Tag: Microsoft

DCDiag fails with the host could not be resolved to an IP address check the DNS server, DHCP, server name, etc although the guid dns name couldn’t be resolved.

You run DCDiag and it returns a failure that names can not be resolved.

  
   testing server: default-first-site-name\mydomain
      starting test: connectivity
         the host 7397e120-1c8d-4f2d-b8cb-d829d16d949a._msdcs.mydomain.local could not be resolved to an
         ip address.  check the dns server, dhcp, server name, etc
         although the guid dns name
         (7397e120-1c8d-4f2d-b8cb-d829d16d949a._msdcs.mydomain.local) couldn't be
         resolved, the server name (myhost.mydomain.local) resolved to the ip
         address (192.168.1.5) and was pingable.  check that the ip address
         is registered correctly with the dns server. 
         ......................... myhost failed test connectivity

 

This is mainly due to bad or non existent DNS records on your AD server. Here are the steps to run through to make sure your Active Directory DNS has the correct records needed to allow Active Directory to function correctly in a Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 environment.

 

Steps to resolve:

  1. Verify SRV Records
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241515

  2.  SRV Records missing after Promo
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241505
  3. Verify All DC’s are point to one as “master”, Second to them self or another is better.
  4. Verify DHCP Client Service is running (needed for Dynamic DNS updates)
  5. Run at cmd prompt -> net stop netlogon && net start netlogon
  6. Run at CMD prompt -> netdiag /fix

  7. Re run at CMD prompt ->  DCDiag.exe 
You should now get a passing test when you run dcdiag.exe. You may see the following response to the dcdiag.exe execution.
Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\MYDOMAIN
Starting test: Connectivity
*** Warning: could not confirm the identity of this server in
the directory versus the names returned by DNS servers.
If there are problems accessing this directory server then
you may need to check that this server is correctly registered
with DNS
……………………. MYHOST passed test Connectivity

 Enjoy
Cubert  😎

2 Common Issues With Microsoft Terminal Services

Many WAN connections can vary in quality and latency, and often times these two characteristics will manifest themselves in disconnected terminal services sessions. By doing two relatively easy registry hacks, you can reduce these disconnects and improve the overall experience of your users.

 

Keep Alives:

In the registry at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server, create or edit the DWORD value of KeepAliveEnable and set it to 1. This will turn Keep Alives on. This will serve to stabilize the connection by sending ‘heartbeat’ packets to the client every so often. This will cause an idle connection to be probed every so often just to be sure that the connection is still alive and that the client is still listening on the other side. This will also help prevent disconnects by preventing network devices from killing off sockets that it assumes to be idle.  By turning on Keep Alives, the connection will not appear idle, and therefore the network device will not attempt to terminate the socket.

Two other registry entries to look at are at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\KeepAliveInterval and HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\KeepAliveTime.  KeepAliveInterval determines the interval separating keep alive retransmissions until a response is received. If a response is received, the delay until the next keep alive transmission is again controlled by the value of KeepAliveTime. KeepAliveTime controls how often TCP attempts to verify that an idle connection is still intact by sending a keep alive packet. If the remote system is still reachable and functioning, it will acknowledge the keep alive transmission.

 

TcpMaxDataRetransmissions:

In the registry at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters, create or edit the DWORD value of TcpMaxDataRetransmissions. By default it is set to 5, but I would recommend doubling that value, to 10.  The value of TcpMaxDataRetransmissions is the number of times TCP retransmits an unacknowledged data segment on an existing connection. TCP retransmits data segments until they are acknowledged or until this value expires.

 

Enjoy..

[Kaseya Agent Procedure] VMWare ESXi Hardware Health Monitor

VMWare ESXi Hardware Health Monitor Script

From the skunk works here at Squidworks comes another great monitoring script for Kaseya.

 

 

This script uses the SDK provided by VMWare to query the  ESX host and return a good or bad variable.  If the hardware test fails then the script grabs the log of the test and uploads it to Kaseya Server then places it under the “Get File” area for the host that ran the test. You can run this script on any windows box, I have also included the current vSphere SDK installer and a Kaseya script to install it if it is not found on the Windows Host.

Upload the SDK installer and Import the scripts to your public files area in Kaseya under the directory “VMWare”. If you place files anywhere else you will need to edit script for the new location of files.

The script then makes a unique event log entry into the Windows Application Event Log under the Application Events that can then be picked up by Kaseya’s Event Log Monitor. When Kaseya picks up this event you can instruct the monitor to create an alarm, create a ticket, run another agent procedure or email the alarm to an address(s).  Just schedule the agent procedure to run a couple of times a day to keep an eye on your customers VMware vSphere ESXi Hardware health.

This script links to the CIM information provided by the hardware to the ESX host. You will see CPU, Memory, Fans, RAID and Controller Health. The log file that is uploaded will only show failures and will tell you what failed and on what ESX host.

Download -> Kaseya VMWare ESXi Hardware Monitor

 

 

Enjoy

Cubert 😎

[Kaseya Agent Procedure] Free Active Directory Health Monitor Script

Active Directory Health Monitor Script

From the skunk works here at Squidworks comes another great monitoring script for Kaseya.

The Active Directory Health Monitor Agent Procedure executes DCDiag on your Windows Active Directory server and captures any failures reported. The script then makes a unique event log entry into the Windows Application Event Log under the Application Events that can then be picked up by Kaseya’s Event Log Monitor. When Kaseya picks up this event you can instruct the monitor to create an alarm, create a ticket, run another agent procedure or email the alarm to an address(s).  Just schedule the agent procedure to run a couple of times a day to keep an eye on your customers Active Directory health.

The script also provides a complete report of the DCDiag results in the event of a failure that you can view by going to the “Get Files” area of your host in Kaseya and under this folder will be an Active Directory folder where the DCDiag.txt file results are stored.

 

All files and a README are included in the ZIP. Feel free to POST here any issues or comments you may have.

 

Download ->  Kaseya-ActiveDirectoryHealth

 

 

Enjoy

Cubert 😎

[Solved] -> Missing Previous Versions Tab on Windows Server 2003 Explorer Properties Box

So you think your missing the Previous Versions Tab when you open windows explorer, right mouse click and select properties on a Windows 2003 server. The reason for this is that Windows Server Explore only supports the Shadow Copy “Revert” feature when connecting to a local drive using Windows Explorer.   To get the “Previous Versions Tab” you should access the the drive as a UNC path in Windows Explorer. The   “Previous Versions Client” is not installed under that properties feature so it does not show up until you browse using a UNC path. See examples below.

Accessing VSS using Explorer and local drive path

 

When you use a UNC path in explorer it provides the Previous Versions client into the properties box for you to be able to mount and restore files as needed.

VSS access via UNC Path in Explorer

 

So access the files using \\servername\Share    or  \\servername\D$\folder  to see the “Previous Versions Tab“.

 

[Solved] – MS EXCHANGE 550 5.7.1 Client does not have permissions to send as this sender

 5.7.1 Client does not have permissions to send as this sender

This is what your Microsoft Exchange 2007 and or 2010 server may report when you try to send email through the Exchange server when permissions have been fouled up. The First this to check on is the “Manage Send As Permissions” under the user mailbox properties in the Exchange Management Console. Access the Exchange management console and select the user that is having the issue. Right Click, go to the send as permissions option.. now check that User NT AUTHORITY\SELF is listed.

Edit Send As Permissions
Exchange 2007

 

If it is not listed here then you need to add it in. This allows the authenticated user to send as their “Self”. Now retest your connection an try send a piece of mail.

 

 

Good Luck,

Cubert 😎

Quick and Easy Setup of Active Directory Authentication for VMware vSphere 5.1 SSO (Single Sign On)

VMware vSphere vCenter Server 5.1 now uses a new SSO (Single Sign On) service to authenticate with Microsoft Active Directory when deploying vCenter. If you do not install this services and configure it for AD then you will not be able to use your domain accounts with vCenter 5.1  During the initial install you may get errors when installing SSO.  KB 2034374 reports that a error of  ” Error 29155 Identity source discovery error”  is due to a failed attempt to automatically discover your Active Directory domain. Verify that the domain name and DNS are setup correctly.

Now lets setup an AD server in vCenter to allow our Domain Accounts. First we will login to vCenter Web Client (https://127.0.0.1:9443) if you used the default ports for the web client installs. The default login is admin@system-domain  and the password you set for SSO during the install process. Once you are logged in to the web client you can continue.

Now Select [Administration]

vCenter SSO-login

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now Select [Sign-On and Discovery] -> [Configuration]

SSO Configuration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under the Identity Sources Tab in the right pane select the PLUS symbol to add a new AD source. This will pop up a “Add Identity Source” window, select the active directory radio button and fill out the requested information with you AD Domain name and the “OU” the holds your users and groups.

Here is the generic information you will need just replace the sesenviron.local with your domain and then place your AD credentials at the bottom.

Adding identity source

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we have a AD server assigned as a source we must now add this newly created connector to our “Default Domains ” list.

Add AD to Default Domains list

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we have it in our Default Domains list lets move it up to be our primary source. To do this highlight the AD domain name and select the blue arrow head pointing up and move the domain name to the top of the list .

Set priority of the domains

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now lets select the small floppy disk icon to save the changes to the default domain list box. Once this is complete we should be able to open up the vSphere client application and log in with domain access. You should be using a domain level admin to access vCenter.

 

I hope this helps some people out there.

Cubert 😎

 

 

 

How to Install Printers in Windows 7 WITHOUT Local Admin Rights

Microsoft made some changes to the network printing security in Windows 7 and as a result, many non-admin users are not able to install network printers with an Access Denied message.

I did some research on this today, and found a solution.  We just need to make a new GPO on the domain level for each client network that is experiencing this problem.  These are newer GPO extensions, so its best to create the GPO on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server.  Otherwise, you’ll need to find the ADM extensions and install them on the Server 2003 system.

 

 

  1. Configure Group Policy settings for “Point and Print” on BOTH computer and user settings (Vista previously only had user settings). The Location of the settings can be found here in GPOs:
    1. Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Printers\Point and Print Restrictions
    2. User Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Printers\Point and Print Restrictions
  2. You will need to specify all print servers on the network and be sure to disable all security prompts.

 

 

 

 

Enjoy,

Cubert 😎

[Solved] -> Office 2010 strange behaviors regarding the Save and Send feature missing body of email

Blank e-mail bodies being sent from Outlook when Save and Send feature is used.

Are you having  strange problems where  on occasion a random contact in outlook will disappear from your contacts but you can still see that contact on your IPhone or when users create Word documents, then select “save and send,” “send via e-mail” then “send as attachment.”  They then write a short note in the body of the e-mail and send it but the e-mail comes through with the attachment but without the short note in the body.  If you change the message text to “Plain Text” instead of “HTML” then it works fine.

This issue might be caused by  update KB 2553248 for Outlook. There is a problem with the “Save & Send” feature with builds of Outlook (14.0.6117.5001 MSO 14.0.6112.5000) from the update 2553248.  This specific problem results in blank e-mail bodies being sent from Outlook, only when the “Save & Send” feature is used from another Office application.

Remove the update and see if it helps.

1.       Go to Start and then click Control Panel.

2.       Click on Programs and Features.

3.       On the left side menu, click on View installed updates.

4.       In the list of updates, locate and click update 2553248, and then click Uninstall.

 

[Solved] – Network Location in no longer available or Error 59 on Windows XP system

You may have gotten a pop up on Windows that says your network resource is no longer available after a password change or password expired notice and while using Network Neighborhood. During troubleshooting you find that others can access share, the server is pingable but you can not access any share on system and it feels like XP thinks the server is not there.

I have found that this was caused by Windows Credentials being stored in the system and that the credentials  were not correct.    This issue happens in both Windows 7 and XP.

In order to fix something like this you will need to go into the Windows Credential Manager and remove the stored password.

 

To do this:

 

Windows 7: Control Panel – Windows Credential Manager

Windows XP – User Accounts – Username – Stored Network Passwords (Top left link)

 

 

Once removed retry to access share, you should now see share respond and pop up a user password windows. Place in the correct credentials and you’re in.

 

 

I hope this helps someone out there..

 

Cubert  😎