Category: How-to

[Solved] – Problem loading a certificate to be used for STARTTLS Purpose in Microsoft Exchange 2007

 

Generally this condition occurs if anyone of the following conditions is true:

1. The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) that is specified in the Warning event has been defined on a Receive connector .

2. Send connector on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 transport server, and no certificate is installed on the same computer that contains the FQDN in the Subject or Subject Alternative Name fields.

 3. A third-party or custom certificate has been installed on the server and it contains a matching FQDN. However, the certificate is not enabled for the SMTP service.

The warning event indicates that there is a problem loading a certificate to be used for STARTTLS purposes,  here is how to resolve these issues.

1. Open “Exchange Management Shell”.
 
2. Write “get-ExchangeCertificate” and press on “Enter” button.
 
3. Write down the Thumbprint of the certificate that reflect the required FQDN name of the server.
 
4. Review the current certificate that use by the Exchange server and
 
         each certificate function.
 
5. Write “Enable-ExchangeCertificate -Thumbprint ThisIsYourThumbPrintKey -Services “SMTP”
 
       and press on ‘Enter” button. Replace “ThisIsYourThumb…” with the value of -Thumbprint obtained in stage 3.
 
6. Restart the Exchange server.

Now your cooking with SSL Security!!.

Enjoy

Cubert  😎

 

For Creating a Certificate or Certificate Request for TLS check the below article
 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998840.aspx

How to display hidden device drivers in Windows Device Manager

Ever wanted to find that other ethernet device that was pulled from you system but don’t see it anymore in Microsoft  Windows Device Manager? What about a pesky AOL adapter driver or some other non existant device that you want to get rid of?

In order to show hidden devices:

 

  1. Right click My Computer and Select Properties
  2. Click Advanced tab
  3. Click Environment Variables
  4. Below the bottom Environment Variables window pane (System Variables), click New
  5. For Variable Name, enter devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
  6. For Variable Value enter 1
  7. Click OK. OK to close My Computer
  8. Open Device Manager, click on View, select show hidden devices from the menu. Most of the orphans will be in non-plug and play drivers and the icons will appear grayed out. You can right click the grayed out driver and click uninstall.

 

Enjoy

Cubert  😎

 

[Solved] DefaultThrottlingPolicy has gone over budget ‘xxx’ times for component ‘RCA’ within a one minute period – Event log

 In Exchange Server 2010 SP1, client throttling policies are used to manage the performance of the Exchange organization.  All client throttling policies are enabled by default i in Exchange Server 2010 SP1. The throttling policy has group settings that control the amount of resources that a user or a connection can use.

Throttling Policy settings are only applicable for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 and later. If the application event log on the Exchange or SBS2011 servers displays an error message similar to the following example, then the throttling policy settings are applicable to your system:

Process Microsoft.Exchange.RpcClientAccess.Service.exe (PID=XXXX). User ‘Sid~ServiceAccount~RCA~false’ has gone over budget ‘XXX’ times for component ‘RCA’ within a one minute period. Info: Policy:DefaultThrottlingPolicy_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, Parts:ABC:XXX;’. Threshold value: ‘110’

 

If you are experiencing slow Exchange email ingestion that may be caused by these policies, you can modify client throttling policy for an archive service account.

Complete the following steps:

  1. Create the throttling policy: on a computer that hosts the Microsoft Exchange Management Shell, open the Microsoft Exchange Management Shell. Enter the following:

    New-ThrottlingPolicy My_New_Policy

  2. Configure the throttling policy by entering the following:

    Set-ThrottlingPolicy My_New_Policy -RCAMaxConcurrency 150

  3. Apply the throttling policy to archive service account by entering the following:

    Set-Mailbox “MyUserName” -ThrottlingPolicy My_New_Policy

The My_New_Policy can be any name you want to call policy, The My_UserName is the mail box name of the person or account you want to add to the new  ploicy.

 

 

How to force the Offline address book to update in Microsoft Outlook

 

How to force the address book to update
When a new email account is created in Exchange it will not normally appear in the address book of others until the following day. This procedure shows how to force newly created accounts to be visible in the address book:

1.Force an address list update on the Exchange server
2.Pull down the address list in Outlook.

Force an address list update on the Exchange server
1.On the server running Exchange, open Exchange System Manager.
2.Expand “Recipients”.
3.Select “Offline Address Lists”
In the default configuration there will only be one offline address list shown in the right hand pane – “Default Offline Address List”. If other address lists have been created then they will also be listed.
4.Right click the address list to update (typically “Default Offline Address List”) and select “Rebuild”

A message will be shown warning that this may take a long time depending on the number of recipients in the domain. Allow it to rebuild the offline address list.
Pull down the address list in Outlook
This needs to be done on each pc running outlook which requires the latest address book:

1.Start up Outlook.
2.Tools → Send/Receive → Download Address Book…
3.On the “Offline Address Book” dialog click [OK]

 

Enjoy

[How To] – Patching Standalone vSphere 5 ESXi Hosts

So you have a standalone ESXi host or 2 that needs to be patched with the latest updates coming out of VMWare and you do not have a VCenter or are otherwise using the VMWare Update Manager. Here is the basic steps to get you updated and all patched up.

 

 Here are the steps to getting your ESXi 5 Host patched.

  1. Download the patch file you want directly -> Get VMware Patches Here
  2. Enable SSH for remote support on the ESXi Host by accessing the (Security Profile) under Host Configuration.
  3. Place ESXi host is in Maintenance Mode.
  4. Using the vShpere Client browse your local datastore and make a directory called “Updates”, select this new folder and upload the patch zip file bundle to this folder.
  5. SSH into Host and execute the following command.  (Replace [DATASTORE] and [PATCH_FILE] with your actual file information.

 

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/[DATASTORE]/Updates/[PATCH_FILE].zip

You should get the following installation result.

   Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.

Afterwards you should reboot the ESX host and upon it’s return it should now be patched with the build you applied above.

NOTE: If you try and use the old esxupdate command, which  is still there, you will get this message:

~ # esxupdate Usage: This program is not meant to be used directly. Please use esxcli image/software instead.
esxupdate: error: Command must be specified Usage: This program is not meant to be used directly. Please use esxcli image/software instead.

 
 

App Assure – Replay Core Mountability check for ‘Mailbox Database’ failed: Exchange database engine error: Error closing database

App Asure Replay CoreWith App Assure you may get the following errors after a new install of a Replay Core server and an the agent running on a Exchange 2010 server database.

Error

Thread: 2520

Logger: DsmRpChecker

Context:

Source Location: DsmRecoveryPointChecker.cpp:341

Details:

Mountability check for ‘Mailbox Database 0401075076’ failed: Exchange database engine error: Error closing database

and/or

Error

Thread: 2520

Logger: DsmRpChecker

Context:

Source Location: DsmRecoveryPointChecker.cpp:341

Details:

Mountability check for ‘Mailbox Database 0401075076’ failed: Exchange database engine error: Unable to initialize JET session. See log for details.

 

There is a known issue with Exchange 2010 running on SP1 with RollUps where this problem is experienced.

Please apply the below registry fix to the Replay Core server, and capture a new recovery point (snapshot) from the protected server to resolve the issue. Furthermore, after deployment of this fix you can go back and check the past recovery points that failed and “Force Recovery Point Check” to confirm they are good as well and get the green check symbol assigned to them.

Modify the registry on the Replay Core at the following location and assigned the specified value below:

Navigate to the location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AppAssure\ReplayDSM\EseConfig

Modify value for “ForceDeleteUnicodeIndex” (type REG_DWORD) and assign a value of 2.

 

I hope this helps some one out there..

Enjoy 😎

Cubert

[Solved] A problem prevented Customer Experience Improvement Program data from being sent to Microsoft, (Error 80004005).

 

Customer Experience Improvement Program data fails to upload.

This alert is generated when a failure to upload the CEIP data to Microsoft fails on servers where you opted to be included in the CEIP. This is usually a firewall issue but sometimes admins may also have inatvertantly select to be included and really don’t want to be. To fix this or really turn it off you will find the task in the Task Scheduler under the Customer Experience Improvement Program.

 

1.Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Task Scheduler.
2.In the tree pane, open Task Scheduler Library, open Microsoft, open Windows, and then select Customer Experience Improvement Program.
3.In the results pane, Right Click the Uploader task and select to disable.

This will prevent the task from running and stop any more alerts.

Enjoy

 

Cubert

[Solved]-VMware Install operation failed: The metadata or bundle option must be specified

Getting error message: Install operation failed: The metadata or bundle option must be specified ?

This error popup up after running the following cmd when trying to update our VMware vSphere server.

 C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin>vihostupdate.pl -url https://192.168.xxx.xxx/sdk/webservice -i –bundle c:\temp\upgrade-from-esxi4.0-to-4.1-update01-348481.zip

I am using vSphere CLI 4.0 on a Windows 2003 server, logged in as a domain admin.

I tried several things I found off Google then it occured to me that it may be a issue with permissions. I restarted the CLI with Admin priviledges and Wamo!!

 Please wait patch installation is in progress …
The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.

 So if your getting this error this is worth a try.

Cubert

[Solved]-Windows Easy Transfer Won’t Connect Between Systems Across The Network

How to get your Windows Easy Transfer to work over the Network.

This is a very common issue, I seem to hit the never ending “Trying to Connect” cycle of death on just about every other time I use Windows Easy Transfer. It doesn’t matter if your doing a transfer from XP to 7 or from 7 to 7, I’ve seen it time and time again.

I foung the Quick fix that works everytime I’ve used it.

The Guys over at LSP-Fix have a simple little program that fixes winsock issues.

LSP-Fix is a free Windows utility to repair a loss of Internet access associated with certain types of software. This type of software, known as a Layered Service Provider or LSP, typically handles low-level Internet-related tasks, and data is passed through a chain of these programs on its way to and from the Internet. However, due to bugs in the LSP software or deletion of the software, this chain can get broken, causing the Internet connection to become inaccessible or just a wee bit unstable. 

Download LSP-Fix here.

I know it doesn’t seem plausible that your winsock is messed up but take it from me, New Laptops out of the box can and will have issues. Download and run the tool and it will corrected the issues and your copy will start working.

LSP-Fix does not delete anything, it only fixes the order of the LSP’s. It does not require a reboot after you run the tool, just run the tool, select fix and then restart your Windows Easy Transfer process. I would suggest that you run it on both the sending and receiving systems, I find that they all seem to need  reording.

I hope this helps someon out there.

Cubert

How-to Create a SMTP Relay Connector for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 using PowerShell

Create new connector and assign relay permissions.

Pretty simple really,

Open your exchange power shell and enter the following cmds to create and set permissions on your new connector. Use the New-ReceiveConnectorcmdlet to create the Receive connector Anonymous Relay that listens on local IP addresses.

New-ReceiveConnector -Name “Anonymous Relay” -Usage Custom -PermissionGroups AnonymousUsers -Bindings 192.168.1.5:25 -RemoteIpRanges 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.255

 

Now we must use the Exchange Shell to grant relay permission to anonymous connections on the new Receive connector.  The next cmd-let retrieves the specified Receive connector information and pipes the result to the Add-ADPermissioncmdlet to grant relay permission to anonymous connections on the new Receive connector.

Get-ReceiveConnector “Anonymous Relay” | Add-ADPermission -User “NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON” -ExtendedRights “Ms-Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any-Recipient”

You can open up a telnet session to the IP of your exchange server and test the mail flow. This will confirm that your relay is up and running.

 

The first thing to do is to open a connection from your computer to your mail server.
telnet 192.168.1.5 25
You should receive a reply like:
Trying ???.???.???.???…
Connected to 192.168.1.5
Escape character is ‘^]’.
220 mail.domain.ext Microsoft Exchange Server XXX.YYY.xxx.yyy

You will then need to delcare where you are sending the email from:
HELO local.domain.name – dont worry too much about your local domain name.

This should give you:
250 192.168.1.5 Hello local.domain.name [Your IP address],

Now give your email address:
MAIL FROM:< mail@domain.com >

Should yeild:
250 2.1.0 mail@domain.com... Sender ok

Now give the recipients address:
RCPT TO:< mail@otherdomain.com >

Should yeild:
250 2.1.0 mail@otherdomain.com... Recipient ok

To start composing the message issue the command DATA

If you want a subject for your email type

Subject: type your subject here
You may now proceed to type the body of your message.

To tell the mail server that you have completed the message enter a single “.” on a line on it’s own.
The mail server should reply with: 250 2.0.0 ???????? Message accepted for delivery

You can close the connection by issuing the QUIT command.
The mailserver should reply with something like:

221 2.0.0 mail.domain.com closing connection Connection closed by foreign host.

Enjoy,

Cubert