How-to Archives - Page 10 of 13

Monitor a WD ShareSpace using XYMon on any remote network

Do you happen to be a systems support guy who needs a method of getting the basic stats of a WD ShareSpace into your XYmon or MAG monitor? If you are like me then you are a systems admin responsible for many different networks spread across the Internet. You then may have deployed a few NAS systems including the WD ShareSpace that runs a version of BusyBox Linux. This is good news because WD provides access to the shell over SSH if you enable it via the web admin (advanced section). So now go enable SSH access and then puttythe system using the username “root” and a password of “welc0me” where the 0 in welc0me is a zero.

With shell access we can do many things, one of which is getting the stats from the system. Currently we have only 1 method to get the stats to XYmon but we are exploring some custom XYmon client binaries we can distribute in future versions of this article. That may make this article a mute point so check back every so often for updates.

Today we have to do monitoring in 2 parts,

#1 Have a script on WD ShareSpace running on a regular intervals, that executes the basic commands to produce the files we need to stat the system in XYmon.

#2 Have a Windows system grab the stat files from WD ShareSpace and process them before sending them on to the XYMon server.

First script is the WD Sharespace script which is a very simple shell script that does nothing more then cat to several text files ( meminfo, df, du, uptime and load) and saves them to a share on the WD ShareSpace called Public. You can modify the script to place files on any share you want. The script should then be executed with the following command while SSHed in to the WD ShareSpace

The first time you run the script you will need to make it executible. To do so type:

chmod 0755 ./Report.sh

The to run the shell script type:

Report.sh &

This will place the script in the background as a process and release your shell so you can logout without stopping the script. The script will run then sleep for 5 minutes then run again replacing files with updated files every 5 minutes until you stop it(which should be never). You will need to change the permissions on the files the first time you run script so that the report files are world readable. To do this use the following command.

chmod 0777 ./*report.txt

We now have stat files on a share that we want to “FTP” off. The key word here is FTP so we will want to allow anonymous FTP to the WD ShareSpace. Login to the web admin of the WD ShareSpace and enable FTP on the device. This allows the Perl script we use next to grab the stat files, process them and then send them on to the XYmon sever via a proxy connection.

WDShareSpace Scripts

The next step is to setup the Windows system to proxy the stats to the remote XYMon server. I normally use one of the Windows server we monitor via XYMon but if this is the only thing you monitor then a windows desktop can be used as well. Either way you will need a Active State Perl set up on a Windows box to be the proxy.

Today the script is Perl, tomorrow it could be a Powershell or some other language suitable for Windows but for today it’s Perl. Perl is not native to Windows so you will need to add it’s language to Windows by the way of Active State Perl for Windows. To install ASP go to Active State Perl. Install Perl and make sure you select to place Perl in the PATH variables with in Windows during install process. Now download our Perl script and place it in a directory on your Windows server.

You should edit the script variables so that it reflects your setups, (Share to look for files in, the name of the WDShareSpace as seen on XYMon server ). The run the Windows Scheduler and create a new daily schedule to run the perl script “WdShareSpace.pl”. After creating the daily schedule go back in and edit the schedule and select the advanced section. Find the “run every” and set it to 5 minutes and the in the “run for” place in 24 for 24 hours a day. This will get the script running every 5 minutes which is the same schedule as the shell script running on the NAS so you will get updates every 5 minutes.

So to summarize:

We have 2 scripts (Report.sh and WDSharespace.pl) Report.sh runs on the NAS and after permissions are changed it is executed with the (&) symbol after it so it drops to the background and keeps running when you close the ssh window. This script creates a set of report text files in the same directory as the script. The WDShareSpace.pl runs on Windows with Active State Perl installed and it has several varibles in script that need to be edited to point it to the NAS and XYMon servers and it is scheduled to run inside of Windows Scheduler(AT) on a 5 minute interval.

If all is successful you should get some thing like the following in your XYmon server if you configured the BBHOST for the WDShareSpace HOST.

Disk view:

How to close cmd or command window after executing a program

Get the CMD.exe Window to close

Do you ever have a bat or cmd file that you have written to do something like update a config file then launch a application or process, and have it fail to close the cmd window after it completes even with the “EXIT” command placed at the end of script?

Yes? Funny… me too.

Here is what I found fixes the issue.

I have a script that updates the desktop gadgets your profile should launch upon login. Pretty simple script, it copies the settings.ini file from a network share and places it in your profile directory under “sidebar” and then launches sidebar.exe with a switch. This is a great script for controlling the gadgets seen on a users desktop. (Script example below if you want it)

The problem I was having with this script was I was trying to launch the sidebar application after the update and that was causing the cmd window not to close after it launched the application.

C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe” /autostart

Here is the trick to get a cmd that fails to release after launch in a batch file to actually release.

start “” “C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe” /autostart

If you look at the command, I use the “start” cmd and then supply (“”) a literal nothing as a switch to the “start” cmd. Then in quotes (if spaces exist) the command to run.

Wow, the window now closes after it launches the sidebar application.

I hope this helps some scripter out there with login scripts they are writing. Below you will find a copy of my login script to set gadgets up on Desktop when a user logs in.

Here is a little more about the “load default gadgets at login” script.

[Force default gadgets to load on the desktop when a user logs in]

How to force default gadgets on a users desktop, First off to get started you need to setup a profile and launch the gadgets you want on the desktop. Move them where you want them to be on the desktop so that they are placed in the areas you want them. We have dual monitors across our tech team so we placed all gadgets on second monitor.

Now go grab the config file you just created by moving and launching the gadgets you wanted. The default location for the gadget config file in a users profile is:

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Settings.ini

Lastly we create a batch file to recopy this file each time a user logs in and then launches the sidebar application.

Create a new batch file called gadgets.bat then place the following in the file.

REM @echo off
taskkill /IM sidebar.exe /f
copy /Z /Y \\myserver\myshare\Settings.ini “%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\”
start “” “C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe” /autostart

Copy the Settings.ini file to a network share. Edit the “myserver” and the “myshare” to represent your network share that holds the “Settings.ini” file.

Then add it to your users login script active directory properties. You can also just copy and paste the lines in to an existing login script if your using them to do other things like mapping drives or printers and such.

Download script -> Launch Default Gadgets batch file

Kaseya Agent Procedure – FTP Remote Client Backup Script

Backup Windows Systems to a FTP Server

Download: -> Kaseya FTP Backups

So you have Kaseya clients out on the wire that need some level of backup but are not near a NAS or USB Drive. Have thoes clients backup to a FTP server by using WinSCP and a Kaseya Script to do the job for you.

This script has several peices and can be customized for what ever need you have. I currently have the script setup in 3 files.

File #1 (WinSCP_Backup.bat) This is executed by the Kaseya script and passed 2 variables. The variables are the name of the local folder and the name of the remote folder you want to sync.

Example:

c\temp\WinSCP_backup.bat userA FTPdirA >> c\temp\backup.log

We call the BAT file passing “userA” and “FTPDira” this could be the users name for their home directory and the remote directory which could be any folder on your ftp minus the first “/”

File #2 (WinSCP_backup.txt) This file tells WinSCP how to connect to your FTP server and what root directories to start looking in for the folder names provided above. You need to edit this file adding your FTP server information, username and password for FTP if needed.

File #3 is WinSCP.exe, This is a freely available FTP and SCP client for windows that is very configurable and has CLI functions.

This set of scripts in it’s current form will allow you to sync the local systems users home directories to a remote FTP server.

Sync is currently one direction as shown below. But you can sync any way you want.
c:\Documents and Settings\username -> ftp://ftp.domainname.com/foldername

Enjoy

Cubert 😎

Scripts to be used at your own descression, no warranty is implied.

How-to Setup Windows 2008 R2 Server Core As An Active Directory Server

Setup Active Directory on a Windows Server 2008 core

This is pretty simple actually; Install Windows as normal but selecting a Server Core as your installation medium. It will install just like a normal Windows 2008 install until the reboot process when it loads Windows for the first time. At the point it will ask for you to set your admin password and then boot to a Window’ish

Setup Active Directory on a Windows Server 2008 core

At first log in there are several things we need to do to prepare the system.

We need to assign the server a hostname

netdom renamecomputer %computername% /newname:YourServerName

Then we add our network information

netsh interface ipv4 set address name="Local Area Connection" source=static address=192.168.1.10 mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.168.1.1

Then we add our DNS servers

This should be the DNS address of your Active Directory DNS Server so replace 4.2.2.2 with that IP address.
netsh interface ipv4 set dns name="Local Area Connection" source=static address=4.2.2.2 primary

Confirm your new IP setup information

ipconfig /all

Now lets restart the system

shutdown -r -t 0

After we log back in from our reboot we join the existing domain

netdom join %computername% /domain:YourDomainName.

You notice I have a “.” at the end of the line! the denotes the end of the domain name and should be used.

Lets restart the server and bring it up as a member of the domain

shutdown -r -t 0

We should go ahead and activate Windows 2008 R2 now.

cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato

Now we need to add the DNS-Server-Core-Role

ocsetup DNS-Server-Core-Role

To check if it was really installed we can run.

oclist |more

Now we dcpromo the server in the unattended mode

dcpromo /unattend /replicaOrNewDomain:replica /replicaDomainDNSNAME:YourDomainName /ConfirmGC:Yes /UserName:YourDomainName\Administrator /Password:* /safeModeAdminPassword:YourPasswordHere

The (/Password:*) tells the Server to ask you it during the request to add after you run the command. The (/safeModeAdminPassword) sets what you want the local admin password to be if you need to log in “off” the domain.

The AD DS role will be installed and afterwords the server will reboot as a domain controller.

Now to make your job easier lets turn on Remote Desktop so you can RDP to the Windows 2008 Server Core and operate the command shell from remote.

cscript c:\windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /AR 0

I hope this helps someone out there get a Windows 2008 Server Core up and running as a Active Directory Server quickly.

Cubert

😎

How-to Emulate the TOP command in Windows

Top is a Linux process that shows a list of processes running on the system and what levels of resources are being used. This application provides all processes running, the CPU and Memory consumed and with several switches available you can see things like the location of the executable that is running.

Unfortunately, they don’t make a TOP executable ported for Microsoft Windows but don’t despair. You can

Unfortunately, they don’t make a TOP executable ported for Microsoft Windows but don’t despair. You can use Power Shell to script a simple TOP style display that operates just like TOP on a Linux system.

Here is the one liner you need to get a top style process viewer running on windows.

while (1) { ps | sort -desc cpu | select -first 30; sleep -seconds 2; cls }

Copy the above line and paste it in to your Power Shell console. You should see something similar to the following image.

Kaseya 2 Agent procedures and free scripts

www.kaseya.com

Do you run Kaseya RMM and need some free scripts?

Here is a compilation of scripts I have created for Kaseya to do different tasks, feel free to use them but keep in mind there is no guarantee. Use at your own discretion!

# Blackberry Enterprise Server ( BES

www.kaseya.com

Do you run Kaseya RMM and need some free scripts?

Here is a compilation of scripts I have created for Kaseya to do different tasks, feel free to use them but keep in mind there is no guarantee. Use at your own discretion!

# Blackberry Enterprise Server ( BES ) server services restart script.

This script uploads a bat file “Blackberry_Restart.bat” that stops and restarts the Blackberry Enterprise server services in the correct order they need to be done. It the writes a event log entry to the local application event log on windows and then to the script log in Kaseya. Lastly it sends a email to help desk to let them know it ran. Download the zip file, unzip and import the XML file into Kaseya then upload the bat file to your public side Kaseya.

BlackberryES_Restart

# Retrieve IE History

Use this script to collect a logged in users IE history. When the boss wants to know what a users been surfing you can run this against the system and have it email all the links the user has gone to.

This script uploads and executes a VB scrpt (iehistory2.vbs) on the remote system that uses NirSoft’s IE History View utility (iehv.exe) to dump IE URL history addresses for all user profiles on the system into a text file (history.txt). The contents of the text file are then captured into a Kaseya variable and emailed to an address or addresses specified in STEP 7. Download the zip file, unzip and import xml file in to scripts on Kaseay server then upload the vb script and iehv.exe to Kaseya public file store. Edit the Kaseya script at line item 7 and place in your email address.

IEHistory

# VMware VCenter Health Check

The script grabs the basic state of things on your VMware ESX VCenter VSphere server and posts an HTML file to the “get file” area in Kaseya KLC. It uses a PowerTools Shell to collect the data and create the file. Download the zip, unzip and import the XML file it scripts. Upload the ps1 file to Kaseya Public folder and then edit script and locate the file in script and save script. This will update the script with the location of where you saved the ps1 file.

VMWare VCenter Health Check

#Windows Systems CCleaner Script

This script is a great tool for cleaning of temp files and caches from a users profile on any Windows system. The script looks at the system and determines if it is 64 bit or 32 bit, then it downloads the correct ccleaner.exe file and runs it against the system. In auto mode this script does not clean the registry so it is safe to schedule and run on a regular bases. This works on all 32 and 64 it windows including Windows 2008 R2. A user must be logged in for script to run on users profile.

Kaseya-CCLeaner-Script

Look for more of my scripts here on Squidworks.net

Enjoy

Cubert

How to configure Windows TCP/IP settings from the Command Prompt (CLI)

Window’s Netsh.exe command-line scripting utility allows you to display or modify the network configurations of any computer that is currently running a resent flavor of Windows. Netsh.exe also provides a scripting feature that allows you to run a group of commands in batch mode against a computer both locally and remotely. You can also use Netsh.exe to save a configuration script in a text file for archival purposes or to help you configure

Here are your commands and what they can do.

View your TCP/IP settings.

netsh interface ip show config

Configure your computer’s IP address and other TCP/IP related settings.

This command configures the interface named Local Area Connection with the static IP address 192.168.0.101, the subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway of 192.168.0.1:

netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.101 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 1

Configure your NIC to automatically obtain an IP address from a DHCP server

netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" dhcp

To configure DNS and WINS addresses from the Command Prompt

netsh interface ip set dns "Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.101

netsh interface ip set wins "Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.101

To configure your NIC to dynamically obtain it’s DNS settings

netsh interface ip set dns "Local Area Connection" dhcp

Now let’s say you have a laptop and it travels between 2 separate networks and you need to maintain separate static configurations for each network. There is a simple way to flip back and forth between networks by creating a simple batch file. Here is how it’s done.

First we export your current IP settings to a text file:

netsh -c interface dump > c:\network1.txt

Next we change the settings manually on the interface to the second network and then export it as well:

netsh -c interface dump > c:\network2.txt

Now we have 2 text files, each file represents a network location. Whenever you need to quickly change your IP settings to switch between networks you can run the following commands

netsh -f c:\network1.txt

or

netsh -f c:\network2.txt

Now to make a batch file to execute the command just create a file called network1.bat and network2.bat and add the perspective line to that file. You can also use the global EXEC switch instead of “-f ” switch in the batch file with the same results.

Here are all the options available to netsh.exe

Usage: netsh [-a AliasFile] [-c Context] [-r RemoteMachine] [-u [DomainName\]UserName] [-p Password| *]

Commands available:

?              – Displays a list of commands.
add            – Adds a configuration entry to a list of entries.
advfirewall    – Changes to the `netsh advfirewall’ context.
branchcache    – Changes to the `netsh branchcache’ context.
bridge         – Changes to the `netsh bridge’ context.
delete         – Deletes a configuration entry from a list of entries.
dhcp           – Changes to the `netsh dhcp’ context.
dhcpclient     – Changes to the `netsh dhcpclient’ context.
dnsclient      – Changes to the `netsh dnsclient’ context.
dump           – Displays a configuration script.
exec           – Runs a script file.
firewall       – Changes to the `netsh firewall’ context.
help           – Displays a list of commands.
http           – Changes to the `netsh http’ context.
interface      – Changes to the `netsh interface’ context.
ipsec          – Changes to the `netsh ipsec’ context.
lan            – Changes to the `netsh lan’ context.
mbn            – Changes to the `netsh mbn’ context.
namespace      – Changes to the `netsh namespace’ context.
nap            – Changes to the `netsh nap’ context.
netio          – Changes to the `netsh netio’ context.
p2p            – Changes to the `netsh p2p’ context.
ras            – Changes to the `netsh ras’ context.
rpc            – Changes to the `netsh rpc’ context.
set            – Updates configuration settings.
show           – Displays information.
trace          – Changes to the `netsh trace’ context.
wcn            – Changes to the `netsh wcn’ context.
wfp            – Changes to the `netsh wfp’ context.
winhttp        – Changes to the `netsh winhttp’ context.
winsock        – Changes to the `netsh winsock’ context.
wlan           – Changes to the `netsh wlan’ context.

Enjoy

Cubert

Windows 7 – Add a non-indexed UNC path as a library

Add a non-indexed UNC as a library in Windows 7

There is an occasion when you may want to add a non indexed UNC path to a library inside of your Windows 7 system. Normally Windows bitches and complains when you try to hook up a UNC path that is not indexed but by tricking it we can make it happen. Here is how you do it.
===========================
1. Create a

Add a non-indexed UNC as a library in Windows 7

===========================
1. Create a folder on your hard drive for shares. i.e. c:\share
2. Create another folder in the above share. i.e. c:\share\music
2. Link the Library to this folder.
3. Now delete the music folder but leave the c:\share folder.
4. Use the mklink in an elevated command prompt to make a symbolic link. Name the link the same as the folder you created above.
mklink /d c:\share\music \\server\music
5. Your done. Now you have non-indexed UNC path as a library in Windows 7.

This process works much better than the other option which is to make “Available Offline”. If your like me and have a very large storage server running a OS like Linux or BSD to house all your media then making it available offline is no good. It would require a copy of the entire share be placed on your local drive and that could cost you every piece of free space on my Windows 7 system and then some.

I hope this helps someone out there with large media shares get their library setup.

Enjoy

Cubert

\NETLOGON fnum 0x8007 returned critical error. Error was NT_STATUS_PIPE_DISCONNECTED

Samba and Winbind Fix for Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory Services

Having issues with file sharing when inside a Windows 2008 R2 Domain? Are you getting these errors in you logs?
rpc_client/cli_pipe.c:rpc_api_pipe(790)
rpc_api_pipe: Remote machine 0.0.0.0 pipe \NETLOGON fnum 0x8007 returned critical error. Error was NT_STATUS_PIPE_DISCONNECTED
A little searching online shows a lot of people with this or related problems, It looks like there’s a bug in the samba package that prevents

Samba and Winbind Fix for Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory Services

Having issues with file sharing when inside a Windows 2008 R2 Domain? Are you getting these errors in you logs?

rpc_client/cli_pipe.c:rpc_api_pipe(790)
rpc_api_pipe: Remote machine 0.0.0.0 pipe \NETLOGON fnum 0x8007 returned critical error. Error was NT_STATUS_PIPE_DISCONNECTED

A little searching online shows a lot of people with this or related problems, It looks like there’s a bug in the samba package that prevents it from working with Windows Server 2008 R2 domains. If you’re running into this problem, the solution is to remove your existing samba installation and install, instead, the samba3x packages.

Run the following on your Redhat or CentOS installation.

yum erase samba samba-common
yum install samba3x samba3x-client

You will need to rebuild your connections to AD via winbind and rebuild your SMB.conf so I would suggest you save your files before starting the process.

If you need help rebuilding Winbind and Samba this web post is a great example how to do it.

http://www.sweetnam.eu/index.php/Using_Active_Directory_for_CentOS

Enjoy.

P.s

When joining server to AD (step #9) in web post

net ads join -U administrator@SWEETNAM.EU

It seems to join correctly if you just use “admin username” with out the @domain added to the line. It always seems to fail if I use the entire domain name in the join request. Instead I use the following example and it works great for me.

net ads join -U administrator

Good Luck

Cubert

XYMON External Test Script for APC NetBotz Environment Monitor

So you got a APC environment monitor (NetBotz) and you want XYMON / Hobbit / BB to monitor and alert if your tempature is rising? Funny me too.

I spent several hours trying to get a VB script to built to do this and I am just not a big fan of VB. So being a Perl plucker I desided to write one in Perl and share it with

So you got a APC environment monitor (NetBotz) and you want XYMON / Hobbit / BB to monitor and alert if your tempature is rising? Funny me too.

I spent several hours trying to get a VB script to built to do this and I am just not a big fan of VB. So being a Perl plucker I desided to write one in Perl and share it with everyone.

Here is what it does:

The script queries via SNMP the OID for the tempature sensors current state and then create a XYMON file and place it in the tmp folder where XYmon(BBWin) resides so that the XYMON(BBWin) service can pick it up and transmit the information to the BBDisplay.

Prereqs are: Windows host, BBWin, ActiveState Perl 5 installed on windows, snmpget.exe application located at http://www.snmpsoft.com/freetools/snmpget.html
Place SNMPGET.EXE in an area that is seen by Windows PATH.

Add to BBWin.cfg under the <Externals> area of XML:

<load value=”C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe netbotz.pl” timer=”5m” />

and copy this script to the BBWin/Bin directory. Every 5 minutes you should see a “NetBotz” file created in BBWin/tmp and shortly afterwards BBwin will remove file once data is sent. On your BBDisplay you should get a new column called [NetBotz] and when you select the “Dot” it will display the current temp.

You may need to play with the OID # for your install of Netbotz as mine had 8 ports (OID’s) for tempature monitors but we only used 1 port so I am only monitoring that OID.

OID’s are

1.3.6.1.4.1.318.1.1.10.4.2.3.1.5.0.1

through

1.3.6.1.4.1.318.1.1.10.4.2.3.1.5.0.14

So adjust the last digits (1-14) for your sensor location on Netbotz.

Download -> Netbotz Perl script

Enjoy Shannon, aka Cubert