UNIX systems for years, NT now includes the tools to build a secure internet/intranet. Learn how in this section.
A. TCP basics
1. IP addresses
2. Subnet masks
3. Routing with NT
B. Troubleshooting NWLINK
C. Administering NT Server and Novell NetWare from a single workstation
D. NetWare 3.12 and 4.01 considerations

XV. Tuning your NT Server Network

Even without any tuning, NT Server usually offers better performance than LAN Manager. But a little adjustment can increase the responsiveness of your NT server.
A. Tuning network boards and drivers
B. Tuning the protocol stacks
1. NetBEUI
2. TCP/IP
3. NWLINK
C. Tuning the Kernel
1. Multitasking
2. Virtual memory
3. Reducing memory requirements
D. Tuning the machine
1. Intel-based servers
2. RISC-based servers
XVI. Preparing for and Recovering from Server Failures
You can set up all the fault tolerant features that you want, but there's always some fault that you just can't tolerate, whether it's an earthquake, a flood, a virus, or a simple bug in NTS. In this section, you'll learn how to put back together a server that's been hit by the unexpected, the unavoidable, or the unpleasant.
A. Starting up with the original disks
B. Returning to a "last known good menu"
C. Disaster recovery
1. Creating a disaster recovery plan
2. Implementing it
3. Testing the disaster recovery plan
D. Backup programs and approaches

XVII. Installing and Managing Dial-Up Networking (DUN) under NT Server

Getting to the LAN from on the road has always been difficult. Some people use PCs and a program like Carbon Copy to connect to the network via modems, an expensive and difficult solution. Others must spend extra dollars on asynchronous gateway solutions. NT Server, in contrast, ships with remote support built right in, in the form of Dial-Up Networking, or DUN. In this section, you'll learn how to set it up and use it, and you'll learn what impact it will have on your network's security.
A. DUN options
1. Asynchronous connections
2. Synchronous connections
3. ISDN support
4. Other connection types
B. Types of programs that will and will not run under DUN
C. Configuring DUN
D. Security under DUN
1. Modem security
2. Controlling logins
3. Restricting remote users to part of the network
4. Auditing remote user activity
5. Running applications remotely

Reference Section:

Command-line control: Knowing NET

For Windows and NT clients, getting to network resources is simple; just open the File Manager, browse for network resources, click on what you want to use, and you're done. But for DOS and OS/2 clients, it's not so easy. They must use the older NET.EXE commands to use directories and printers, and NET includes a somewhat Byzantine set of options. This section explains how to use NET, and incorporates a useful reference to this essential program.

About the Course Developer

Mark Minasi is an internationally-known author, educator, and consultant with over 20 years' experience in computing. He has been teaching seminars on networking and operating systems since 1984. Of the eleven books that he has written, perhaps his best known are Mastering Windows NT Server, The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, The Expert's Guide to Windows 95, Troubleshooting Windows, The Windows Problem Solver and The Expert's Guide to Windows NT Workstation 4.0. CNN, the Associated Press, and Computerworld are among the media sources that have cited his opinions on computing and communications. His monthly column, "Inside Out," which appears in Windows NT Magazine, explains the technical details of NT in an interesting accessible way. He was a former columnist for BYTE, OS/2 Magazine and AI Expert magazines, and has written for Computer Language, SAA Spectrum, Programmer's Journal, and OS/2 Professional magazines. His educational videotapes include An Introduction to TCP/IP, Fundamentals of Data Communications, the PC Repair series, and Networks in Data Communications. His firm, Minasi Research and Development, is based in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC.