Sage 4 and Windows Server 2003?

[kevthor]

Does anyone have Sage 4 running on 2k3 with a PVR350?

I've had this exact hardware running sage 2 on XP with no issues, and now I'm experiencing nothing but problems with 4 on 2k3.

I've tried the latest drivers from Hauppauge, and 2k3 is running SP1. I constantly get the spinning sage icon, even when trying to do a source setup or view the guide.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[silkshadow]

I don't use a PVR350 but do use a bunch of other pvr cards with no problems. Have you gone through the basic stuff here: http://www.msfn.org/win2k3/?

[kevthor]

well my box is acting as a dc and an exchange server so I don't want to convert it to xp.

[silkshadow]

Um, did you look at that site? It doesn't turn 2003 into XP, what it helps you do is start the process on getting end-user stuff working so 2003 can run desktop apps (like Sage). My 2003 box runs as a VPN, radius, mail, DNS, active diretory/DC, intranet server, terminal, skype pbx and fax gateway. That site is the very basic stuff you need to do to get any multimedia based app running on 2003 (like turning on directX).

[kevthor]

OK. I followed those steps and sage performace turned great....for a bit. After a while sage just pins the hard drive bringing Sage and everything else on the machine for that matter to a halt. I have uninstalled sage/re-installed it, and deleted ALL of my recordings so there are no corrupted recordings.

Anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

Thanks,
Kevin

[silkshadow]

Humm, are you watching something everytime before you get server death? Check the task manager and see what is eating clock cycles right before everything dies. If Sage is over 80%, try different Mpeg2 decoders (try sage's). Turn off full screen exclusive mode and hardware acceleration. Turn off the service and see if you get the problme without it running. If you are not watching something before death, it could be your capture card is going bad. I read a thread somewhere here where someone's card was going bad and they had a similar experience to yours. Can you hear the HD churning away hard? If so, my first thought would be to run a diag on it. It might be going bad. What are the specs of your box?

[dvd_maniac]

Looking for a little advice with setting up a win 2003 server with Sage4.

I am looking to have more parental control. I want to control things with permissions that my kids shouldn't watch Like SouthPark. I want to install 2003 as a domain controller and give the kids there own accounts for there PC's in there rooms. I also like the idea of controlling logon times as well. How does Sage handle a file it has no permission to view?

I would also appreciate a little extra help (Non-Sage related) with DNS and Domain setup if possible?
I have a Dynamic domain name through TZO.com (dvdmaniac.tzo.com) When setting up my Domain on 2003 do I use this for my domain? I setup the server with an internal static ip address 192.168.0.66. What do I use for my DNSserver addreses? Do I use my isp's, TZO's or something else?
I would like to be able to use this server as a web, ftp, remote desktop and exchange server with SageTV.
Any setup help would be greatly appreciated...

[kanhoward]

dvd_maniac,

The little help I can give:-

Don't confuse a windows domain controller with an internet domain. Broadly speaking they're not the same thing. Microsoft in it's wisdom called the computer that controlled the main functions within a business/corporate network of computers a PDC - Primary Domain Controller. Which confused a lot of people many years ago and still does today.

If you want to give public access to your server (for WWW pages ftp etc) using a dynamic domain or otherwise you need to have an external IP address for it and a fixed one, not dynamic if you want exchange server to function properly (Mail exchange - MX Record for your internet domain and all that) Generally achieved using a firewall/router that has been configured to forward from it's external/public IP address to your 192.168.0.66 internal address.

Configuring secure WWW services (and I mean secure because before you know it you're shinny new server will co-opted into becoming a spam server) on Windows server is one hell of a job let alone setting up Exchange, DNS and the firewall to forward external internet data to the right place (ports) on your server. I'd have a good think why your doing it in the first place. There are much easier ways to have multiple email accounts, web pages and FTP without all the work involved in setting up Windows server.

If you want to set up the server for just internal email,WWW and ftp etc you've got a good fighting chance but it's still quite complicated.

Good luck and sorry if I sound negative but I've been there before.

Regards,

Tb.

[ke6guj]

I haven't tried to do any permissions blocking so I can't help you there, but I can help you with some 2003 server setup.

You can set your Domain name to anything you want. It does not need to match your dynamic domain name or any other real domain name you may want later on. When I usually set up a domain controller (DC) I usually set up the domain to be something like dvdmaniac.private or dvdmaniac.internal instead of a live domain like dvdmaniac.com. It does not hurt and it keeps the internal naming separate from the external naming.

For DNS server addresses, I set up DHCP on the DC and have it supply IP addresses along with DNS info that points my clients to the DC. I set up the DC's DNS service to resolve all DNS inquiries.

Make sure you only have 1 DHCP server in your network, makes troubleshooting and config easier for a home network. Turn off the DHCP server on your router and just run one on the DC

For testing, you can use the TZO stuff, but if you plan on doing your own web and email, go ahead and spend the $10 a year and get your own domain.

If you don't want your own domain, then you can set up exchange to work with your existing ISP's email servers. I don't really mess with that so don't have a lot of info there.

[dvd_maniac]

I am more concerned with setting up Exchange so I can access my isp's email account and mailbox on any pc in the house. I do not want to create or manage any new email accounts.

For testing, you can use the TZO stuff, but if you plan on doing your own web and email, go ahead and spend the $10 a year and get your own domain.

If I buy a domain how difficult is it to implement that domain into my server?

Microsoft in it's wisdom called the computer that controlled the main functions within a business/corporate network of computers a PDC - Primary Domain Controller. Which confused a lot of people many years ago and still does today.

I thought that PDC's no longer existed after Server 4.0?

For DNS server addresses, I set up DHCP on the DC and have it supply IP addresses along with DNS info that points my clients to the DC. I set up the DC's DNS service to resolve all DNS inquiries.

So, shut off DHCP on router, turn DC into a DHCP server. Give it a range of IP addresses to use(or can I shut off all DHCP and assign static IP's to all internal PC's? If so, I should give the DC's IP address as the DNS on all PC's on the LAN?

I was MCSE certified 5 years ago on NT 4.0 so I have a clue but would need some direction to put the pieces together since I've been out of it for almost 4.

[ke6guj]

Well, if you arent' going to host your own email, then there is no real need to get your own domain. If you are just going to do some 'private' web, ftp, and remote desktop stuff, then doing dvdmaniac.tzo.com isn't a big deal. But if you wan't to have your own email, then you do need your own domain name. something like dvdmaniac.com or something.

But in any case, if you buy a domain, its not that hard to tell the server that it needs to host that domain. but in any case, keep your server's domain as something like dvdmaniac.private.

PDC's, as in PDC and BDC don't exist anymore. However, there are still Domain COntrollers needed. You can promote/demote a DC at any time now, with a couple limitations.

Yup, shut off router DHCP. Turn on DC's DHCP and set up a scope. That scope should have a range of IP addresses, (192.168.0.100-200 or something like that). Set the scope to set gateway as 192.168.0.1 (router IP) and DNS server as the DC address.

As for NT4 MCSE, you should be able to figure out a 2000/2003 server fairly easy. There are plenty of wizards and help files you can use to understand the concepts.

[dvd_maniac]

Set the scope to set gateway as 192.168.0.1 (router IP) and DNS server as the DC address.

One last question on this... If I setup the scope to use the DC's IP address as the DNS server, Which will still be a LAN IP address (say 192.168.0.3), that will tell all client PCs to use that as the DNS server, right?
How will my DC\DNS server (192.168.0.3)resolve to an Internet DNS server (my ISP's is 66.189.0.29 & 66.189.0.30) in order to give my clients access to the internet?

[ke6guj]

If I setup the scope to use the DC's IP address as the DNS server, Which will still be a LAN IP address (say 192.168.0.3), that will tell all client PCs to use that as the DNS server, right?

Yup

How will my DC\DNS server (192.168.0.3)resolve to an Internet (my ISP's is 66.189.0.29 & 66.189.0.30) DNS server in order to give my clients access to the internet?

You can do that a couple ways. One way is that your DNS server will resolve all requests on it own. the other way is that you can point your DNS server to forward all requests to the ISP DNS servers. I set up mine the first way, resolve on its own.

[dvd_maniac]

@ke6guj
Thanx. The internal DNS and ISP's DNS was confusing me a little. It seems clear now. I am still not 100% sure how I can buy a domain and have it hosted correctly on my server, but I think the dynamic TZO will work just fine since I do not plan on hosting my own email domain.

I haven't tried to do any permissions blocking so I can't help you there, but I can help you with some 2003 server setup.

Has anybody else played around with this? Probably the last thing holding me back in implementing a Client\Server enviroment.

[ke6guj]

The trick is to keep the internal and external domain separate.

When you buy a domain name, you need to have 2 externally accessable DNS servers that anybody can access to get your puplic IP address. I use www.zoneedit.com to host my external DNS servers. They will support 5 domains for free, works great. I even have client software that will track my dynamic IP address and update my home domain address like tzo, but its my domain, not a tzo domain. That way I can tell someone, or myself to go to www.mydomain.com instead of mydomain.tzo.com.

Ok, now that you have your external DNS servers set to point to your external router IP address, it is just a matter of forwarding the WWW, FTP and RDP ports to the DC. Make sure you do all the security updates all the time. In IIS, you just set up a website and tell the server that any incoming requests get that website. You can even do stuff like have multiple websites depending on what url they type, www.dvdmaniac.com will give one website, and family.dvdmaniac.com will give another.

Totally separate from the external stuff is that each computer in your internal network will have a domain name like pvr.dvdmaniac.private and dc.dvdmaniac.private based on its computer name and your internal domain. If you had a .com domain internally, then you could have issues if you wanted to go to an external website with the same domain.

[dvd_maniac]

So each computer will actually be it's own subdomain? this would be helpful for remote desktop and ftp, right?
I think I will buy a domain, point it to zoneedit like you and go from there.

Some of this is starting to come back to me now, Thanx again....

[ke6guj]

Yup, you could look at each computer as a subdomain. Thats the theory of full qualified domain names. www.domain.com points to one computer, while mail.domain.com and ftp.domain.com point to others. Now, you can set it up so that one computer answers to all three, but that is the basic idea.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help you externally the way you think since you probably only have one IP address from your ISP. You only have one set of ports that you can forward in the router to a specific computer. if you forward port 80 (www) to your DC, you can't also forward it to your PVR. But you could forward port 21 (FTP) to the PVR if you wanted to. You could also set up www or ftp to run on non-standard ports, and that would allow a little more flexability,for instance neilm's webserver plugin on 8080 for your PVR.

I have set up RDP in the past so that I could remote into multiple computers through one IP address by using different RDP ports for each computer, but now, I just usually VPN into the network and do it through internal addresses.

edit: Don't worry, they didn't teach us this kind of stuff during the NT4 days so the only way to really learn is by messing around with it.