myblog4fun

I’m a huge FiOS fan!  I’ve been a happy customer ever since fiber became available in my neighborhood.   I’ve blogged about it a few times as well and have upgraded my bandwidth a number of times of the years…

• Upgrade from Cox to Verizon FiOS
• Verizon FiOS IMG Update Lottery Winner
• Verizon FiOS Router – Model #: MI424WR
• Verizon FiOS Multi-Room DVR External Storage Expander
• Upgrading FiOS Internet from 35/35 to 50/20
• Verizon Home Monitoring and Control
• Upgrading FiOS Internet from 50/20 to 150/60 Quantum

Verizon seems to be pretty slow in updating their router/wireless devices.  Until I upgraded to the Quantum service, the continued to use their crappy Actiontec MI424WR Wireless router; which only supported 802.11 b/g and 100 Megabit LAN ports.   The Quantum upgrade, fortunately, required an upgrade to the Actiontec MI424WR that included 802.11 b/g/n and Gigabit LAN ports.

Since I had a perfectly good NETGEAR Wireless Router – N600 Dual Band Gigabit (WNDR3700), I disabled the wireless on my MI424WR and simply used my NETGEAR instead.

Unfortunately, as of late, the NETGEAR has been dropping wireless connections for all my iDevices, including TV, Bluray players, and computers.   After resetting the thing a number of times over the past month or two, I decided maybe it is time to upgrade again….

This time, I decided to go with the Asus RT-N66R Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router.

The key features of this router are:

• Network – 80211 a/b/g/n and IPv4 and IPv6
• Firewall & Access Control – SPI intrusion detection, DoS protection.  Parental control, network service filter, URL filter, and Port filter.
• VPN Support – IPSec, PPTP, L2TP pass-through and PPTP Server.
• WAN Connection Type – Automatic IP, Static IP, PPPoE(MPPE supported), PPTP, L2TP, Multicast Proxy support.
• Ports – 4 x RJ45 for 10/100/1000/Gigabit BaseT for LAN.  USB 2.0 x 2.

You can read the full specs online, but this was everything I cared about or needed.

I really like this router.   One because all my wireless devices now actually stay connected and can see my wireless network and two, because it has extended my wireless network to areas within my house that I previously had a poor signal or no signal at all.   I suspect the external antennas have something to do with this; since the NETGEAR was internal.

One of the challenges to having FiOS though, is that you still need to use their Actiontec  MI424WR router.  This is because you still need the coax connection for MoCA specification for home networking to your DVR and STB.  And I suppose its your cable modem as well.  This means there is a little bit of a trick to just plugging in your own wireless router in place of your MI424WR.

1. The Actiontec router must still be used as your primary router.  Do not disconnect or remove this from your network.
2. Log into your Actiontec router (usually http://192.168.1.1) using your admin login.   The default is usually printed on the side/back of the router.   Use an Ethernet cable because the next may disconnect you.
3. Note your wireless settings and write these down.   Then disable your wireless on your Actiontec router.
4. Go to you’re your DHCP settings (under Advanced) and setup an IP range, such as 25-254.   I try and keep the lower ranges free for static addresses such as network devices, servers, and printers.
5. Reboot your PC and verify you can still get to the internet, etc.  If not, troubleshoot your steps to figure out why.
6. Disconnect your Ethernet cable from the Actiontec router to your PC.

Now, plug in your new Asus router (or any other similar router for that matter) and connect your PC’s Ethernet directly to the LAN port on the new router.  The Asus router will be considered your secondary router.

1. Log into your Asus router (usually http://192.168.1.1) using your admin login.   The default is usually printed on the side/back of the router.
2. From the Wireless tab, set up your 2.4 and 5GHz wireless SSID and security to similar to what you had setup on the Actiontec.   This will prevent you from having to reconfigure all your wireless devices at home.   In my case, I have HOMEWIFI for a/b and HOMEWIFI-N for g/n, for example.
   
3. From the LAN tab, set your routers IP address to 192.168.1.2, subnet mask to 255.255.255.0, and default gateway to 192.168.1.1.   Connect to DNS Server automatically No.   You must change the router’s IP address because it will conflict with your Actiontec when you bring it back on network.
   
4. From the Administration tab, set your router’s operation mode from “Wireless router mode (default)” to “Access Point (AP) mode”.  This is important, as your want your Asus to be a secondary access point (switch) on your network and not a router.  This means your Actiontec router is still you’re your NAT and DHCP server.
   
5. Connect the Ethernet cable that came with your Asus from a LAN port on the Asus to a LAN port on the Actiontec.   DO NOT PLUG THE CABLE FROM THE WAN PORT ON YOUR ASUS TO THE ACTIONTEC LAN PORT.  YOU CANNOT USE YOUR WAN PORT IN ACCESS POINT MODE.
6. Reboot or power reset your Asus
7. Reboot or power reset your Actiontec
8. When both routers come up, verify from your PC that you can ping and login into the admin page of both routers…. 192.168.1.1 (Actiontec) and 192.168.1.2 (Asus).
9. Verify you can still get to the internet.

After you get this configuration working to your liking, you may want to go to Asus website and download the latest firmware for your router.   Mine was several revisions behind when I bought it new.

Hope this helps!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

I have unfortunately been blessed cursed into using DB2 for all our server database task over SQL Server.  If you have spent any time reading this blog, you have seen other posts related to DB2.

For example, some prior posts:

Deleting DB2DIAG.log

Using Powershell to access DB2

Connecting to a DB2 database using C#

The truth of the matter is, DB2 is not going away.  So I’m stuck and using it having to face the fact that we have over 40+ DB2 servers, makes managing these servers a PITA.  Unlike SQL Server, where I can just bring up SQL Management Studio and add a remote server and I’m done, DB2 makes this less than trivial.   I’m not sure why it’s the way that is is; other than trying to support an array of non-Windows systems.

Due to firewall rules, most of our servers cannot be accessed outside of their subnet for security reasons.  Having to log into each server’s console, launch DB2 Control Center, browse out to each database, and perform whatever task needs to be done is very tedious, to say the least.

Fortunately, there is a slightly better way.   This involved either using another DB2 server or installing the DB2 Server Tools to another server and use it as your centralized access point into your other DB2 servers.

In my case, I have a standard Windows 2008 R2 server with the DB2 Server Tools installed.  There is no DB2 server installed already, which requires me to edit the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\services file and adding a line so the rest of the wizard, explained later, will work.

As shown below, add a “db2c_DB2” line with port “50000/tcp” defined.

Since I do not have DB2 installed locally, the wizard for some reason still expects to find this entry in the file to know what port to talk to the remote server over.  Lame.

Next, launch the DB2 “Configuration Assistant” from the DB2COPY –> Set-up Tools Program group.   I’m using DB2 9.5 and I believe earlier versions you could launch this tool directly from DB2 Control Center’s Tools menu.   YMMV.

Once the program is launched, you can right-click in the grid and select “Add database wizard”.   You will then be prompted through a series of questions –

Select “Manually configure a connection to a database” and then click “Next”:

Then select “TCP/IP” and then click “Next”:

Then enter your FQDN for your “Host name”.   “Service name” must match the name you placed into your “services” file at the start of this tutorial.   It must match.   If it does not match, when you click the “Retrieve” button, you will probably get a Java error.   It took a few times to figure this out before I wised-up.   Click “Retrieve” button and 50000 port should populate automatically.  

Finally click “Next”:

Under “Database name” enter the database name on the remote system that you want to access.  Under “Database alias” enter either the same name or a similar name.  Then click “Next”:

Then select “Register this database for CLI/DOBC”.   Ensure “As system data source” is selected.  Then for “Data source name” enter your database name again.   Select “Next”:

From this screen, for “Operating system” select “Windows” from the dropdown.   Then click “Next”:

Then for “System name” enter your server’s NETBIOS name.  For host name, ensure the FQDN of the server is shown.   Then click “Next”:

Finally, last step, ensure that the “Use authentication value in server’s DBM Configuration” is selected.   Click “Finish”:

There is a test dialogue that will appear.  You can click the “Test” button and enter the remote server’s credentials to DB2 to verify that your setup works.   If you have additional databases on the same remote server, you can click the “Add” button to quickly add additional databases.  

If you were to return back to DB2 “Control Center” and refresh, you should see each of your remote databases listed under “All Databases”.   Example below:

I haven’t used Control Center enough when accessing the remote databases to determine whether its significantly faster than getting onto the old server the way I have been; as it seems to take Control Center 60+ seconds to connect and list all the database objects.   I’m hoping this is a one-time event and subsequent connections are much faster.    I really do miss using SQL Server!!!

Until next time, hope this helps!