Securing our LAN (Local Area Network)

Let's secure our Local Area Networks and ensure the safety and security of what is most important to us.

Managing the systems on the network involves a lot of work with constant enquiries and calls about system freeze-ups, data loss, and mysterious error messages.The network opens a Pandora's box, allowing illicit downloads to mess up systems that previously have been tightly locked down for security issues.

Securing our site from cyber attacks.

Securing our sites and critical data is the most important aspect of E-security today. To help secure our data, an application titled 'SiteKeeper 2' when installed tackles several issues with great style. It scans all the systems on our network and performs an inventory of all the software and hardware on them. These features are extremely handy for planning upgrades.

More importantly, we get to see all the software installed on each computer on our LAN. For companies that are loosely administered, it's a great tool to ensure that everyone is up to date with security patches and nobody has unauthorized stuff --such as chat software and MP3-swapping ware.

Another great feature of the program is a two-click tool called 'PushInstaller' that can rapidly install software, updates, upgrades, and patches to selected machines from a central location. It can also remove programs that are not authorized by the concerned authorities.

Installing Sitekeeper 2

It's easy to install SiteKeeper 2 on the machine we'll be using as our base of operations--but not quite so easy to configure if our network runs older versions of Windows. The easy part is installing the software and setting up the database engine we'll be using to create our inventory database. This isn't nearly as painful as it sounds. If we are not using  database applications like SQL Server 7 or SQL Server 2000, we can install the free Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) that comes with the SiteKeeper package

Once the database engine is in place, we see an empty table when we open the program, and we have to run a network scan to see what we have within our operating systems.

However, on the older operating systems,as per research the system scan failed and there was a need to install the 'SiteKeeper Agent' before scanning systems. The program provides us with a wizard to install the agent software on a shared network drive, and allows us  to e-mail instructions to each user on how to install the software. While this went smoothly, it was found that some Windows 98 machines needed to download an updated Windows Installer from Microsoft in order to implement the Sitekeeper 2 software,

Inventory reporting

Once all the systems that needed security for critical data were configured with the SiteKeeper Agent, the inventory scan went without a hitch. The automatic reports covering the software and hardware were thorough and informative--exactly the information we need if we are in charge of a business's technology. Even to a database novice, it is easy to view the contents of each system on the network.

The hardware report was thorough, showing the RAM, processor, BIOS revision, disk drive types, display hardware, monitor type, modem, and USB controller on each system. It can be sorted by our choice of computer name or hardware type, depending on whether we are planning for upgrades across the business, or troubleshooting problems on a given PC.

However, the software reports focus heavily on software license issues. The default reports scream that nothing on our systems is licensed--because we need to enter the number of licenses for each software product manually before SiteKeeper allows us to use the system. This is a bit of a nuisance at first--the last thing we want to do when we're just learning a program is to pump in a lot of data entry up front. But once that's all in place, we have a great deal of flexibility in viewing information in SiteKeeper. If we want to make sure we have all the updates and Service Packs for our Windows XP machines, for example, we could hide the other programs--or tidy them off the screen using the Hide the Service Pack information--and use the Show Hidden Programs report to view them.

Some useful elements, though, are missing. On the default hardware report, for example, we saw only hard-drive types (such as generic IDE disk Type 47), not their capacity. And the less database-savvy did not like the comparatively inflexible report templates built into the program--the reports didn't print properly on the test network's printer. Clumsy stuff, but it works out all right in the end.

Installing PushInstall

For real site administration purposes, SiteKeeper's PushInstall module is the most attractive feature. It enables us to sit at a central location and install, upgrade, add patches, or bug fixes--and of course uninstall--software on any of the managed machines on our network.

It doesn't take much to run PushInstaller. We have to put the new installation's setup files on a shared network drive. We must have administrative access to the installation's target computer. And the files must either be logo-compliant with Windows 2000 or XP, or run with Microsoft Installer (.msi).

Thus, inspite of its own set of drawbacks as in most softwares, 'Sitekeeper 2' works effectively in securing our LAN and helping us ensure greater security of our critical data.