Every business needs a network router for protection and stability.
Types of Internet Connections for Network Router
While the DSL/cable modems have switches it’s not the best device to hook your business into. Home networks may benefit from a router as well.
T1 connections typically don’t have switches built into the CSU/DSU. While it’s easy to add a switch that’s not the preferred method.
Domains – DNS
If you are connecting a domain you want to use a domain controller to provide your DNS. You may find that difficult with a modem.
The rest of this article is primarily geared to installing a router for a small domain with a single server and a modem (DSL/cable). Even so parts will be relevant to a T1 installation.
Finding a Router
Finding a suitable router 1st on our list. Typically I check with Cisco & give them my specifications about the number of users and features needed. They point me to a particular model and then I do some research on the router & prices.
Installing a router
Installing a router is pretty straight forward but there are a few things you may have to set manually. To start you should shut down all the PCs and server connected to the router and associated switches. Then shut down the modem.
Power on the modem and let all the LEDs settle down. Most will be solid on.
Install Software
At this point you may have software that you need to run on the router. Typically this tells you how to make the connections. Just make sure that the modem has been powered off before you start the software. It’s also a good idea to connect a PC or laptop to a switch port on the router at this juncture.
Connections
Connect the network cable from the router Internet port to a switch port on the modem. Power up the router. If you have software setting up the router just let it do its magic.
You can connect your PCs to the router switch ports or add another switch by simply connecting a network cable between a port on the router & the switch. It should not matter which switch port you use on either device. If you are adding this to a domain then the router will need primary DNS to come from your server (local ip).
Lastly you power up your PCs. Everything should come on-line. If it doesn’t cycle power off & back on from the modem, router & PCs in that order.
Microsoft changed its name from SkyDrive to OneDrive and promised that there would not be anything we would have to worry about.
One day I noticed that some of my files were not current on OneDrive.
Although this article specifically addresses issues with OneDrive it applies to other cloud services like DropBox & Google drive in a general way. If you have issues with updating from your existing cloud service some of these steps may help.
My Workflow
New Workflow
My workflow used to be entirely in the cloud but that didn’t work out.
Maybe you will have better luck with OneDrive Duplicate Folders.
My unconventional advice is to work on files locally and then propagate them to the cloud solution of choice.
I prefer DropBox as it hangs up less on me than OneDrive.
I typically do my work on my desktop and let it synchronize to my laptop & phone.
Old Workflow
I use Dreamweaver to maintain about 50 sites and the SkyDrive path is part of the setup for the sites. I also have an XAMPP test server setup in Dreamweaver for the 50 or so websites I handle. I use a host reference for simplicity in accessing my files from a browser.
I backup Dreamweaver by exporting all the sites to a folder so I can easily re-create the sites on a new PC and/or my laptop.
I use Git repositories & external repositories for version control.
The Problem – OneDrive Duplicate Folders
Everything worked fine for some time. Then one day I noticed that I wasn’t seeing fresh files downloaded from the cloud. Further investigation showed two OneDrives in my User folder. The set with the cloud icon was being uploaded and the other was not.
Figure 1 – New & old OneDrive (old SkyDrive)
It wasn’t obvious how I ended up with two OneDrive folders. Further investigation showed one had OneDrive in the path while the old folder had SkyDrive. Naturally all my paths in Dreamweaver were set to the latter. Ditto for my test server.
New OneDrive path C:\Users\Randy\OneDrive\webroot
Old OneDrive path C:\Users\Randy\SkyDrive\webroot
Possible Solutions
I tried unlinking and re-linking to OneDrive but that didn’t merge the double OneDrives.
Next, I tried uninstalling & re-installing OneDrive. That started the OneDrive folder over again and just downloaded the files from the cloud which was not what I wanted since those had not been updated.
The Solution That Worked
Lastly, I uninstalled & re-installed OneDrive while pausing the installation at the 1st step. This time, I copied my updated files into the newly created OneDrive folder. That took a while since I had over 7G & thousands of files. Once it was copied over, I let the OneDrive installation finish. Finally, OneDrive was updating as I wanted.
That still left me with the original OneDrive folder. I could probably have moved them rather copying but I like to make sure things are working as I expected before burning that bridge.
Fixing Dreamweaver
Now I had to correct the paths in my Dreamweaver setup so that I could use the new OneDrive. Otherwise, the files wouldn’t be updated. To make sure I was using the correct folder, I moved the original OneDrive (SkyDrive) folder so there wouldn’t be any confusion. I could have just deleted it but I like to make sure everything is working properly before taking that step.
Changing the paths for each site & the test server became tedious with 50 sites. I created a fresh set of backups for all my sites and used a tool to manipulate the .ste files to change all the references to SkyDrive. Once the files had the proper reference, I removed all my sites & imported the new setup files.
NOTE: The Dreamweaver backup files are XML so editing is not an issue. The password hash is not difficult to decode so make sure these are stored in a secure location.
Fixing My Test Server
XAMPP Apace files had to be updated to use the new path.
httpd.conf (c:\xampp\apache\conf)
<Directory “C:\Users\Randy\OneDrive\webroot”> Options Indexes MultiViews Order Allow,Deny Allow from all </Directory>
hosts – C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc Open editor as administrator 127.0.0.1 oneroot.loc
Fixing Git Repositories
My initial problem was that my OneDrive folder was not uploading to the cloud and consequently not propagating to my other devices. I wasn’t sure how long this had gone on but it seemed recent.
After getting my OneDrive back in operation, I found that there were some places that had not synched properly. I suspect that the copy in the cloud must have taken precedent over my final copies on my PC. This is where Git proved to be a lifesaver. I reviewing the histories of the out of date websites & found that it showed local changes had not been incorporated. After merging everything was as I expected it. I reviewed the history of all my websites and found only a couple that needed merges. These were recently updated sites that never uploaded with the old OneDrive.
The merge folder created the additional versions of my affected files so I added entries into .gitignore to ignore them.
Example:
Figure 2 – merge created files with the name of my PC
I added the following to my .gitignore so the newly created files wouldn’t be an issue.
*Randy-660s*
It was comforting to not only fix my synchronization problems with Git but also vindicate the rest of my websites.
Fixing My Laptop
I had to repeat the same steps that I used for my PC on my laptop.
Uninstall OneDrive
Start the install & pause it while copying the SkyDrive files into the newly created OneDrive folder.
Finish the OneDrive install after files have finished copying
Move the SkyDrive folder to an external drive
Remove Dreamweaver sites
Import Dreamweaver sites
Setup XAMPP apache files
Setup host file
The Unconventional Fix that Works
What works best for me is to selective synchronize folders and keep copies on my external drive.
For static files that don’t change much, they can be uploaded to the cloud and removed from synchronization.
I set the main folders to synchronize and uncheck the sub-folders. That way I can add to the folder & get it uploaded.
This is not a totally automated but it’s the unconventional fix that works for OneDrive Duplicate Folders.
Install Software
Although this article specifically addresses issues with OneDrive it applies to other cloud services like DropBox & Google drive in a general way. If you have issues with updating from your existing cloud service some of these steps may help.
