LanSchool Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! However, trial version students will not be discovered until you’ve copied the student installation file to the appropriate location on the teacher. See the installation guide for further instructions on how to use the “Update LanSchool on Selected Students” feature.

The latest version of LanSchool is 7.7.3.21

The system requirements are available here

Our install guide and user’s guide are a great place to start. You can find the documentation here or within the Customer Portal where you download the product install package. You should also check out the tutorials which explain how to use the various product features.

LanSchool allows for a companion device license (e.g. tablet, smartphone) per primary licensed device to connect to LanSchool without incurring an additional license.

If the only device is a tablet or smartphone that would constitute a primary device and consume a license.

There are potentially a number of reasons why this can happen. To correct his problem, please ensure that these requirements are followed:

• Verify that there are no personal firewalls blocking the LanSchool port. LanSchool configures the firewalls that are included with the OS to allow the necessary traffic, but there are a large number of third party firewalls which we do not automatically configure.
• Check to see if you have two or more Network Interface Cards (NICS) available, and if so, is the correct NIC being used. The easiest way to verify this is to go into the Preferences menu in the product console, select the Network tab and choose the appropriate NIC for LanSchool to use.
• Verify that the Teacher and Student computers are on the same subnet. If they are on different subnets then Multicast or IP Directed Broadcast must be enabled in the Network tab of the Preferences dialog.
• If you are using a Cisco wireless access point, turn off the port-protection policy setting that blocks peer-to-peer traffic.

By default, Teacher machines are assigned a single channel during installation. The System Administrator must explicitly grant individual Teacher machines the right to view more than one channel by running the EnableChannelSelect tool on the local Teacher machine after it has been installed. Otherwise this option will be grayed out in the Teacher Channel section of the Network tab in the Preferences dialog in the console.

All LanSchool normal traffic is on port 796 (0×031C) (either source or destination). LanSchool “status” traffic is sent to port 1053 (0×41D).

By default, LanSchool assumes that all Students will be on the same IP-subnet as the Teacher. However, it is possible to configure it to function properly even when the Teacher resides on a different subnet (or even a separate segment) from the Student. Please review the Network Configuration section of the LanSchool installation guide for more information on how to do this.

One of LanSchool’s strengths is its efficient screen capture and transfer methods. For instance, if the entire teacher’s screen is changing, LanSchool only uses about 24Kb/sec to transfer that image to the student’s screen. This is less than 1% of a 100 MB network. Because we use a broadcast packet, the bandwidth consumed is the same with 2 computers as with 200 computers. The bandwidth used by many competitive solutions will actually increase with every computer on the network.

For all products except the Report Server (which is a component of Tech Console), LanSchool uses the original installation file to uninstall the product. It behaves like a toggle switch. For example, on Windows, executing the .msi file once installs the product. Executing the same file a second time uninstalls the product. If you ran it again, it would then re-install the product.

This uninstall process requires that the install package be exactly the same file and version as the original file. The install package (.msi, .dmg, etc.) is found in the platform sub-folder (Windows, Mac, etc.) of the product download location. If the product download location is no longer accessible, please contact Technical Support for assistance.

The Report Server uninstall is available from the Windows Control Panel.

LanSchool does support NComputing devices. However that support is dependent on the model number, operating system, and version of the vSpace software supplied by NComputing. Please refer to the table below for the currently supported platform combinations with LanSchool v7.6 software.

LanSchool prevents students from using cached copies of the Student msi file to uninstall. Unfortunately it makes uninstalling LanSchool just a bit harder. To uninstall silently, run ‘msiexec.exe /i Student.msi /qn REINSTALLMODE=vomus’.

No, both of these operating systems shipped after LanSchool v6.5. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of LanSchool.

LanSchool is not a virus and is not infected by a virus. It is a false-positive that is occasionally triggered in some Anti-virus products when a new version of the software is released. Please update to your provider’s latest pattern file and scan the machine again. If the behavior continues, please notify support@lanschool.com and we will send a message to your anti-virus vendor asking them to fix the problem.

Under CONTROLLER on the WLC configuration page change “Ethernet Multicast Mode” from “disabled” to “unicast”.
Also enable the broadcast forwarding option. On some older Cisco access points you must disable the port protection policy that blocks peer-to-peer traffic.

In our testing, LanSchool generally consumes less than half of the processing requirements of the competitors and a quarter of the memory requirements. In high load situations, LanSchool uses about 4% of the processor and about 8 MB of memory on the client.

The number of websites you can allow or deny depends on the number of characters in the URLs you include. The total amount of characters you may type in each dialog box is 1000. The block and allow features are not meant to replace your Internet content filter. We recommend using the allow feature to restrict students to a small number of websites for a particular lesson.

Current customers can contact LanSchool and receive a username and password to the LanSchool Customer Portal. The portal will always contain the latest upgrade that you are eligible to receive.

To upgrade, Login to the Customer Portal, download the .zip file, extract it and follow the instructions for upgrading clients in the LanSchool install guide. If you have forgotten your Portal credentials please email sales@lanschool.com.

If all of the computers in the lab are the same basic image or configuration (for example. all Windows XP machines with the same application you want to access) you can remote control them all at the same time, though you will only see the input device and screen of the first machine selected. This is a great time saving feature if you need to do the same thing to all of the computers at once.

Consumer Access Points are generally not robust enough to handle consistent traffic to more than 5 clients. Enterprise-class Access Points are designed to support 50 or more clients at the same time and generally sell for at least $300 dollars. Our favorite is the HP 420, but similar products are produced by Dell, Cisco or IBM. This will benefit not only LanSchool performance, but general student computing as well.

If you wish to improve performance, you can optionally attempt to configure your Access Point. Since this process differs from vendor to vendor, we can only give general guidelines. You should consult your Access Point’s manufacturerer’s installation manual to learn how to specifically make changes to your particular Access Point. We recommend that you:
*Drop the Beacon Interval as low as possible (generally, this can go down to 50ms).
*Set the DTIM to ZERO. (This allows broadcast and multicast packets to be sent after EVERY beacon packet.)
*Increase the Broadcast or Multicast speed. (Not all APs allow this to be set)

It is very rare that a student uses an authorized console, unless you’ve given them access to the console program. However if you suspect that someone has the Teacher Console, there is a tool available in the Utilities directory called SecurityMonitor. This program logs all LanSchool activity and can help you quickly identify unauthorized consoles. Once students know that this tool is in use, unauthorized activity stops quickly.

In LanSchool v7.6 you can also watch the same security messages in the Status Window which is available from the View menu.

Yes, the install can be scripted to run silently from a login script. The necessary command-line parameters are listed in the Mass Deploying section for Windows machines or covered in the Installing LanSchool on a Mac section of the LanSchool install guide.

Yes, you may run multiple Teachers on the same channel at no additional licensing cost. However, it is recommended that one console determine and implement the monitor configuration by which the students will be managed. Then the other console(s) should be configured in exactly the same manner so that no conflicts arise, or be used only to monitor the thumbnails, answer questions, etc. If the “primary” Teacher console “disappears” (leaves the network, stops communicating due to hardware failure, etc) the other Teacher on the channel will take over.

Yes, all 16,000 channels may be grouped. However, by default, Teacher machines are configured at installation time to only view a single channel. The System Administrator must explicitly grant individual Teacher machines the right to view more than one channel by running the EnableChannelSelect tool on the local Teacher machine. Otherwise this option will be grayed out in the Teacher Channel section of the Network tab in the Preferences dialog in the console.

The tool to enable this functionality is available in the Utilities subfolder in the original product download location.

Yes. If your switches support Multicast or IP Directed Broadcasts, then LanSchool can be configured to take advantage of these protocols. Multicast support can be configured on the Network tab on the Preferences menu in the Teacher or Tech console.

Yes, these are both great programs and are compatible with LanSchool. With Ghost we recommend an image per lab or change the channel on each machine with a batch file. In a lab, it is critical that the Teacher channel and the Student channels are the same. With Deepfreeze you must “Thaw” the machine before installing LanSchool. After LanSchool is installed you can “Freeze” the PC.

The only way to uninstall LanSchool is with the original setup package. For instance, on Windows it cannot be uninstalled from the Control Panel mechanism. On Mac and Linux, the uninstall requires the administrative password as well. This effectively prevents students from uninstalling the Student software.

No, the trial version will not run after 30 days of use, and it doesn’t interact with the retail version of LanSchool.

However, you may use the retail version of LanSchool to upgrade the demo version from the Teacher computer.

Note: Trial version students will not be discovered until you’ve copied the student installation file to the appropriate location on the teacher. See the installation guide for further instructions.

The most common reason that the Security Locked Out icon is displayed on the student thumbnails is because of a mismatch in the Secure mode option chosen during installation of the Teacher and Student software.

For instance if you check Enable a Secure Mode and choose Password Secure Mode when installing the Teacher software, you must choose the same option in the Student install, and enter the same user name and password during both installations.

You can verify if this is the case by checking the version number on the Students. On Windows, if you hover with your mouse over the icon in the Student system tray, it will show a version number something like:

v7.6.0.53Ss, v7.6.0.53Sd or v7.6.0.53Sds

The lowercase letters are the security identifiers. The system is designed to lock out any devices that don’t match security models. The students will need to be reinstalled with the correct security mode option in order to correct the lock out issue.

From either the Tech console or the Teacher console, the Details view will display the version for each “client” that is listed – i.e. a Student or a Teacher machine in the Tech Console product or a Student machine in the LanSchool product.

If you are on a machine locally, you can hover your mouse over the system tray icon in Windows, or click on the product icon on Mac or Linux and the version will be displayed.

If the Student software is running in “Stealth” mode so there is no system tray icon, you can run the Student diagnostics utility on the machine to determine the product version. This tool is available from the Utilities folder where the product was originally unzipped after the product download. You may need to contact your System Administrator for access to this utility.

Channels are the mechanism used by LanSchool to associate a Teacher with the Students in a classroom.

Think of a Teacher channel as a TV channel: All TVs tuned to a certain channel receive the same program. In the same way, all Students configured to a certain Teacher channel receive the screen broadcasts from the Teacher configured to that same channel. If only one LanSchool classroom is on your network, you can choose any number from 1 to 16,000.

If you have multiple LanSchool classrooms, each requires its own unique Teacher channel number.

No, LanSchool does not require SSH, it uses an internally developed transport mechanism.

LanSchool supports either 32 or 64-bit versions of Ubuntu 10 or 11 running the Gnome Desktop in Classic mode. The Unity Desktop is not currently supported.

Logging messages from the Ubuntu install may be found in:

/opt/student/logs/student.log

/tmp/student-install.log

These logs are very helpful if you need to report an issue to Technical Support.

There is a diagnostics script included in the install that will validate the installation and report if any of the student processes are not running. To use it run:

“/opt/student/scripts/student_diagnostics.sh.”

No, LanSchool does not require VNC for remote viewing a Mac OS X student. It uses is own internally developed Remote Control technology.

LanSchool supports Student software running on Mac OS X 10.5 or greater. Teacher software is supported on Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5 or greater.

No, LanSchool does not conflict with ARD nor its screen sharing tool.

The settings for the LanSchool Teacher and Student software can be managed using
MCX (Managed Client for Mac OS X) through the manifest files that are included in the installation package.

No, currently Active Directory is only supported with Windows Teachers and Students.

The keystroke history log can grow to 300 KB and then it rolls over. That usually translates to several months worth of data per student.

As of version 7.6.1.9, LanSchool supports Chrome, Firefox, IE 7,8, or 9 (either 32 or 64-bit) on Windows. On Mac, Safari, Firefox and Chrome are supported. On Ubuntu, only Firefox is currently supported for web limiting.

The Internet history log file can grow to 500 KB and then it rolls over. That should translate to a few months worth of student data.