what did you learn today? (part 2)

[Rick25]

Continuing the previous "what did you learn today", since that one appears to have gotten so large it's making the forum unhappy.

Do we get bonus points for that

 

[Rick25]

That this http://www.cjwdev.co.uk/Software/ADPhotoEdit/Info.html looks like a great way to automate the injected of staff photos in AD.

 

[Rick25]

That this http://www.cjwdev.co.uk/Software/ADPhotoEdit/Info.html looks like a great way to automate the injected of staff photos in AD.

Very nice timing, I was looking into doing this yesterday.

My guy ended up using http://www.exclaimer.com/outlook-photos/ when we put ours in. Worked really well and free.

TIL I should have posted the question prior to buying the app Oh well, the paid one is pretty slick and so is the free. Now I've got two GUI options where Monday I only had Powershell.

 

[Rick25]

Bad MS patch last week

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/19 ... pair_disk/

Bootable disk http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=38435 for uninstall if you can't get into Windows.
We've seen at least 1 case of this this week.

 

[Rick25]

Xon[/url]":3gnotluv]

Rick25[/url]":3gnotluv]Bad MS patch last week.

This is related to Kaspersky AV.

That said, the last patch cycle nuked the development database my group was working against. Trivial files like ci.dll and ntoskrnl.exe where corrupted zero length files after chkdsk was run. That ended up being a rebuild job.

We're running Forefront and experienced a similar crapout on a reboot. I'll know for sure on Monday when we try the bootable ISO to recover the drive.

 

[Rick25]

MDOP 2013 with MBAM 2.0 has been released. http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/busi ... -2013.aspx

 

[Rick25]

Danger Mouse[/url]":agrhns94]...that I really love:


The Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=13380

We've been using that for years, great program!

 

[Rick25]

That I really dislike the day after patch day where anything that's wrong with the app is suddenly blamed on the OS....

 

[Rick25]

ESXi 5.1 Update 1 has been released. https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5 ... 905f871958

 

[Rick25]

That DNS is at the root of all thing not working in MS land....even when it shouldn't have been. A happy DNS is a happy admin.

I can't believe VMware won't write a nice GUI for the SSL certs. Point it to an internal PKI, get cert and go...but no has to be in PEM format etc etc.

 

[Rick25]

sporkme[/url]":1k0bo7sk]Someone sent me this, then hours disappeared:

http://devopsreactions.tumblr.com/

Awesome website


DM - thanks for the linkage for the cert utility from VMware, definately going to dig into it on Monday!

 

[Rick25]

Barmaglot[/url]":3p7ry68m]Second thing I do when setting up an ESXi host is set UserVars.SuppressShellWarning = 1.

Oh handy thanks!

Woke up to a failed SSD in an Array, in the process of getting that ticket open I noticed I've got more emails in my inbox then my BB. Check the BES and it's connecting to two new IPs for the SRP. Couple of FW changes later and all's good, SSD showed up 2hrs after case was opened!

 

[Rick25]

xcrunner529[/url]":20k5vxmj]

euri[/url]":20k5vxmj]Anybody taken the VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale class? Was it worth it?


There were useful things I learned like the esxtop utility and monitoring Ready values and stuff from the performance graphs, but the rest was really just internals on how ESXi works and schedules stuff. I found a lot of it was "here's all this stuff that can have a performance impact. ESXi sets this as the default just make sure it wasn't changed!".

That pretty much sums it up for my take on it as well. Other thing to note is if you're using it to qualify for the VCP exams, the blueprint of the course states that it only really cover about 20% of that is on the exam. Fast Track and I,C,M would be better choices in that case.

 

[Rick25]

PaveHawk-[/url]"ki71q4d]BES10 looks exactly the same as BES5. Ugly.

But at least it just uses ActiveSync now, no more CdoMAPI issues with the Exchange servers.

 

[Rick25]

DM, any reason you're not jumping straight to Simpana 10? http://www.commvault.com/simpana-softwa ... -10?ref=ma

 

[Rick25]

That following a vendors recommendation to set IOPs to 0 with a VMware RobinRobin config can lead to 1/2 the performance of when it was set to 1000...so much for a performance boost.

 

[Rick25]

sryan2k1[/url]":2vrnkha2]Any tips for co-existance with a traditional BES?

No co-existence work needed. Since they've gone to ActiveSync you just stand up the server, configure the SRP info etc and you can start using it. I didn't notice any delay in being able to activate a new device. The UDS server for Andriod and iOS is a little more complicated because you need some Apple certificate but fairly straight forward.

 

[Rick25]

Unified Management is a couple of next, next, next steps. You then just need to add each of the Domains to the management interface (BES, BES10 and UDS) and you're done.

 

[Rick25]

That despite Western Digital branding their Red drives as the preferred choice for a NAS, the Acronis software that they provide won't install unless you've got a Red (or maybe any WD) drive physically installed on the system you're adding the software to....kinda defeats the purpose of a "NAS" branding for a drive. Either remove the offered software or allow it to work.....

 

[Rick25]

I've got two in a Synology (with a package so that get's backed up to Crashplan). I wanted to be able to use the Acronis software to grab an image of my laptop in case the HD crash and also store that on the Synology.....wonder if I could shut it down, slave one drive up to the laptop with an adapter long enough to do the install.

 

[Rick25]

That a certain load balancer company expects you to pay for the tax/duties when their equipment fails. Aside from my opinion on all that, it's also requires you to be a customs expect and have a business number that's registered for import/export.....so much for the expedited replacement. Silly thing is that neither of the first two times we had one die did any of this foolishness happen.

 

[Rick25]

llib[/url]":uhh5b4eg]

....
In the 15 years I've been here, I can't even remember a rack power failure, although there have been a few server PSes that let loose the magic smoke... I don't know how you guys do it, man. My hat's off to you. And it sounds like your IT guy and the facility guy need to have some face-to-face time...

llib's epic magic smoke thread
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=72913

[edit]

Fixed linkage

 

[Rick25]

That SCOM 2012 wSP1 somehow decided to create the Data Warehouse DB on SQL2012 with the following structure
edatabases\.mdf and the log was \logs\.ldf WTF.....I thought it was a wonky screen refresh (showing no filename) but a command line "dir" on the directory showed ".mdf" as well.

Detach the database, rename it and then reattach (fixing the paths) and all is good. Also stupid permission errors on the server unless UAC was completely disabled.

 

[Rick25]

Thanks for the linkage CM....I'm liking the product but "death by a thousand cuts" does describe the install.

Upside I got exchange sorted out in Dev, one of the mailbox servers had store.exe hit 100% and stay there. Now that RU1 is out for Ex2010 SP3 it's time to look at getting dev updated past SP2 RU3.....after the RU is live for a month or so with no major issues or re-releases.

 

[Rick25]

Entegy[/url]":wuxq10nh]Hitting the 255 character limit of Explorer in a single folder name.

I'd really wish they'd fix that. It's also a issue if you're trying to do a Shadow Copy restore and you can't because the path is now too deep since they tack on the date/time of the snapshot.

 

[Rick25]

That MS fixed the issue with Mailbox cleanup after a move (SP2 RU3 issue) in SP3 RU1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2763065

Scorp, just a note the description for that KB in the summary of RU1 is "Move request log is logged when you move a mailbox in an Exchange Server 2010 SP2 environment"
but when you go into the link it's (correctly) "Mailbox move operation fails when Update Rollup 3 or a later update rollup for Exchange Server 2010 SP2 is installed"

 

[Rick25]

Yep, thanks for the heads up. We're not caught by that but I was just reading the comments on the Ehlo page for RU1 that some people are running into issues with opening additional mailboxes through OWA after RU1. Going to have to do some testing. Oh they also mentioned no more RU releases for SP2, which is fair enough I guess.

 

[Rick25]

That where the View documentation says install the Root Cert into the keystore to enable smart card support they're actually meaning install the issuing CA cert. For good measure I also added the Root CA cert. Then had to upload the certs into the Zero client so it wouldn't complain.

On the upside I learnt that if you export a Windows CA and pick the DER encoded .cer file, you can just rename the extension and suddenly you've got a .pem file without having to resort to openssl cli stuff.

 

[Rick25]

Danger Mouse[/url]":3belvcvt]

Rick25[/url]":3belvcvt]That where the View documentation says install the Root Cert into the keystore to enable smart card support they're actually meaning install the issuing CA cert. For good measure I also added the Root CA cert. Then had to upload the certs into the Zero client so it wouldn't complain.

On the upside I learnt that if you export a Windows CA and pick the DER encoded .cer file, you can just rename the extension and suddenly you've got a .pem file without having to resort to openssl cli stuff.

AHHH, nice. Does that give you the private key as well?

Not from what I can see.

 

[Rick25]

That we've finally got a MS Technology Center in Toronto

 

[Rick25]

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=y ... 5608,d.aWM

Yorkdale Mall - it's right off the 401 at Dufferin.

 

[Rick25]

That Windows 8.1 still won't let you shutdown while you're logged in. I had to log out, then go to the login page to get the Power button

Still no real start menu, but usability wise it seems a little more friendly. Still think I'll wait for 9 though

 

[Rick25]

Thanks all, I was right clicking everywhere but never the Start button. Thanks for the info.

 

[Rick25]

Management arms are evil. We banned ours years ago. Velcro and short power cables work just fine.

 

[Rick25]

I'd suggest throwing on ESXi (even the free version) and then standing up those servers as VMs. You'll get better segregation between the different roles. DC, DNS, DHCP on one VM, WSUS, SQL and the file server on their own separate ones.

 

[Rick25]

That a controller will go on an array over the long weekend. Upside is that there isn't any data on that array yet so I can deal with it on Tuesday.

 

[Rick25]

That today (and over the weekend) a whole lot of stuff decided to give up it's magic smoke

Eql controller - Ticket opened, controller onsite in 2.5hrs
HD in HP array - Ticket open, drive dispatched. VM left by courier company that was not possible to understand the call in number or the dispatch number. Only thing clear was that it was being delivered tomorrow....did I mention 4hr onsite on the enclosure. Called back in and it should be getting here about now
Load Balancer - GUI is dead, console is dead but somehow it's still passing traffic. Failed to passive node and powered down. Came back up asking for boot media, RMA in place
Storage array - got error message over the weekend that replication failed. Got there this mornig to find the array turned off and it won't come back on. Looks like PS fried but it's not a field replaceable part so they need to replace the whole chassis.

It's been a bit of a day.

 

[Rick25]

New 6.0.6 firmware is out for Equallogic arrays. Mainly cosmetic stuff so I think I'll stick to 6.0.5 since it's been out for a bit and they haven't issued a patch.

 

[Rick25]

That whole Call to Repair is new. It never used to be a SKU that they listed. We've always bought the 4hr 24x7 and it was 4hrs for the tech and/or equipment to be onsite.

Our Equallogic's have 4hr response and we get the part in that time...usually less.

 

[Rick25]

That equipment knows when it's replacement is imminent and will begin to fail accordingly.