Yesterday, I got a task to install a whole bunch of servers. And I am thinking, how am I going to make this happen? I got a list of server names, so first I tried to ping each one to see if they were alive.
I opened up the command prompt and started typing ping followed by the server name. I did this for like, ten servers, one by one. The first few responded, which was good, but then some just didn’t respond at all. I thought, “Okay, maybe there’s something wrong with these servers.”
So, I made a list of the ones that didn’t respond and decided to dig deeper. I tried to access them directly using Remote Desktop Connection. I typed in the server name and hit connect. For the ones that were responding to ping, I could connect without any issues. But for the others, no luck. The connection just timed out.
Further investigation
I was like, “Alright, what’s going on here?” I started checking the network configuration on my machine to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious. I looked at the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS settings. Everything looked fine on my end.
Next, I thought maybe it’s a firewall issue. I temporarily disabled the firewall on my machine and tried to ping and connect again. Still nothing. “Okay, it’s not the firewall,” I mumbled to myself.
Then I started wondering if there was something wrong with the servers themselves. I checked their status in our monitoring system. Some of them were showing as offline, which explained why I couldn’t ping or connect to them. Others were showing as online, but I still couldn’t reach them. It was really puzzling.
Calling for Backup
At this point, I decided to call up one of the senior guys for help. I explained everything I had tried, and he suggested we look at the switch where these servers were connected. We logged into the switch and started checking the port status.
We found that some of the ports were disabled. That explained why those servers were showing as offline. We enabled the ports, and boom, those servers started responding to ping. Problem solved for those ones.
But there were still a few servers that were online according to the monitoring system, but I couldn’t reach them. We checked the switch again, and the ports were fine. Then my colleague suggested checking the VLAN configuration. We looked at the VLAN settings for those ports, and bingo, they were in the wrong VLAN.
Final Steps
We corrected the VLAN configuration, and I tried to ping and connect again. This time, success! All the servers were now responding, and I could connect to them via Remote Desktop.
After all that, I finally started the installation process. I logged into each server, uploaded the installation files, and kicked off the installation. It took a while, but I monitored the progress and made sure everything went smoothly.
In the end, all the servers were successfully installed. It was a bit of a headache getting there, but I learned a lot along the way. Next time, I’ll definitely check the switch and VLAN configuration earlier in the process. It was a good reminder that sometimes the problem isn’t with the server itself, but with the network setup.
- Checked server status by pinging.
- Tried Remote Desktop Connection for direct access.
- Investigated network and firewall settings on my machine.
- Checked server status in the monitoring system.
- Sought help from a senior colleague.
- Checked switch port status and VLAN configuration.
- Corrected network settings and finally accessed all servers.
- Started and monitored the installation process.
It was a long day, but hey, that’s what we do, right? Troubleshooting and fixing things, one step at a time. And every time we run into these issues, we get a little bit better, a little bit smarter.
