kafka's questions

I have a Nagios host which is monitoring Windows servers using NRPE. One of the tasks is to remotely connect to a Windows Server, using NRPE, and run a Python script.

The python script simply checks the status of some backups. The Python scripts uses a module called 'win_unc' which is used to connect to a network share.

When I run the script directly and locally on the Windows Server it runs fine. When the script is called by NRPE remotely we get the following error:

<class 'win_unc.errors.ShellCommandError'>
()
The command `NET USE "\\X.X.X.X\backups" "PasswordRemoved" /USER:"UserRemoved" /PERSISTENT:NO` exited with error code 2.

Is the issue because the Nagios box, calling the script, cannot run the 'NET USE...' command?

On an Azure VM I edited the Windows Firewall rule "RemoteDesktop-UserMode-In-TCP" so that only our Remote IP address was allowed access. In order to do this I also had to select General > Action > Allow the connection if it is secure. For some reason, despite supplying the correct IP address, the connection dropped and I have been unable to logon since. I have tried the steps in http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CSIReenablingRemoteDesktopWithPowerShellAfterYouveBlockedItWithYourOwnFirewallRule.aspx to no avail.

How can I delete / recreate the default RDP firewall rule from Azure Powershell?

I'm familiar with MSSQL triggers already, however they aren't fine grained enough for what I want to do. In my scenario I want the trigger to fire after a row containing certain information lands in the table; not every time an UPDATE is performed.

I've used Powershell scripts to 'listen' for files dropping in a certain location, and then sending an email, I'm just wondering if this is at all possible with MS SQL server?

We have a straight forward domain logon script with a line along the lines of
net use s: \\server\share However, this isn't working correctly with Windows 8 / 2012 machines.

The strange thing is that if you attempt to do this manually on one of the affected machines it will complain that the drive is already mapped - you can see the mapping from the command line however it does not show in Windows Explorer.

I'm in the process of decommissioning an old 2003 server, which acts as a file server, and am just attempting a dry-run of migrating the file repository over to a new Windows Storage Server 2012 box. I'm using robocopy to copy over the files, and currently just doing some test runs to see how long it takes, before we make the final change over.

The first time I ran robocopy I supplied the following switches: Options : . /S /E /COPYALL /PURGE /MIR /MT:128 /R:100000 /W:30 It ran fine (although I wouldn't recommend the /r and /w switches as it'll take forever to complete!) The second time I ran it with the following switches (the destination directory already contained a copy of the source destination from the first time I ran it, /MIR will ensure it's updated): Options : . /S /E /COPYALL /PURGE /MIR /MT:128 /R:0 /W:0

This caused the server to hang about 5 minutes after the job started. It completely hung and I had to manually power cycle it to restart it. The logs aren't giving me a huge indication of what went wrong - thoughts were that /mt:128 had caused issues, but I supplied that switch the first time and that was fine.

The second time I change a couple of switches to /r:0 and /w:0 although I wouldn't imagine that they would cause it to hang.

Finally is the fact that I've chosen /MIR problematic as the destination has already been copied over from the source once before - I wouldn't have thought so though as I thought the only potential downside of mirroring was that it would delete files in the destination which are no longer in the source. If anyone could shed any light on what went wrong it'll ensure that it doesn't go wrong next time I try it out.

EDIT: the switches I mentioned above are taken from the robocopy log file, and in a sense they are an interpretation of the switches I specified, which were: /MIR /COPY:DATSOU /MT:128 /R /W

2nd Edit: The server in question has a dual NIC, teamed using Windows Server in-built NIC teaming. I feel this is important information, which I did not share when I originally posted the question. Would like to investigate this. The NIC in question is a Intel(R) 82574L Gigabit Network Connection. The NIC Team is 'Microsoft Network Adapter Multiplexor Driver'.

We are looking at improving our backup solution. We don't have a huge amount of data to back up (currently ~500GB) which is backed up nightly onto an external HD. We have 3 of these HD, with one going in the firesafe on a weekly basis, and the other 2 rotating each night, so that the latest backup goes offsite overnight. The external HD are reaching capacity though, hence looking to upgrade.

There are a number of options that we could potentially utilise. I like the idea of a NAS server, with a 2TB drive. The size will allow future growth, without spending a huge amount. I'd like to get a second 2TB disk, and then swap this with a disk in the NAS on a daily basis. This is working on the assumption that the NAS has hot-swap disks, and so does not require powering down to swap a disk. My query is whether this is an effective way of using the NAS, or whether it will cause any problems with the NAS.

Another option is that we have a RAID 1 in the NAS, and swap out a disk daily, I'm just wondering how efficient that would be, as effectively the RAID1 array will be re-built on a daily basis, and I'm not sure how onerous this will be on the disks.

Possible Duplicate:
Can you help me with my capacity planning?

My query is regarding how to specify a physical host, to serve virtual machines, and what 'rules of thumb' you would use regarding how many virtual instances could reside on a physical host. I appreciate that this can vary greatly depending upon the server instance, and the workload, and these are easy to understand in isolation, but this changes once you start putting several VMs on a box, they compete for resources, and you need to think about the overall performance of the server, rather than the individual VM.

I've read on another site as rough guide to have roughly 2-4GB RAM per core, 2 cores per VM. So if you had 8 Cores, 32GB RAM you'd be looking at running 4 WS2008R2 full installs comfortably. Disk IOPs important too, so should you be looking at a nice fast RAID array? Finally presumably you'd want two NICs minimum?

I've setup a scheduled task on a Windows 2008 Server with two actions. The first action is to run an application which connects to a SQL database and generates XML files. The second action is to run a Powershell script. Provided the task starts correctly the script simply sends a mail message saying that the task has started, and attaches the latest log file created by the data extraction application.

If the scheduled task doesn't start (it didn't last night, and the last run result indicated it was because 'An instance of this task is already running') the Powershell script doesn't fire, so we don't get an email. This is a quick indicator that the task hasn't run, however I'd like the Powershell script to return the Last Run Result from the task scheduler if the task doesn't run (although everytime would be fine). I'm a beginner with Powershell, and I've only scratched the surface with it, so is this possible, or am I asking the impossible? Is there another, glaringly obvious way of doing this? Should I just have a scheduled task with a single action to run a Powershell script which runs the application, and fires off a notification email with the log / last run details?

I'm setting up a VPN test server, on Windows 2008 R2. I seem to remember that PPTP isn't ideal, as on a Cisco firewall you need to allow quite a large range of ports open (with the GRE protocol too?)

Anyway, my vague memories of this aren't brilliant, so I would like to know, what's the more secure protocol for setting up remote VPN access (from users dialling in from home, so not a VPN tunnel or anything).

I've got a test server which was running WS 2008 Enterprise on the bare metal. It was correctly using the software RAID 1 configuration (2x250 GB disks which appeared as one disk), setup on the Dell Poweredge T110 (which meets compatibility requirements) without requiring any extra setup from me. (As an aside I'm fairly sure it's software RAID, as we didn't spec a hardware RAID controller, if that's of any importance in this situation).

I am now testing installing ESXi 5.0 on this server to run some VMs. I've successfully installed ESXi, and imported a VM fine, but it's showing 2 x 250 GB disks available as datastores. However they should be appearing as one volume. When I boot the server, there is a RAID configuration screen you can enter, and I'm guessing this is what I'll have to do at some stage, but now need to be very careful because there is one disk which contains data that I want to be mirrored on the other disk. What is the best thing to do in this situation?

I am configuring a Cisco 877 router in a test environment. We use a non-standard port for SFTP, 3030. On my inbound ACL I am setting permit tcp any any eq 3030 but the remote SFTP connection is being refused.

We use a non-standard port for SQL too, and this is set on the same ACL, but works fine. When I do sh access-list it doesn't show any matches for the SFTP rule at all, unless I attempt a port probe. All other ACL rules work fine.

What am I missing to allow through this connection? I've even tried to set port-map SSH 3030, as this is the protocol used once a connection has been established, to no avail.

One of our users is having a recurring problem with a virus. It has happened to this user on two different machines, in each instance infecting the same program with the same virus.

Malware bytes detects the malware, and yesterday I cleaned the system. Note that MSE doesn't find anything. Malware bytes real-time scanner is running too, but I checked again today and the system is re-infected.

It's a Win 7 Pro SP1 system, it has the latest updates, it's running Windows firewall (as well as being behind a corporate firewall), MSE and MBAM on the system, and still it gets re-infected!

I've scanned the user's network drives in case they're picking it up from there, but so far nothing's been found.

How can I get to the bottom of this recurring virus problem and stop the system from getting infected once and for all?

I've got a raw, blank GPT disk for use in a UEFI system. I need to create the partitions on it using diskpart. The only tutorial I've found so far is for diskpart.efi, which I believe is slightly different from the command-line diskpart. MS guide to GPT partitions with diskpart.efi Also the guide says to create a MSR of 32MB, but for a disk>= 16GB I know it needs to be 128MB.

I'm happy doing it with diskpart, just want to be sure I understand the fundamentals. I'm planning on installing, in this order:

1. ESP partition, size 102 MB (create partition esp size=102)
2. MSR partition, size 128 MB (create partition msr size=128)
3. data partition, the remaining space (approx 460GB)

Is this the correct thing to do, or is there anything I'm missing?

We have a floor standing server cabinet, which sits in the corner of our office. There is no AC in the office, and the average temperature is around 21C (70F). The server cabinet currently contains 2 tower servers, a switch and a router. It's well enough ventilated, but does get understandably warm in there.

We've recently put a thermometer in there to monitor the temperature, and recently I've noticed the temperature hit 33C (91F). What I'd like to know is if this temperature is too high, and whether there is a maximum temperature we should not be exceeding?

I'm based in the UK, and we have recently acquired VDSL FTTC Fibre optic connection. We are currently using the provider supplied VDSL modem and wireless router.

We want to use our Cisco 877 instead of the wireless router. Apparently we can't get around using the supplied VDSL modem. I've found configs on the internet for how to do this, but I cannot seem to get it to work. Effectively we've configured the router to use FastEthernet3 for the WAN connection, which is also configured with the PPPoE settings required. We're going to use FastEthernet0 to connect to our internal LAN, with NAT configured on these two ports.

Has anyone had any success with this, or am I attempting something which is not possible?