Archive for the ‘Microsoft Server’ Category
SQL 2008 Sillyness
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Server, User Privileges on June 29th, 2010
In server 2008 (and probably other versions as well) if you need to add a user or group local to the server as an SQL user, you get the following lovely error: “Error 15401: Windows NT user or group ‘%s’ not found. Check the name again. ” Domain accounts add fine, but not local accounts. Well, SOME local accounts add fine but other ones don’t Now isn’t that silly? Turns out that any predefined local accounts or groups like “administrators” or “system” need to use the domain “BUILTIN” and not the server name as the domain preface. Problem solv-ed.
ds
Restoring Exchange 2003 from a remote Backupexec 9.1 server
Posted by: ds in Exchange, Microsoft Server on October 20th, 2009
So this seems like it should be a fairly straight forward task. I mean there are a ton of BE backups going on every day and a ton of exchange backups in those. And I seriously doubt that all of the backups are running from the exchange server (unless it an SBS - but that’s a totally different animal). But documantation and gotchas are seriously lacking here. So, follow the bellow exactly! Do not skip anything otherwise you will go directly to jail and will owe $200.
1) Install the base OS.
a) Do a parallel install or scratch install to a folder that is NOT c:\windows on the server to be restored
2)Install the BE remote agent on the exhcnage server and make sure it is running!
IMPORTANT! Don’t forget this - bad things happen!
3) Restore the remote server OS from the BE server.
Only include the C:, D: volumes and system state. Do NOT include the exchange stores.
Before restarting, edit the Boot.ini to add back the parallel install. IMPORTANT because it’s likely the restore will munch one or more of the drivers
4) If the server does not restart, it’s probably the video driver.
restart in safe mode, then reinstall the correct video driver - even if it says it’s already there.
5) Once successfully restarted, start the Exchange store.
Make sure the stores are dismounted
In the store properties, check the setting to allow restore.
6) restore the exchange store from BE.
7) there may be misc stuff to cleanup but it should be mostly good to go.
what can happen???
If you forget to install or don’t have the remote agent running on the remote server, BE will restore the system state to the local server! No shit!
It won’t tell you it did that - it will only fail on the volume restores but say the system state was successful. If you see something like that - DO NOT REBOOT!�
Immediately restore the local system state from BE. If you screwed that up, then you’ll need to do a parallel OS install.�
You will need to remove (or rename the existing MSSQL$dackupexec instance and make sure when you install BE, you install to a different directory.
Unless you want to recatalog the tape (yikes!) copy all of the *.ui1 files from the backupexec/nt/catalog folder to the new install.
Then, you will need to service pack the OS up to the level the orginal server was. Then restore in Directory Restore mode and restore the system state. Oh, and you have to restore the entier C: volume along with the system state to get your registry and SAM back. Otherwise it will fail to restore with a cryptic error (eventhough it lets you select only the system state - how lmae is that??)
ds
MDT 2008 Lite Touch fails with wierd network errors - sometimes
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Network Admin, Microsoft Server, Vista, Windows Desktop on October 20th, 2009
You may not put two and two together but they last time you updated MDT (because MS told you you needed to… (yeah so much for trusting MS)) you actually broke it. Now you get a Network Timeout (or a wierd access denied error) in Windows PE 2.1 when it’s trying to launch the Lite touch scripts. Oh, and another thing about launching LiteTouch, don’t have a Windows boot CD (or any CD in the CD drive. For some wierd reason WPEInit will see that and fail to launch the LiteTouch Script. (no I havn’t figured out why yet)
Symptoms:
You get the following error message in MDT 2008 Lite Touch Deployment even though you have the correct nic drivers in Windows PE and the correct bootstrap.ini settings. “A connection to the deployment share \\Server\Distribution$ could not be made. The Deployment will not proceed” upon further investigation you find out that you get an access denied error when you try to list the \\server\distribuiton$\ directory. BUT! if you do a Net Use mapping to the folder, it works just fine! WTF? AND, it works on some models of computer but not on others. More WTF?
Cause:
A network initializion timeout issue in wpeinit.exe in Windows PE 2.1 causes MDT 2008 Lite Touch Deployments to fail.
Workaround:
Give WIndows PE 2.1 a few more seconds by editing startnet.cmd on your LiteTouch_x86.wim (or iso) to look like below. (It’s in the windows/system32 directory) (Use Imagex /mountrw LiteTouch.wim 1 d:\image to mount the WIM) (Don’t forget to ImageX /Unmount d:\image when you’re done)
startnet.cmd
wpeutil InitializeNetwork
ping localhost or Pause (or any other command that does nothing but takes a few seconds to complete)
wpeinit
If you want the Deployment Workbench to include the updated startnet.cmd every time you update the Deployment Point just follow the below steps
Configure MDT to use the updated startnet.cmd
- Create a folder named ExtraFiles\Windows\System32 in the distribution share and copy the updated startnet.cmd to it.
- In the Deployment Workbench, right-click the Deployment Point and select Properties.
- In the Windows PE Tab, in the Extra directory to add textbox, type in D:\ExtraFiles
- Click OK
- Regenerate the WIM files and don’t forget to rebuild the Boot images in WDS otherwise your changes won’t take effect.
ds
Default Permissions For Roaming Profile and Folder Redirection Folders
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Network Admin, Microsoft Server on February 3rd, 2009
Here are the recommended default permissions for the Profiles and Redirected folders folders so that new users automatically get their folders created for them when logging on for the first time:
Roaming profile parent folder:
Creator Owner = Full Control, Subfolders and Files Only
Domain Users = List Folder/Read Data, Create Folders/Append Data - This Folder Only
System = Full Control, This Folder, Subfolders and Files
And don’t forget to change the GPO for the local computer (not the server) to add the Administrators security group to the roaming user profile share. It’s in Computer/Administrative Templates/System/User Profiles/Add the Administrators security group to roaming user profiles - Enable it.
Redirected Folders Parent:
Creator Owner = Full Control, Subfolders and Files Only
Domain Users = List Folder/Read Data, Create Folders/Append Data - This Folder Only
System = Full Control, This Folder, Subfolders and Files
Admistrators = Full Control, This Folder, Subfolders and Files
Enterprise PKI without enterprise edition of 2003 server.
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Network Admin, Microsoft Server on January 28th, 2009
My, my aren’t we getting advanced??? You have decided to implement an enterprise wide Public Key Infrastructure to start securing your network. Despite what you read from Microsoft (and all of the articles blindly based on Microsoft blather), you do not need Server 2003 enterprise edition to get this to work at the machine level. Only if you want to do it at the user level do you need the Enterprise edition. So, how do you go about setting it up?
If your network is comprised of only one domain, it’s pretty simple. Just install certificate services on a server in your primary LAN selecting the enterprise root CA role. You can install certificate services on any other servers that you need to selecting the subordinate enterprise CA role and pointing them at the first server you setup. typically you would install a subordinate CA on LANs that are at remote locations to help reduce WAN traffic and enhance reliability if a WAN link goes down. Things get a little more involved when your network is comprised of a root domain and one or more trusted child domains. Basically, you start out the same - installing the Enterprise Root CA in the root domain and installing a subordinate enterprise CA in each child domain, BUT there are a couple of little tidbits you need to do to make it work. First, you need to log on to the server in the child domain as the administrator of the root domain (otherwise known as the enterprise administrator) otherwise you won’t have the option to install the cert services as a subordinate enterprise CA. Second, even though it does not indicate you need to, reboot the server right away otherwise all sorts of wierd mesages pop up in your event logs and the CA doesn’t issue certs. Third, you will find that the CA still isn’t issuing certs but there are no error messages anywhere!!! (another WTF - MS is good at making you ask that aren’t they?) The problem is that the computers in the child domains are not allowed to request certs from the enterprise CA by default. To fix that, go to the root domain server, open up AD sites and services, in the menu go to view then check Show Services Node, then expand the services node and go to Public Key Services, then Certificate Templates. The template you are looking for is called Machine (even though the certificate you issued is called Computer - it’s actually the same one). Right click, properties, security, add the Domain computers group from each of the child domains and change their permission from read to Enroll. Oh, and fourth - sometimes the cert service doesn’t startup right on server start, you can probably fiddle with dependancies but a simple stop/start of the service after the server is done rebooting works too.
So what good is a computer (machine) certificate you ask? One hint - 802.11x and ipsec. Well actually that’s two hints and definately a topic for another post.
ds
New clients won’t sync to WSUS with SP1
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Server on June 24th, 2008
Ok, you’ve had WSUS 3.0 running smoothly for some months now (finally!) But now, you add a new computer to your domain and try to get it to sync up with your WSUS server to install the bazillion updates it needs but it doesn’t find any updates. Your WSUS 3.0 comsole lists the new computer but says “Not yet reported” for it’s status. You try running wuauclt /detectnow on the new computer but still no joy. Now you put your clever brain to work and start digging through the logs and you find “WARNING: SyncUpdates failure, error = 0×8024400D” near the bottom of the WindowsUpdate.log file. You think you’re onto something! But what??? You find all kinds of misleading posts all over googledom. Here is likely what is going on: Microsoft (suprise, suprise) put their foot in it again. They issued a screwed up MS Office 2003 SP1 re-release in the June, 2008 updates. To fix the problem, find that update and change it from Declined to Not Approved. How did I know it was Declined??? It was an inspired guess. Magically everyone starts reporting in and updating. Go figure.
DS
WSUS 3.0 won’t install !!!
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Server on June 19th, 2007
So you decided to finally bite the bullet and install wsus 3.0. If you’re lucky (very lucky) it’ll install and migrate just fine. HA! There are lots of things that can go wrong.
If you’re on an older server that origianlly had SUS 1.0 on it, you probably won’t be so lucky. WSUS 3.0 install will bark at you about still having SUS 1.0 installed! But of course it isn’t. What to do? The answer lies in an obscure MS technet article that enumerates what WSUS 3.0 looks for before it installs. Here’s the article: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/2f276be4-f276-4bec-a565-c8757c6736b81033.mspx?mfr=true Basically, the Key it is looking for is {AFF0D9D3-6F0D-437E-9327-98108B4A8644} in the HKLM/Software/microsoft/windows/current version/Uninstall key. Find it and kill it.
It should go without saying that you shouldn’t be trying to install anything else while you’re installing WSUS 3.0. But you’re probably tempted to install the MS reporting Services Redistributable package while WSUS is doing it’s thing because you forgot it needed it (or didn’t know) and it barks at you that you need to install it. Well, DON’T. It’ll crash the WSUS install.
Permissions. Sometimes WSUS 3.0 won’t have permissions to it’s own database. Just like WSUS 2.0, the easy fix is to change the startup credentials of the update service to Local Admin instead of Network services. This just in….the easy fix causes other problems - go figure. If you had permissions problems in 2.0, your upgrade to 3.0 will probably fail with a 0×80070643 error. Basically what is going on is it either can’t get at the database stored in WSUS because of permissions, or it can’t get at the new database in WsusDatabase because of permissions. So, either fix the permissions on the root by adding Network services to it, fix the permissions on WSUS by adding Network Services/Full to it propogating it down to all sub folders and let the upgrade fail, then fix the permssions on WsusDatabase the same way and restart the upgrade pointing it at WsusDatabase, OR pre-create the WsusDatabase folder with the proper permissions and fix the permissions on WSUS before starting the upgrade.
Oh and don’t forget to download and install the Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2005 thing before starting the upgrade. You don’t have to, but it stops the complaining during the upgrade and you gotta do it eventually anyway.
Ok, so here’s the latest “gotcha”. Make sure the volume that you are putting the database on isn’t set to compress. Or at least the folder it’s going to put it in. If it is, WSUS 3.0 install will fail mysteriously. But you read that it the realese notes didn’t you???
There’s probably more that can go wrong - I’ll add the fixes when I come accross them.
DS
What is SVCHOST anyway?
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Server on December 7th, 2006
Basically, SVCHOST is a services DLL loader. Here’s the MS artical that explains it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314056
The keys to finding out what is going on are: Run TASKLIST /SVC from the command window and look at the following Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Svchost
How to reset License Manager information
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Server on November 2nd, 2006
This is an excerpt from MS article 153140
SUMMARY
If you want to reset the information license manager displays, you can delete or rename three files.
MORE INFORMATION
To reset the license manager information:
| 1. | Stop the License Logging service. |
| 2. | Delete or rename the following files on the primary domain controller or the enterprise server:
Cpl.cfg, which contains all of your purchase history and is located in %Systemroot%\System32. Llsuser.lls, which contains the user information on number of connections and is located in %Systemroot%\System32\Lls. Llsmap.lls, which contains License group information and is also located in %Systemroot%\System32\Lls. |
| 3. | Restart the License Logging service. |
| 4. | Re-add the appropriate license information. |
For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
194065 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194065/EN-US/) How to Reset License Manager Throughout an Enterprise
HP System Management Homepage Time-out
Posted by: ds in HP, Microsoft Server on September 26th, 2006
Problem: You’ve installed the latest and greatest HP management agents from the support pack so you can take a peak at what’s going on with your server, but it don’t freakin’ work! You’ve installed, re-installed and re-updated - all the usual stuff and still no joy.
Error Messages: A timeout occurred while loading data for the HP System Management Homepage
Resolution: It’s the SNMP settings dummy! Make sure you actually set the read and write community strings after you install SNMP. (You did install SNMP before installing the HP management agents didn’t you????)
DS