Aaron Mason's questions

All

We have a system running Windows Server 2016 with IIS 10 and PHP 7.1.16. The scripts connect to a SQL Server database through ODBC. It works very well during normal conditions, however we get a surge every Friday as people try to get things done before the weekend. Every now and again connections to the database begin to fail, but continuing to try will eventually get you through.

My Db connection script is as follows (the function allows me to easily make new connections on the fly if I need to, since SQL Server requires prior statements to be closed before new queries can be submitted):

<?php

include "config.inc.php";

function DBConnFactory()
{
    return new PDO($dsn='odbc:Driver={SQL Server};Server='.DB_INST.';Database='.DB_DATABASE.';APP=WhatsMyAppAgain;Trusted_Connection='.DB_TRUST);
}
try
{
    $db=DBConnFactory();
}
catch (Exception $e)
{
    error_log($e->getMessage().' in '.$e->getFile().', on line '.$e->getLine());
    die('Can\'t connect to the database!');
}

$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);

// leave the ending tag off, otherwise you could get 
// random whitespace that could block header changes.

When it begins to fail, I get the following message in the logs:

[19-Oct-2018 17:38:42 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7
[19-Oct-2018 17:38:43 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7
[19-Oct-2018 17:39:10 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7
[19-Oct-2018 17:44:28 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7
[19-Oct-2018 17:45:13 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7
[19-Oct-2018 17:46:15 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7
[19-Oct-2018 17:48:25 Australia/Sydney] SQLSTATE[] SQLDriverConnect: 0  in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WhatsMyAppAgain\LIVE\dbconn.inc.php, on line 7

There's no errors in the Event Viewer that provide any clues as to what's going on. I know it isn't the SQL server because my development environment connects to the same SQL server and I do not see the issue there, and when the issue affects the LIVE environment, the QA environment (which is on the same server) is affected as well.

I've created stub scripts that create any number of connections through the same ODBC, but even when I create 3,000 connections (far beyond what the site would create even if everyone tried to jump on at once), I cannot reproduce this.

Some time ago I was bought a Socomec NETYS PR RT 1700 and a B2200 extender as payment for a job, intending to use it for a project that fell through sometime later. I started at a new job as IT Manager and, as cash for IT was scarce at the time, loaned my UPS to them for the purpose of keeping their kit running during outages.

One day someone cut off the power to move a power point as part of an office reconfiguration (nobody was informed of this until some minutes after it happened) and when they did that, the UPS (which was overloaded due to a consultant who didn't brain when they installed their equipment, long story) shut off, at which point someone went into the server room to try to power it back on again, at which point the UPS shut off again. However, even when the power was switched back on, the UPS didn't turn back on and was not passing power through to the servers and switches.

I've popped the cover on this one (it's way out of warranty so I figured it couldn't hurt to have a look) hoping to find a fuse that might have popped, but I can't see anything of the sort. Plugging in the UPS with a Kill-A-Watt shows some power use, but nothing appears on the front LCD screen and none of the buttons seem to do anything. None of the capacitors seem to be blown or missing.

Is this UPS dead, or is there some hope to revive it?

All

We have a server with an Intel S5520HC motherboard, two E5620 processors, 6x2GB memory modules and four 1TB hard drives in RAID 10 connected directly to the board. I'm trying to be as detailed as possible in case any of this connects.

When it was purchased (before I got there), it had a PCI (consumer grade!) gigabit Ethernet card installed, and when this failed, my testing of the onboard NICs revealed that they didn't work. At all. It had PCI identifier 8086:10AA which has been discussed at length previously.

Armed with this knowledge, I picked up an Intel PRO/1000 PT quad-port adapter and installed it into this system. Imagine my disdain when it didn't even appear! For science, I installed a PRO/1000 CT desktop adapter, which worked.

Ok, says I, I've got an R/S quad-port NIC. Before I called the vendor to rant and rave at them, I decided to science some more. I installed the card into a Dell PowerEdge 1950 I had lying around, expecting to see the same behaviour. Nope - the card worked perfectly, even in the pre-install environment of a Windows Server 2008 R2 install CD.

So what's going on here? Sure, I could put the lack of action on the on-board NICs down to dodgy EEPROMs (as stated in the links above), but why would it also affect an enterprise-grade quad-port card?

I bought a HP ProLiant DL160 G5 off eBay some time ago for use as a file server for a LAN party group (specifically I was after something with four 3.5" bays on the front) - but it turned out to be not powerful enough for my needs (iSCSI) so I upgraded. I now wish to sell it on eBay again but the license on the ILO, I found out, wasn't exactly... legit. I don't want to get into trouble for what the last guy did, is there any way to clear this license?

We've recently migrated our virtualised SQL databases to a bare metal solution in an active/active cluster. Everything is working great except SQL Reports.

Ok, so a rundown of our setup here as it relates to SQL and Reports:

• XXYYSQ01 is our old virtual SQL server, now running Reporting Services.
• XXYYSQ1 is a new SQL server, running on bare metal. It does not house the database that we are attempting to access.
• XXYYSQ2 is the other new bare metal SQL server. It runs the database we are looking to access.
• SQLCLUSTERDB\DATABASE is the name of the clustered instance hosting the database we wish to access.

Now, when someone access the reporting services website on their desktop and tries to run a report, they get the dreaded Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON' error. So I add the required SPNs against the service user for Reporting Services:

H:\>setspn -L DOMAIN\ssrs-user
Registered ServicePrincipalNames for CN=ssrs-user,OU=Systems,DC=domain,DC=local:
        MSSQLSvc/SQLCLUSTERDB.domain.local:DATABASE
        MSSQLSvc/SQLCLUSTERDB:DATABASE
        http/xxyysq01

Refresh and.... still not working. My Google searches led me to add the service user to the Act as part of the operating system and Impersonate a client after authentication user rights. Still nothing.

I head for the error logs. XXYYSQ01 offers the following:

An account was successfully logged on.

Subject:
    Security ID:        NULL SID
    Account Name:       -
    Account Domain:     -
    Logon ID:       0x0

Logon Type:         3

New Logon:
    Security ID:        DOMAIN\amason
    Account Name:       amason
    Account Domain:     DOMAIN
    Logon ID:       0x2d70c77c4
    Logon GUID:     {955a0a82-c5cf-ca60-d063-cc4a32a363be}

Process Information:
    Process ID:     0x0
    Process Name:       -

Network Information:
    Workstation Name:   
    Source Network Address: -
    Source Port:        -

Detailed Authentication Information:
    Logon Process:      Kerberos
    Authentication Package: Kerberos
    Transited Services: -
    Package Name (NTLM only):   -
    Key Length:     0

This event is generated when a logon session is created. It is generated on the computer that was accessed.

The subject fields indicate the account on the local system which requested the logon. This is most commonly a service such as the Server service, or a local process such as Winlogon.exe or Services.exe.

The logon type field indicates the kind of logon that occurred. The most common types are 2 (interactive) and 3 (network).

The New Logon fields indicate the account for whom the new logon was created, i.e. the account that was logged on.

The network fields indicate where a remote logon request originated. Workstation name is not always available and may be left blank in some cases.

The authentication information fields provide detailed information about this specific logon request.
    - Logon GUID is a unique identifier that can be used to correlate this event with a KDC event.
    - Transited services indicate which intermediate services have participated in this logon request.
    - Package name indicates which sub-protocol was used among the NTLM protocols.
    - Key length indicates the length of the generated session key. This will be 0 if no session key was requested.

XXYYSQ2 gives me:

An account was successfully logged on.

Subject:
    Security ID:        NULL SID
    Account Name:       -
    Account Domain:     -
    Logon ID:       0x0

Logon Type:         3

New Logon:
    Security ID:        ANONYMOUS LOGON
    Account Name:       ANONYMOUS LOGON
    Account Domain:     NT AUTHORITY
    Logon ID:       0xe684d0c85
    Logon GUID:     {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

Process Information:
    Process ID:     0x0
    Process Name:       -

Network Information:
    Workstation Name:   XXYYSQ01
    Source Network Address: -
    Source Port:        -

Detailed Authentication Information:
    Logon Process:      NtLmSsp 
    Authentication Package: NTLM
    Transited Services: -
    Package Name (NTLM only):   NTLM V1
    Key Length:     128

This event is generated when a logon session is created. It is generated on the computer that was accessed.

The subject fields indicate the account on the local system which requested the logon. This is most commonly a service such as the Server service, or a local process such as Winlogon.exe or Services.exe.

The logon type field indicates the kind of logon that occurred. The most common types are 2 (interactive) and 3 (network).

The New Logon fields indicate the account for whom the new logon was created, i.e. the account that was logged on.

The network fields indicate where a remote logon request originated. Workstation name is not always available and may be left blank in some cases.

The authentication information fields provide detailed information about this specific logon request.
    - Logon GUID is a unique identifier that can be used to correlate this event with a KDC event.
    - Transited services indicate which intermediate services have participated in this logon request.
    - Package name indicates which sub-protocol was used among the NTLM protocols.
    - Key length indicates the length of the generated session key. This will be 0 if no session key was requested.

And:

Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'. Reason: Token-based server access validation failed with an infrastructure error. Check for previous errors. [CLIENT: RE.DA.CT.ED]

Argh.

Is there anything I'm missing here? I can run the reports just fine from XXYYSQ01 itself, so I know for sure this is a double hop problem. However, from what I've read, what I've done so far should solve this problem. There are no duplicate SPNs, I checked.

I have also changed authentication to Negotiate/Kerberos in the rsreportserver.config file. The connection string is Server=SQLCLUSTERDB\DATABASE;Initial Catalog=DataBase

Any assistance at all will be greatly appreciated.

Trying to build an SQL Server cluster lab on an old Dell Latitude E6400 with 6gb RAM, using Hyper-V 2012. The install works great, I can create VMs and networks just fine, but when I try to boot the 2008 R2 install ISO, it blue screens like the screenie below.

On occasion the first number in the brackets is 0xc000012d.

It loads files off the ISO, displays the "Starting Windows" screen without animation, goes to the Vista loading bar before displaying that message.

I've run up every update that was available and even tried turning on the old OS option under Processor, to no avail. The same happens with or without SP1 in the 2008R2 ISO.

Any pointers or cluesticks will be greatly appreciated.

We're having issues with a sister company that has an SBS 2011 Standard server on site on a separate domain to ours - they have problems editing documents via SharePoint, whereas my manager can get in just fine externally. We noticed that the SharePoint address was http://companyweb/ and wondered if that was an issue, since that was the address they used and my manager used intranet.companyname.com instead.

Our attempts to change it, however, have been almost, but not quite, entirely fruitless.

First, we looked at group policy. I can see in the Windows SBS User Policy that the Internal Web site link is shown as http://companyweb - so I went to edit it, only to find that Internet Explorer Maintenance was not shown at all under Policies -> Windows Settings.

EDIT 2015-05-21: This is because IE11 was installed, which removes the IE10 policy objects. IE11 ones are only available in 2012 onwards or as a separate download.

Next place I looked was the console. The website is listed under Websites (as shown below) but there is absolutely no option to change the address here, either.

Changing around names in IIS has resulted in just as much change to the situation as a whole.

The only other option I can think of is to create a new website in IIS using companyweb as the address, and redirect it to the "proper" SharePoint address. Before I resort to that extreme, is there anything else I can do, or are we stuck with this because apparently nobody wants to change it?

We have a loaned PS6000E SAN that we are using to relocate our iSCSI LUNs off our current PS4000E SAN to upgrade it from Seagate Moose drives under a proactive replacement plan by Dell. We've connected it up to our stack of Dell PowerConnect 6248 switches that make up our client stack (because our Cisco stack is currently full - another is on order so we can extend it and give our server network room to grow) and while it connects to our existing stack and we've successfully moved a LUN across, there are numerous errors on the Ethernet connectors that are giving us cause for concern.

Our other two SANs are connected to our Cisco stack and show no errors at all. They connect to the Dell stack via a fibre link which does not have jumbo frames turned on.

We are not particularly keen on moving across the remainder of the LUNs until we resolve this issue. Is there something on the switch we need to configure that I'm missing? Should I not be using the PC6248s for this and should I wait for our new Cisco switch to arrive? Am I getting myself into a fuss over nothing?

EDIT: I noticed spanning tree was turned on for the ports and turned off for the SAN ports on the Cisco switch. Turning it off has done nothing to stem the errors coming from this thing. I ensured that the MTU was 9000 across the board and it hasn't made a difference. All cables are CAT6. Turning off LLDP made no difference. Someone requested a diagram, which is below.

We are looking to replicate our production database to another instance so that when reports are run, it doesn't slow down the application to the point of being barely usable. I had limited success with SQL Server Replication, but as the application fiddles with the data model from time to time, this approach was unsuitable.

When we spoke to the vendor (who told us that yes, it could be replicated) he revealed that their other clients use log shipping, which is my current direction. My only problem is the server runs SQL 2008, whereas the target server runs 2008R2. When I try to restore a backup in standby, it falls flat on its face, but if I use another instance that is the same version, the process runs flawlessly.

Is there a way to do it with different SQL Server versions, or am I stuck with the current arrangement?

Thanks