Tag: How-to

Error 1033 Incorrect information in file: .\labtech\microsoftnoncompliantpatchcounts.frm

You have a CW server that is currently on an older version of ConnectWise Automate and during your upgrade path you receive a failure during the patching of Automate. The error message: Incorrect information in file: .\labtech\microsoftnoncompliantpatchcounts.frm’

So how to fix this?

You will need to log into your Automate servers desktop and launch SQLYog or connect to server via SQLYog or MYSQL Workbench over the local network. Now before you do anything you should backup your Automate server and/or SQL databases so that you can restore back to an operational level if things go south. You should of done this prior to starting any upgrade of Automate so you should be safe to continue with fix.

Now that your connected you should be able to see the list of databases on your Automate server like the image above. If you do not already have one, create a new database called test. Next open the test database and select the Tables sub item, right click and select to Create Table. Call the new table microsoftnoncompliantpatchcounts, it can have just one column that should default to numerical column and private key, save the table. Now exit the SQL editor your using.

Next, it’s time to stop the LabMySQL services on the Automate server. Copy the file %programdata%\mysql\mysql server 5.6\data\test\microsoftnoncompliantpatchcounts.frm to %programdata%\mysql\mysql server 5.6\data\labtech\microsoftnoncompliantpatchcounts.frm and overwrite the existing file that is there. Now restart the LabMySQL Service and log back into the SQL services using SQLYog or MYSQL Workbench.

In your SQL editor open a clean query window by selecting the database you want (labtech) and then selecting new query window button. In the new query window and paste or type the following SQL command DROP TABLE IF EXISTS microsoftnoncompliantpatchcounts; The results returned should be 1 queries executed, 1 success, 0 errors, 0 warnings.

Now go execute the failing ConnectWise Automate patch and see if it now succeeds?

[Solved] – Always getting message “Windows can’t update important files and services while the system is using them”

 

Everytime you try to run the Windows Updater you always get the message  “Windows can’t update important files and services while the system is using them.  Save any open files and restart the computer, and try to check for new updates.“   This is caused by a Registry Key that has not been removed after a previous update.

There is a simple solution for some:

1. Open regedit.exe

2. Navigate to the Registry Key  “HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/WindowsUpdate/Auto Update

3. Look for Registry Key “RebootRequired”.

4. Delete the Registry Key. Do not look for a value, there will be a KEY(folder) called “RebootRequired”

5. Reboot the Machine .

6. Run Windows update again.

If this fails to resolve issues you can try the following:

Empty your temporary Internet Files Folder
Open Run Command (Windows key + R)
type: cd %temp%
Empty the contents of that folder (del *.*)
Restart your computer

You can also give this a try:
1. Click Start, type msconfig in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
User Account Control permission
If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.
2. On the General tab, click Selective Startup.
3. Under Selective Startup, click to clear the Load Startup Items check box.
4. Click the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.
5. Click OK.
6. When you are prompted, click Restart.
7. After the computer starts, check whether the problem is resolved.

This should solve your issue and allow you to Windows Update to install the next round of patches.

Good Luck!

 

Cubert

😎

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  😎

 

[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.

 
 

[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 : Pass a username and password to Windows shutdown.exe command.

Here was my scenario I found myself in not to long ago. I have an Active Directory domain with a server outside of the domain in it’s own workgroup. It used different credentials for the administrator account then what the domain uses. One day it stopped responding to RDP and several control programs we have on it so we needed to do a reboot.

No problems right? just type in the command below:

shutdown /r /t 3 /m \\ServerName

 

Not so right, right off the bat we get  ServerName: Access is denied.(5)

That’s right we do not have permissions “Yet”… But how do we send permissions to shutdown.exe ? If you do a shutdown /? you will find no switches for username and password but there is a way around this.

We will connect to the servers IPC$ and authenticate then we will run our command. Here is what you do:

First lets make a connection and authenticate by running the following cmd:

NET USE \\MyServer\IPC$ mypassword /USER:myuser

 

If successful then we are now ready to run the shutdown cmd in the same window:

shutdown /r /t 3 /m \\ServerName

Wait a few seconds and and you should get back your prompt which tells you the command was sent successfully. You now have authenticated and sent the shutdown cmd to a remote server using different permissions.

I hope this helps someone out there

Enjoy

Cubert

How-to : Setup GoDaddy SSL on Tomcat using a Public Certificate

Hello again,

Today I will be walking you through the process of setting up your Tomcat installation to use a public SSL certificate. I will be using examples from my Ubuntu 11 box but this will work with any linux based Tomcat install.  We should have you up and running in just a few minutes, here is what we are going to be doing.

  • ·     Enable and initialize an empty keystore
  • ·     Generate a certificate signing request (CSR)
  • ·     Add a root certificate authority (CA) to your keystore
  • ·     Import the generated certificate for use in Tomcat

To create and configure a public certificate for your Tomcat installation:

 

  1. Open a SSH Terminal to the server.
  2. In Terminal, navigate to the Tomcat directory by typing the following command:

    cd /var/lib/tomcat/

  3.  Type the following command to generate the keystore:

    sudo keytool -genkey -alias Tomcat -keysize 2048 -keyalg RSA –keystore /var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystore

  4. Fill in the appropriate information when prompted. Type a new keystore password and when the prompt asks for a first and last name, it is requesting the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FDQN). All other information is not as important as the first and last name as this will define the URL the SSL is good for.
  5. Let’s now generate a certificate signing request by typing the following command:

    sudo keytool -certreq -alias tomcat -keystore /var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystore -file godaddy-ssl-cert.req

  6. Copy the entire text from the .req file and paste it in the Cert request window for GoDaddy SSL request form on the Godaddy.com website. Once approved GoDaddy will provide a download zip file that includes your new SSL certificate and the GoDaddy RootCA cert. We will be installing both certs in to the keystore. You will need to copy these certificates up to your Ubuntu (Linux) system.
  7. Import the CA’s root certificate using the following command: (Replace the file location with the location you placed your new certificates from GoDaddy)

    sudo keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias rootCA –file /home/myuser/gd_bundle.crt -keystore /var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystore

  8.  Import your certificate signed by GoDaddy by typing the following command: (Replace myFQDN.crt with the file name and location of the new GoDaddy certificate)

    sudo keytool -import -alias tomcat -keystore /var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystore -trustcacerts -file /home/myuser/myFQDN.crt

  9. Lastly we will  edit the /var/lib/tomcat/conf/server.xml file. Point the “keystoreFile” attribute to the location of the keystore, and include the “keystorePass” containing the password to your keystore.This is the part of the file that you should modify:  <Connector port=”8443″ protocol=”HTTP/1.1″ SSLEnabled=”true”              
                   maxThreads=”150″ scheme=”https” secure=”true”                  
                       clientAuth=”false” sslProtocol=”TLS”             
                   keystoreFile=”/var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystor             
                   keystorePass=”your keystore password” />

 

The instructions below can be followed to update a certificate, assuming you will be using the same keystore.

How-To clear the Tomcat alias:

 

1.   Open a SSH terminal session to Ubuntu.

2.   Create a backup of the previous alias by typing the following command:

    sudo keytool -export -alias Tomcat -keystore /var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystore -file MyBackup.cer

3.    After a successful backup, type the following command to clear out the Tomcat alias:

    sudo keytool -delete -alias Tomcat -keystore /var/lib/tomcat/.mykeystore


You should now be able to run the commands to create and import a new certificate.


I hope this makes quick work for somone out there..

Enjoy

Cubert 


How-to: Setup Ubuntu and PHP to use MSSQL Microsoft SQL Server

It is easier to get PHP on Ubuntu to connect to MSSQL than it is to get PHP on Windows.

 

I would not normally believe such a thing until I tried to setup a pre-existing install of PHP on Windows missing any MSSQL extensions. Looking through Google to find information was less than quick and I found myself wanting to go back to my old faithful Ubuntu server, but how?

Here are my 10 quick steps to get PHP seeing MSSQL:

There are some basic software we will need to grab using apt-get, then we will install them and modify the php.ini file to update the new extension. I will go over the process below on how to install and in what order but before we do that I will give you a brief description of what we are doing.

We will need to get the source for PHP, we will also need the PHP Development packages. We will be installing FreeTDS and then editing our php.ini file. Lastly restarting Apache to complete the process.

For the rest of this we will assume you have ( sudo su -) so you do not need to sudo each cmd, but if not then add sudo where it applies. We are also assuming you already have a working php system and only need to add MSSQL functionality.

  1. apt-get source php5 – This will install the PHP source in the the current directory that you are in.
  2. cd php5-5.3.2/ext/mssql – This will place you in the PHP source directory for MSSQL. You may need to edit the directory path as 5.3.2 was the version as of this document and may not be the same version you are installing.
  3. apt-get install freetds-dev – This installs the extra libraries we will need for MSSQL
  4. apt-get install php5-dev – This installs the application (phpize) which we will use next to help build the MSSQL extension.
  5. phpize  – Run this while inside the (/ext/mssql ) directory
  6. ./configure –with-mssql – This creates the MakeFile we will need to build the extension from source.
  7. make – This cmd builds the extension.
  8. cd modules – move in to the module directory.
  9. cp mssql.so /usr/lib/php5/20090626   – Here you will need to pay close attention to the last directory here. This will very based on your version so change the numbers to fit what you have in your (/usr/lib/php5) directory.
  10. vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini – We want to go down to where you will find (Dynamic Extensions) and add on a new line the following -> extension = mssql.so then save and close the vi session ( Esc : wq)

You are all done, just restart Apache and test your mssql_connect

Restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Enjoy

Cubert

Increasing MS Exchange 2010 message size limits

There’s a few places you must go to change this and that is in global settings under Organization Configurations as well as the HUB Transport connectors under Server Configuration.

To modify the global settings go to the following menu areas inside you Exchange Management Console. 

Organization Configuration->Hub Transport->Global Settings tab->Properties of Transport Settings

 

Here you can adjust your transport send/receive limits by editing the properties.

Then you must modify the connectors found inside the Send Connectors tab 

Organization Configuration->Hub Transport->Send Connectors tab->Properties of Default Send

 

Then you can adjust your send connectors default maximum message size under Server Configuration 

Receive Connector Server Configuration->Hub Transport->Receive Connectors Pane->Properties of Default

Here you can adjust your receive connectors default maximum message sizes. After the settings have been changed you will want to either restart your server or reload all exchange services (which ever is easier for you).