Can linux solve this windows problem?

Les Klassen Hamm wrote:
> Now they keep getting error messages to the effect "too many network
> connections". Can someone tell me if this is an issue with the XP pro server
> (in which case their choice moves to either buying more/other MS product or
> trying a linux solution) or if it lies in their choice of XP home (in which
> case, they just got bad advice and will need to shell out more cash).

They need to buy client access licences and Windows 2000 server.
Windows 2000 server comes with 5 client access licences for a list price
of $999 US. For each additional connection (1 client access licence
counts as 1 server printer connection or 1 printer file share
connection), you will pay an additional charge. You can get 10 licences
out of the box if you spend $1199 US.

Note that just increasing the number of server connections inside of the
control panel without actually owning the apropos CAL # is a violation
of the licence.

> They say that if they reboot the fileserver and the network switch once a day,
> they don't get the error.

Yes, because then they're forcibly disconnecting all the clients until
they reach the restriction again. It's like clubbing a woman to ensure
she doesn't struggle while you have sex with her -- it's brutal, and
there is a better way.

> If a linux can address this problem, I'd like to list it as one of the possible
> solutions.

Linux very much can address this. For the price of a consultant's time
(rather than a few thousand dollars), you can have a setup which has
Windows file sharing and printer sharing which is legal, stable, and
requires less hardware. Please mention this, as it's a good solution.

When I worked at Clevor technologies, the 4 of us often ran into the 5
CAL limitation on the Windows 2000 server we had because each of us
would need to print, and each of us used the file share during our
development. Windows 2000 counts that as a peak of 10 accesses. The
solution was to take the spare Linux box we had around, turn it into a
proxy which authenticated via the Windows 2000 Server box (for whatever
reason, the person setting it up had chosen Dell computers and setup an
entire domain -- for a 4 person network). Once authenticated, all file
sharing happened on the Linux box. It was faster, and we never hit the
CAL limit because the server's new peak was 4 connections (for the
printer it had hooked up).

I would've done more, but my job was to develop software, not fix up a
brain dead network setup. I just needed to set something up so that
development would continue :)
Received on Wed Sep 24 10:43:02 2003