bugmagnet's questions

We cloned a VM (with significant help from an MS tech). It now sits on 52.158.131.150 and is supposed to be the new home for HOPL. However, things aren't going so well.

We've pointed hopl.info to the new IP address, but when I tracert to the new address it goes nowhere. Pinging times out. Browsing times out.

When I run the Network Diagnostics from inside the VM I get the following dialog: . Obviously, power-cycling the broadband modem isn't a thing in this situation. What should I be looking for and where?

We have an URL Rewrite rule and a Request Filter. Which one evaluates first?

When in the Edit Filtering Rule dialog in IIS, is the case of the string, e.g. cast( important?

We're seeing SQL injection attack attempts that have the string in various combinations of upper- and lower-case, like cAsT(. Do we need to be specific? I would expect that the module doesn't expect one to think of all the possible combinations but I can't find it clearly stated as the case in any of the online re

Context: Azure; Windows Server 2012; IIS 8

First up, here's the (redacted) web.config for reference

        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="ReverseProxyInboundRule1" stopProcessing="false">
                    <match url="(.*)" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="https://www.khatam.com/{R:1}" logRewrittenUrl="true" />
                    <serverVariables>
                        <set name="HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_ACCEPT_ENCODING" value="{HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING}" />
                        <set name="HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING" value="" />
                    </serverVariables>
                </rule>
                <rule name="Capture Http Origin Header" enabled="true">
                    <match url=".*" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true">
                        <add input="{HTTP_ORIGIN}" pattern=".+" />
                    </conditions>
                    <serverVariables>
                        <set name="CAPTURED_ORIGIN" value="{C:0}" />
                    </serverVariables>
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
            <outboundRules>
                <clear />
                <rule name="ReverseProxyOutboundRule1" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1">
                    <match filterByTags="None" pattern="^http(s)?://www.khatam.com/(.*)" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" value="http{R:1}://jamuni.pemaish.com.au/{R:2}" />
                </rule>
                
                <rule name="Rewrite mundrjatzxera Assets" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1" enabled="true">
                    <match filterByTags="None" pattern="^/(mundrjat/zxera/.*)" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" value="https://www.khatam.com/{R:1}" />
                </rule>
                
                <rule name="Rewrite Source Srcset in Picture Assets" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1" enabled="true">
                    <match filterByTags="CustomTags" customTags="Source Srcset in Picture" pattern=",?\/(mundrjat\/zxera\/\S+\s\d+w)" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" value="https://www.khatam.com/{R:1}" />
                </rule>

                <rule name="Rewrite X-Frame-Options" enabled="true" patternSyntax="Wildcard">
                    <match serverVariable="RESPONSE_X-Frame-Options" pattern="*" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" />
                </rule>
                
                <rule name="Set-Access-Control-Allow-Origin for known origins" enabled="true">
                    <match serverVariable="RESPONSE_Access-Control-Allow-Origin" pattern=".+" negate="true" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" value="{CAPTURED_ORIGIN}" />
                </rule>
                
                <rule name="Restore Accept Encoding" preCondition="Needs to Restore Original Accept Encoding" enabled="true">
                    <match serverVariable="HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING" pattern="^(.*)$" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" value="{HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_ACCEPT_ENCODING}" />
                </rule>
                
                <preConditions>
                    <preCondition name="ResponseIsCss">
                        <add input="{RESPONSE_CONTENT_TYPE}" pattern="^text/css" />
                    </preCondition>
                    <preCondition name="ResponseIsHtml1">
                        <add input="{RESPONSE_CONTENT_TYPE}" pattern="^text/html" />
                    </preCondition>
                    <preCondition name="ResponseIsEverything">
                        <add input="{RESPONSE_CONTENT_TYPE}" pattern="^text/(.+)$" />
                    </preCondition>
                    <preCondition name="Needs to Restore Original Accept Encoding">
                        <add input="{HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_ACCEPT_ENCODING}" pattern=".*" />
                    </preCondition>
                </preConditions>
                
                <customTags>
                    <tags name="Source Srcset in Picture">
                        <tag name="source" attribute="srcset" />
                    </tags>
                </customTags>
            </outboundRules>
        </rewrite>
...

<httpProtocol>
    <customHeaders>
        <add name="Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value="*" />
    </customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>

We're reverse proxying a site for a client. The proxied site is www.khatam.com. The server through which the proxying is effected is jamuni.pemaish.com.au (yes, I do speak Urdu, albeit not brilliantly.) The client will have an IFRAME in their site which will interact with khatam.com's site via our jamuni server.

So far so good: the client is able to run everything in khatam's site via their IFRAME. What's NOT working so well is that there are WOFF files referenced in the one of the CSS files and these are not loading.

When in devtools in a browser (which is rendering the IFRAME) all the woffs are in red, with the General headers being

Request URL: https://jamuni.pemaish.com.au/vgera.mukljuga/jugabisbis/mukljuga/khatam/vesael/icomoon.woff
Request Method: GET
Status Code: 500 URL Rewrite Module Error.
Remote Address: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:443
Referrer Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade

I have tried to write a rule to change the CSS, viz

<rule name="Rewrite vgera.mukljuga Assets" preCondition="ResponseIsCss" enabled="true">
       <match filterByTags="None" pattern="url\((khatam/vesael/.*?.woff)" />
       <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="true" />
       <action type="Rewrite" value="url(https://www.khatam.com/vgera.mukljuga/jugabisbis/mukljuga/{R:1}" />
</rule>

but whether the target or the intermediate is specified, I still get the 500 error. Now as I re-read this I'm wondering if I'm having the output of one rewrite being picked up by another leading to a loop or a race. If I take the link from the General above and put it into the address bar of the browser, I get a woff file suggesting that there's contention between two or more rules.

The CSS rules are relative-pathed. Here's one of them:

@font-face {
    font-family: trade-gothic-condensed;
    src: url(khatam/vesael/tradegothicltcom-bdcn20-webfont.woff) format("woff");
    font-weight: 700;
    font-style: normal;
    -webkit-font-smoothing:antialiased;-moz-osx-font-smoothing:grayscale}

Suggestions welcome.

So the scenario we have in mind is as follows.

We have an IFRAME. Said IFRAME wants to point to a resource on https://trees.com. It might be, for example, https://trees.com/ficus/macrophylla. However, despite all our requests to trees.com, they refuse to allow us to link directly to their site, blocking the cross-origin request.

So we decide we want to set up a reverse-proxy. We've heard about nginx and apache but we've got a corporate commitment to Microsoft's technology, for better or worse, so decide in favour of IIS.

Using one of our Azure servers, we create a website, let's call it https://figs.wild.com.au. We configure the IFRAMEs so that a request to https://trees.com/ficus/macrophylla actually goes to https://figs.wild.com.au/trees/ficus/macrophylla.

At this point we go slightly insane.

Is it actually possible for the request https://figs.wild.com.au/trees/ficus/macrophylla to be converted, on the figs.wild.com.au server, to a request for https://trees.com/ficus/macrophylla and for the response to that to be fed back to the originator of the IFRAME request?

We've done a lot of searching and we keep finding things that almost work. What actually does work? Is IIS's Url Rewrite the thing to use, and if so, what should the rule/s look like? Or should we be using some C#-y thing instead?

I wrote earlier about Trying to understand reverse-proxying using nginx and Windows IIS. While the upwork-hired specialist looks into that, I'm looking into just using IIS to do reverse proxying.

There's something wrong with this rewrite rule but I'm too new to this to see it. This is the rewrite rule sliced out of the web.config file (and anonymized slightly):

<rewrite>
    <rules>
        <rule name="ReverseProxyInboundRule1" stopProcessing="true">
            <match url="(.*)" />
            <action type="Rewrite" url="http://our.server/third/{R:1}" />
        </rule>
    </rules>
    <outboundRules>
        <rule name="ReverseProxyOutboundRule1" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1">
            <match filterByTags="A, Form, Img" pattern="^http(s)?://our.server/third/(.*)" />
            <action type="Rewrite" value="http{R:1}://www.third.com/{R:2}" />
        </rule>
        <preConditions>
            <preCondition name="ResponseIsHtml1">
                <add input="{RESPONSE_CONTENT_TYPE}" pattern="^text/html" />
            </preCondition>
        </preConditions>
    </outboundRules>
</rewrite>

The response I get from the web browser when I try to use this rule is

Detailed Error Information:
Module     ApplicationRequestRouting
Notification       MapRequestHandler
Handler    ApplicationRequestRoutingHandler
Error Code     0x00000000
Requested URL      http://our.server:80/third/third/third/third/third/third/third/third/third/third/third/third/au/mz
Physical Path      C:\web\projects\third\third\third\third\third\third\third\third\third\third\third\third\au\mz

So what's causing all these thirds?

So we had a contractor set up nginx on an Azure-based Windows 2016 server which we wound up for the purpose. Now I'm trying to get my head around how to use it (and, ultimately, to fold back into our existing servers.)

The goal is to be able to have an IFRAME on our site with a 3rd party's site in it. Right now that doesn't work because of a "same-origin" restriction. We've asked the 3rd party to add use to the list of permitted servers but here we are three years later and no add.

So we thought we'd try the reverse-proxy approach. Now we have nginx on a server with the following nginx.conf (redacted):

    server {
        listen       80;
        server_name  localhost;

        location / {
            proxy_pass https://www.3rdparty.com/;
            proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
            proxy_set_header Host 3rdparty.com;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
            proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        }

The contractor left IIS's binding at ":8081" for the default website.

How do we use this? What has to change in IIS, if anything, and in the nginx.conf?

We're running an Azure server, Windows Server 2012R2. Just of late we've been seeing various scheduled console applications going down because they've received CTRL_CLOSE events.

However, no one has been logged in for some days.

Is there any way, from the system event logs or anywhere else, to know where these events have been coming from?

Context: Windows Server 2003; IIS 5

I'm trying to launch a JScript file from within an IIS application. I keep getting

Permission denied 70 0 Microsoft VBScript runtime error

Just in case you're thinking that it's because I'm having a JScript/VBScript senior moment, I'm using the VBScript tool in a third party CGI to execute the JScript, using the following bit of VBScript:

 ans = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Run("c:\windows\system32\cscript.exe //B ..\js2\script3.js group-name 1004041814

So the error appears to be happening either in the call to cscript or in cscript itself reporting back that it can't do what it's been told.

I've done a lot of digging around for an answer, but so far none of the suggestions given have worked. If nothing else, I'd just like to know what's going on, even if a fix isn't possible. I have come up with a couple of workaround since, but it's a drag that the thing doesn't work in the first instance.

When using Powershell to set Out-of-Office in Exchange 2007 (e.g.), do multiple commands containing -StartTime and -EndTime add to some internal list that Exchange maintains or does each successive command replace the previous command?

For example we have a staffer who is only in the office Tuesdays and Fridays. We'd like to set up Exchange to send an Out-of-Office message to all internal senders on those days when he's not in. How is this best done?

Context: Win7 64-bit client, Windows Server 2003

I log into the server using MSTSC. The server is running Windows Server 2003, 32bit.

I call up the list of Printers and Faxes from the Start menu. I right-click on a printer on the server. I get told that I don't have the relevant privileges and that I can access only the Security tab.

The list on that tab says that Domain Admins have full rights. I'm in the Domain Admins group. However, I don't seem to have full rights.

The printer is a RICOH Aficio SP 4210N. Print Management says that 32bit and 64bit drivers are present.

Any idea why the rights are there, but the outworking of them isn't?

Context: IIS7, Win7, Joomla 1.5

With this URL, http://website/foo , if I have a subdirectory called "foo" in the root of the Joomla install, IIS7 tries to find index.php in it and returns a 403 before Joomla gets going.

With this URL, http://website/bar , if I don't have subdirectory called "bar", IIS7 passes the URL through to Joomla and lets it take care of whether the page exists or not.

In the event of http://website/foo , how do I set up IIS7 so that it ignores the fact that there's a "foo" subdirectory, and passes the full URL to Joomla?

Dell have been really helpful in making their desktop and laptop serial numbers available via WMI. Has anyone had any success in finding similar information about Acer computers, especially the SNID, by similar means. If so, how?

Context: Windows Server 2003

I have a small computer lab to set up. At this point there are 6 machines. Another 14 will be added later.

We don't have any servers in the building; the whole business network is a workgroup.

Each lab machine has Windows 7 pre-installed. When we start one up for the first time it wants to download a large slab of updates. If all 6 machines do that, that will blow a huge hole in our download allowance (read SME in Australia.) If we do the same for the following 14 we'll be shaped back to dial-up speeds until the beginning of the ISP's next accounting period.

Is there a mechanism available which would make possible the one-time download of these updates and then the application of them to the whole lab? Or am I going to be forced to purchase a server version of windows (e.g. 2K8) so that I can do WSUS?

We have a foreign delegation coming in next week. Some of them will be IT-savvy. We don't want them wandering through our network. We have a wired network and a wireless network both going through the one ADSL router.

Can I set up the wireless user to be on a separate network? Is it still possible for the wired and wireless groups to connect to the internet?

This is the situation I've inherited: There are two routers, one off-site. Both are connected to the ISP. The ISP assigns both of them the same static IP (or so it seems). Presumably, the network problems we're having are related to the idea that you can't have two instances of the same IP.

So we rang up the folk off-site and told them to turn off the router. Now everything's working okay here.

How do I get around this? Get another static IP? Figure out how to get the router to ask for a dynamic IP (as we're not using the static IP for anything)?

We have some rather large Outlook PST files left over from previous employees. Some of these are connected to Outlook (2003 and 2007) accounts in the enterprise, and seem to be getting flagged for backup even though the contents don't change (as far as I can tell, anyway.)

Now I could just ask each user on the network whether they are doing this, or I could find out somehow through the network. If I wanted to do the latter, how would I get it done?

The workgroup here has two words, rather than the single word like MSHOME. Is there a problem with it having an embedded space?