Lan Connectivity

[michaeljustman]

Okay. This may sound stupid, but I work in IT and we move offices and computers around a lot. Since I'm the most junior of the people in my section, I get all the silly pointless jobs, like testing offices and ports for connectivity on the LAN because the switch room is a mess of cables.

Recently, we moved out of several (eight) modular trailers (about the size of a single-wide) and I was tasked with writing down the status of the connectivity in each of the offices in each of the trailers. Fortunately, the rooms and ports are numbered, but my boss made me carry a laptop to each of the rooms, plug it in with CAT-5 and see if I got a connection.

This worked, but it seemed like there should be a better way... Is there a device I can plug in to check connectivity or is the laptop my only option?

 

[Mudi]

Umm, I think you can get a device to verify connectivity, but using a laptop is probably just as easy and cheaper.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

You can get little boxes that plug into the UTP socket to check if the line is okay, but these don't check things like if a system would get an IP address etc. So I am guessing the laptop is the easiest option.

 

[Javacat]

Get a USB NIC and wire it up to your GP2X, then just make a script that tests for a network connection, trys to get an IP and pings one of your servers whenever you press a button.

Then you can just carry that around with you

 

[michaeljustman]

Get a USB NIC and wire it up to your GP2X, then just make a script that tests for a network connection, trys to get an IP and pings one of your servers whenever you press a button.

Then you can just carry that around with you

LOL. Good idea... I might try this... only problem is that it needs to support DHCP. I thought I saw something to make the GP2X into a DHCP client in the archive.

A GP2X is definitely lighter and more portable than a laptop. I'm stupid for not thinking of this in the first place. Thanks.

 

[moz]

as fluffy says you can get testers for testing rj45 connections they are cheap but a laptop is better as it proves without doubt that the cabling is good rather than yes theres voltage on the end of the wire.

anyhow it isnt "silly or pointless" just watch if you get a bunch of users in there and their connections don't work