I'm reading up on MS CALs. I just realized that you even need a CAL for things like DHCP or DNS.

@scottalanmiller said in Why you don't need a VPN or not?:

@coliver said in Why you don't need a VPN or not?:

@Dashrender said in Why you don't need a VPN or not?:

But I don't see that working very well for large files - say AutoCAD or even some graphics files.

AutoDesk and Dessault both have toolkits to get around SMB limitations. I think most CAD vendors do actually.

Yes, CAD is something that basically always does LANless on its own. It has special needs and normally handles them. You don't use NextCloud or anything like it, nor do you use SMB or anything like that.

only for a premium, but they are rarely if ever rolled into the base product, at least not fully featured

I am a TV user, with no NDA.

I mostly use it for support, and go right into the user's live session 90% of the time. I use RDP when I am not using the user's session.

@coliver said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@RojoLoco said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@dafyre said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Morning all y'all!

Busy week here so far. Not too cold yet... Woke up to 29F this morning. My gas bill is going to suck if this lasts much longer, lol.

Mine already sucks and it hasn't even been cold for very long. But my power bill is only a third of what it was all summer.

We bought 7 tons of coal this year... haven't even burned through 1 ton yet. Still early in the season but that's promising.

Is that for your house? I didnt know people even burned coal, I thought that was just at power plants or something.

thanks for all the responses guys, there has been a lot of good info that I have not thought of.

@Obsolesce said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@Donahue said in file sharing in the 21st century:

I mentioned this in another thread, but I currently have a file server which is a 2012R2 VM sharing roughly 6TB of data. I am looking into replacing this with something more modern, so far I am checking out Nextcloud.

But having read most of the threads on ML dealing with nextcloud, and especially reading about experiences such as @guyinpv had here and here, I think we need to take a hard look at how we share files now, and why we do it the way we do it, and maybe find other methods and philosophies that we could implement for a better overall experience.

In a lot of ways, I can relate to @guyinpv, as his setup sounds a lot like mine. We currently have our VM, with a single share that is applied as a mapped drive using GPO. Inside this share is a number of root level folders, basically one for each department. Inside each of these are the typical level of nested subfolders and files. All of the first couple levels of folders from the share root were created by me, and users are locked out of being able to make changes until they are a few layers deep into their department.

Based on my research and conversations I have had, I think we have a very narrow idea of what a file share should be like, because all we know is how windows operates. As far as we treat the system, there is no one that "owns" any of the files, even though windows records an owner. No one has any sort of personal or private files that they "share" with other users. The files exist in the share that we created, and both users likely have equal permissions to said file.

I would like to expand my horizons, because I don't feel like I fully understand how other companies might use something like NC. If we are to take full advantage of what NC offers, it may require a fundamental shift in thinking by us and I want to get started on that now.

How do other people use NC? Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts? What does the anatomy of a cloud based solution look like when done well? I think I would like to use the sync client in windows, but I have only just started to play around with an online demo.

I think it's best to instead figure out what the business needs and and goals are for file service needs, and then find the appropriate technology to meet those... instead of picking out a cool featurful technology first, and the seeing if you can squeeze the businesses needs into it.

For me, it's not so much a reason to try and use cool features, its a way to catch up my thinking of how this should be done, instead of sticking to the same old rut. What the business needs is a way to not be penalized so much for having half of my users being forced to access so much stuff across the WAN. Perhaps the issue is sometimes bandwidth, and other times it is simply latency (probably the latter more often), but having a local copy that can sync can take advantage of local speed. Most of our current machines, and everything I will deploy from here on out will have SSD's, probably PCIe M.2's.

Another need is a way to share files with third parties, which NC can do, and standard file shares cannot.

@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@Donahue said in file sharing in the 21st century:

Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts?

We make a top level folder for every department.

Examples..

Personal Files (unique to every user)
HR
Accounting / Finance
Executive Management
Photo Gallery

Basically high level things that mimic security groups in the tradition mounted shares world.

I've thought of doing that, with only syncing the relevant department. But I would want to clear a lot of the dead wood from within those folders first. No reason to sync more than necessary.

@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@Donahue said in file sharing in the 21st century:

I dont really want to dive any deeping into MS's pockets if I can avoid it.

What are you using for email? If using O365 you likely already have OneDrive for business

we currently have hosted exchange, not o365, but I want to switch. We pay way too much. I am not sure what I want to switch to.

I dont really want to dive any deeping into MS's pockets if I can avoid it.

@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:

@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:

Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?

I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.

So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?

How many people need to sync 100s of GBs of files? That's not normal.

If you don’t sync a file how do you get access to it? Web only?

1. Who needs access to that many files? Not our users, or our normal customers.
2. Web or WebDAV mount.

So you end up with a mixed use of sync and WebDAV.

I need access to hundreds or thousands of files on our shared drive, but I don’t need them synced... so WebDAV is my solution... how does NC protect against cryptoware on a WebDAV share?

backups, its the only true solution to cryptoware.

Most of our files are going to not change frequently, so after the initial sync, it should be minimal traffic. Once the 100GB was done, it would only be small changes of single digit MB mostly.

@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:

Third on this boat.

Question for OP. Why do you say you want the sync client? Syncing 6 TB of data is not likely to go well to client machines. Even if you reduce it only to their department folder that could easily be 100’s of GB, also not likely to work well.

Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?

we do not have offline access now. Syncing is mostly so that people, especially our engineering people, can work with a local copy of the drawing they are working on, while also having it in the server. We usually never have the same drawing open by multiple people, so conflicts should be minimal. But if we use sync, then I would have to be very selective about what I set people up with, because syncing 6TB is a no go.

We have two sites, and half of my users access our existing file server over the WAN. I think that syncing may help this.

Mobile access would be a benefit of opening this up to the internet, and is on my mind.

nice!

@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2016 License question...:

No cheap upgrades. Owning 2012 R2 doesn't get you any discounts on your 2016.

But it does entitle you to CentOS, Fedora, Suse, or Ubuntu for absolutely free!

so does not owning 2012 R2

@wrx7m said in Remote viewing software:

Screenconnect for Windows works well. We have it hosted by them.

You can also control mobile devices. My only complaint is that the Android app used to remote in to other devices, is not that great. The mouse control is the main issue. They recently updated it to be better than before, but it is still not great.

can you remote into phones? I constantly get calls from people out in the field that have problems with their iPhones, but have no way to help the remotely.

I currently use teamviewer, but version 9 which is a bit outdated. I use this every day to support my users, especially the ones at our second facility. I have considered just updating to the latest version of teamviewer, but I wanted to know what you guys are using for similar tasks. I need to be able to log into computers and take control of the keyboard and mouse without the user's permission, or more specifically, I don't want the users to have to grant me permissions to remote in or take control. So far I remote into windows boxes only, but we may start to branch out into linux at some point. I also need to be able to connect from iOS or Android (having the ability to remote into iOS or Android would be a big plus). The last part that I want is to have a nice convenient list of computers with pre configured connections so that I can just click on that computer and jump right in.

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

If you use Windows, OnlyOffice is handled by Chocolatey. If you are on Linux, you can use Snaps or AppImage, or RPM, or Deb.

Chocolatey looks like linux style app store for windows. Is that about right?

just to be clear, this is basically an open source cloud version of office, at least in function? If this is the case, and it is integrated into NC, would it only be the web based view of NC?

I mentioned this in another thread, but I currently have a file server which is a 2012R2 VM sharing roughly 6TB of data. I am looking into replacing this with something more modern, so far I am checking out Nextcloud.

But having read most of the threads on ML dealing with nextcloud, and especially reading about experiences such as @guyinpv had here and here, I think we need to take a hard look at how we share files now, and why we do it the way we do it, and maybe find other methods and philosophies that we could implement for a better overall experience.

In a lot of ways, I can relate to @guyinpv, as his setup sounds a lot like mine. We currently have our VM, with a single share that is applied as a mapped drive using GPO. Inside this share is a number of root level folders, basically one for each department. Inside each of these are the typical level of nested subfolders and files. All of the first couple levels of folders from the share root were created by me, and users are locked out of being able to make changes until they are a few layers deep into their department.

Based on my research and conversations I have had, I think we have a very narrow idea of what a file share should be like, because all we know is how windows operates. As far as we treat the system, there is no one that "owns" any of the files, even though windows records an owner. No one has any sort of personal or private files that they "share" with other users. The files exist in the share that we created, and both users likely have equal permissions to said file.

I would like to expand my horizons, because I don't feel like I fully understand how other companies might use something like NC. If we are to take full advantage of what NC offers, it may require a fundamental shift in thinking by us and I want to get started on that now.

How do other people use NC? Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts? What does the anatomy of a cloud based solution look like when done well? I think I would like to use the sync client in windows, but I have only just started to play around with an online demo.

I will probably just be reading all day about Nextcloud. Some small fires might pop up, but I doubt it.

We are a manufacturing company with two shifts. Usually my "ideal" downtime still effects people being able to clock in and out of jobs on the production floor. I am not going to do my work at 2am from home, so I just live with unavoidable interruptions. I just try and make it as minimal as possible. I actually blasted out an email warning of having to do one today at 12:45pm. It's after our shop staff should be back from lunch, and before everyone else starts working after lunch.