IT Uncovered

I have been so busy with my job and trying to get a business model going that I’ve pretty much abandoned this “project.”  I am fooling with cheap and simple ways to revamp my business web site to give it some flare and I’m struggling between Joomla or using Wordpress.  If anyone has suggestions please just leave a comment!

For anyone who wants to tether their BJ II there’s an easy solution to unlock all the connections so you can modify them. 

1. Open up File Explorer and navigate to the Windows directory
2. Hit “U” on the keyboard
3. Launch UAMgr and choose to unlock all.
4. Now all the GPRS connections should be unlocked and you can edit them if you want
5. Change the connection in IE to Internet if you want to go outside the AT&T network or leave it on WAP Network so Media Net works.

1. Login to a domain controller and download the Account Lockout Tools from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7AF2E69C-91F3-4E63-8629-B999ADDE0B9E&displaylang=en)
2. Extract the Contents to a directory on the server
3. Open LockoutStatus.exe
4. Select File and choose Select Target
5. Type the user name that is locked and hit OK
6. All the domain controllers should show up with the user state of the account.  If you look at the far right there is a table column.
7. Now choose the domain controller that enabled the lock and right-click on it choose Set Netlogon Logging
8. Check the box for Misc Debug to enable logon errors to be recorded and click OK (this sets the flag for DBFlag to 0×4 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters)
9. Now right-click the original lock domain controller and choose Unlock Account.  Right-click a DC and choose Refresh All.  If any DC is still showing the account locked then right-click on that DC and choose Unlock Account.
10. Once the account is locked again right-click on the DC that originated the lock and choose Open Netlogon Log
11. Scroll to the bottom of the log and look for [LOGON] entries and then look at the error code at the end.  If it is 0×000006A the account is being submitted with a bad password.  This line entry should also list the IP or the Computer name where the bad logon attempt originated.
12. If the Netlogon.log file is too big then you can go to the DC and use nlparse.exe included in the Account Lockout Tools to choose which flags you want to parse from a Netlogon.log file and dump to a CSV.  The Netlogon.log is located in C:\Windows\Debug\ on a DC.  The output from nlparse.exe will dump a file to that same directory called Netlogon.log –Out.csv.

After finding the root cause of the lockout it’s advised to go back in and disable the Misc Debug flag to minimize the amount of logging being done in the Netlogon.log file.

I got a call today from someone saying that one particular user was getting a published desktop instead of the application every time she tried to launch an application.  My initial response was one of expletives but after some looking around I figured out what the issue was.  Since it was only one user I knew it was not a server issue.  After poking around her AD Object I discovered that the root cause was someone had checked Start the following program at logon in the Environment tab.  This is a huge issue and causes Citrix and Terminal Services to flake out and just launch a desktop instead.  This is what it should look like for every user:

One of the most annoying things with Microsoft is their model of authenticating outside of a domain.  I found out the hard way when configuring Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and trying to use the remote administration tools.  I kept getting an error that I couldn’t connect to the Hyper-V Service.  Here are the proper steps to get it working.

1. Make sure to have a user account that is an administrator on the Hyper-V machine with th same user name that you are logged in with.  If you are logged in locally as administrator (bad, bad, bad) on your desktop or laptop then make sure that the password matches on the Hyper-V server.  This works even if you’re in a domain and the Hyper-V server is not.
2. Install the Remote Administration Tools for Windows 7 or Vista.  You can get the Windows 7 ones here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=48359dd2-1c3d-4506-ae0a-232d0314ccf6&displaylang=en or Vista ones here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9FF6E897-23CE-4A36-B7FC-D52065DE9960&displaylang=en .
3. Once you install them you have to actually enable the remote administration tools so go to Control Panel and choose Programs and Turn Windows Features On or Off.  Now scroll down and expand Remote Server Administration Tools and add the ones you want to enable by checking the boxes.  The Hyper-V tools are located in the Role Adminstation Tools.
4. Click Ok and let Windows Configure the installation of the tools.
5. Now on the local Vista or Windows 7 machine click on Start and in the search type dcomcnfg and hit enter
6. Expand Component Services until you see My Computer
7. Now right-click on My Computer and go to properties
8. Click on COM Security
9. Under Access Permissions click on Edit Limits
10. Click on ANONYMOUS LOGON and check the box for Remote Access and hit OK (this actually allows you to connect to the Hyper-V service on the remote server.  This is the part that irritated me the most).
11. Click OK  twice and close Component Services
12. Now go to Start – Administrative Tools and launch Hyper-V Manager (or create a custom MMC, whatever makes you happy)
13. If prompted by the UAC click Yes.
14. In the left pane right-click on Hyper-V Manager and choose Connect to Server.
15. Type the name of the server you created and hit OK. 
16. You should now be able to successfully manage the server remotely.  You can also use Computer Management and other MMC plugins for remote administration.  Provided that you configured the firewall on the Hyper-V server to allow this administration.

You’re not going to get universal restore capabilities but for $40 for a paid version this is hard to beat.  Top it off with the free version that would work for home users it’s a good alternative to ones like DriveImage XML.

 http://www.macrium.com/default.asp

I’ll go ahead and cite the original owner first then go into changing his process to adapt to XenServer 5.5.  Chris Wolf is a genius: http://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2008/05/09/installing-and-running-xenserver-41-on-an-external-usb-drive.aspx

Ok now for the changes.  If you noticed I updated steps 12 and 13 because the kernel has changed since the article was written.

To get XenServer to successfully boot on an external USB drive, follow these steps:

1. When the server boots, hit the hotkey for the boot options menu.
2. Ensure that the XenServer installation CD is in the CD-ROM drive.
3. In the boot options menu, select the option to boot from the CD-ROM.
4. As soon as the Welcome to XenServer setup screen loads, immediately press the F2 key to view the advanced setup options.
5. Now type shell and hit Enter.
6. When the system finishes booting, run the following command to create a temporary folder where you will mount the external USB drive:

   mkdir /tmp/sda

7. You will now mount the USB drive to the temporary location. Note that I’m assuming the USB drive is the only drive attached to the system and therefore is mounted as /dev/sda. To mount the first partition of sda to the /tmp/sda folder, run this command:

   mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /tmp/sda

8. You will now need to copy the sys/block drivers from the setup environment to the USB drive. However, you will first need to change the driver file permissions prior to the copy. To do this, run this command:

   chmod -R 664 /sys/block

9. You can now copy the contents of /sys/block to the USB drive. To do this, run this command:

   cp -R /sys/block/ /tmp/sda/sys/block/
   
   Note: Disregard the resultant “Input/Output error” message. The file copy will complete successfully.

10. Next you need to change the root location to /tmp/sda. You can do this by running the command:

    chroot /tmp/sda

11. Now let’s change to the /boot folder on the USB drive. To do this, run the command:

    cd /boot

12. Now we will rename the original primary initrd image file because the new image file will have the same name as the original file for ease of configuration. To rename the primary initrd image file, run this command:

    mv initrd-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5.xs5.5.0.496.1012xen.img initrd-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5.xs5.5.0.496.1012xen.img.old

13. Next, we’ll create a new initrd image that includes the USB driver. To do this, run this command:

    mkinitrd –with-usb initrd-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5.xs5.5.0.496.1012xen.img 2.6.18-128.1.6.el5.xs5.5.0.496.1012xen

14. At this point, you will now be able to successfully boot XenServer from an external USB drive. To reboot, the server, type exit and hit Enter and then type reboot and press Enter. Remember to select the external USB drive from the boot options menu when the server boots.

Some people have wondered how to do it so here we go:

1. Create a new temporary Administrative account, reboot your PC and log-in under the new profile. Include this account in the changes below unless stated otherwise.
2. Open Regedit and modify the following key to point to your new profile location (e.g. D:\):
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ProfilesDirectory
3. Expand ProfileList and modify the following key in each profile (except S-1-5-18), replacing C:\Documents and Settings with the new profile location:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<profile>\ProfileImagePath
4. Navigate to the key below and modify all string values so as C:\Documents and Settings points to the new profile location:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\*
5. Close Regedit, open Explorer (be sure you can view hidden files, including system) and copy all profiles (except LocalService(XP), NetworkService(XP) and the temporary profile you are using) from C:\Documents and Settings to the new profile location.
6. Reboot your PC; log-in as Administrator and remove the temporary profile; and then delete C:\Documents and Settings.

This tool is great for any consultant or IT technician who needs to validate a domain’s health before going through an upgrade process.    This is just one more tool that Microsoft has released that makes our job even easier.  Here’s a description courtesy of Microsoft:

“The Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner is a diagnostic tool that is designed for administrators of small or medium-sized networks (recommended up to 20 servers and up to 500 client computers) who want to assess the overall health of their network infrastructure. The tool identifies common problems that can prevent your network environment from functioning properly as well as problems that can interfere with infrastructure upgrades, deployments, and migration.

When run from a computer with the proper network access, the tool takes a few minutes to scan your IT environment, perform more than 100 separate checks, and collect and analyze information about the following:

• Configuration of sites and subnets in Active Directory
• Replication of Active Directory, the file system, and SYSVOL shared folders
• Name resolution by the Domain Name System (DNS)
• Configuration of the network adapters of all domain controllers, DNS servers, and e-mail servers running Microsoft Exchange Server
• Health of the domain controllers
• Configuration of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) for all domain controllers”

You can download it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dd7a00df-1a5b-4fb6-a8a6-657a7968bd11&displaylang=en

When I say commit, I mean cleaning up the service pack and removing your ability to rollback.  Microsoft provides a tool called COMPCLN.exe (Windows Component Clean Tool) that allows you to simply commit SP2 and clean up some space.  Obviously if you want to ever have the ability to remove SP2 then DO NOT follow this.  If you find that SP2 works great and you want to clear space do the following:

1. Click Start and in the Search Bar type command.
2. Right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run as Administrator.
3. Now just type COMPCLN.exe and hit enter.
4. You will get the following prompt: This operation will make all service packs and other packages permanent on this computer. Upon completion you will not be able to remove any cleaned packages fr
   om this system.
5. Type Y to accept and reclaim the disk space.  You should reclaim about 700 MB of space.