Reaces's questions

I have two IIS sites, which expose the same virtual directory.

One is bound as http::80:wfe.website.com, and is accessed through a reverse proxy server.
The second is bound as http::80:www.website.com, and is not exposed externally.
Our public DNS entries for this website refer www.website.com, and point towards our reverse proxy servers.

We have an entry in our host files, pointing www.website.com to 127.0.0.1.
I have no proxy settings in my LAN settings.
If I ping www.website.com I correctly go to 127.0.0.1.

Now for my issue: On 5/6 of the legs of my load-balanced IIS farm, when I go to www.website.com, I get the website.
On one of the legs of my farm, I get redirected to the wfe.website.com address, which requires internet access.
My colleagues do not have the same problem.

For troubleshooting purposes I really need to be able to access this site locally.

We are trying to define a parametric IAAS SQL Server setup.
But we require a different collation than the default sql_latin01_general_cp1_ci_as.

I can't seem to find it in the json template / parameter or as a parameter in the Powershell.

Is there a way to define a different collation when setting up a IAAS SQL Server for Azure?

We have a VNET that is coupled to an Express route, on which we will give our users access to specific subnets.

These subnets are created for each resource group, and the idea is to have these users only able to add machines in their subnet.
To allow users to add machines to a subnet I gave them the following permissions:

• Read on Virtual Network
• Contributor on their subnet

However this allowed the users to select all subnets on the virtual network.
It simply throws an error when you try to deploy a machine on a subnet you lack contributor on.

I tried creating custom roles, but if I am to create one that only disallows reading as such:

{
    "Name":  "Not Reader",
    "Description":  "Denies Reader priviliges on the assigned resource.",
    "Actions":  [
                ],
    "NotActions":  [
                    "Microsoft.Network/*/read"
                   ],
    "AssignableScopes":  [
                             "/subscriptions/theguidwashere"
                         ]
}

I get the error:

New-AzureRmRoleDefinition : Invalid value for Actions
At line:1 char:1
+ New-AzureRmRoleDefinition -InputFile C:\temp\customroles\NotReader.json
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : CloseError: (:) [New-AzureRmRoleDefinition], ArgumentException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Azure.Commands.Resources.NewAzureRoleDefinitionCommand

I assume this is because the actions value can not be empty.
I'm not sure what I should/could safely add in the actions, and at this point it's starting to look like I'm putting together something complex for what should be quite simple.

So how should I set up/create roles to allow for a user to see and utilize only a single subnet within a larger VNET?

I'm using powershell to get a usage report of a Microsoft Azure environment.
To define the start and end times I use the following:

$reportedStartTime = (Get-Date -day 1 -hour 0 -minute 0 -second 0)
$reportedEndTime = (Get-Date -hour 0 -minute 0 -second 0)
IF($reportedEndTime -eq $reportedStartTime)
    {
    $reportedStartTime = ($reportedStartTime).AddMonths(-1)
    }

Then I run:

Get-UsageAggregates -ReportedStartTime $reportedStartTime -ReportedEndTime $reportedEndTime

But I get the following error:

Get-UsageAggregates :  
InvalidInput: The reportedstarttime for daily aggregation granularity 
must have the time set to midnight (0:00:00Z).

However, if I call the variable $reportedStartTime and just copy paste the output:

Get-UsageAggregates -ReportedStartTime "01 September 2016 00:00:00" -ReportedEndTime "01 October 2016 00:00:00"

It works...
What is going on here?

I have an SSIS installation on which I can not connect through our Citrix hosted Sql Server Management studio.

I can connect to it when running SSMS locally.
But if I try to connect remotely, with the Citrix hosted SSMS, I receive the following error:

Cannot connect to dummyname.

------------------------------ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Failed to retrieve data for this request. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Sdk.Sfc)

For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft%20SQL%20Server&LinkId=20476

---

Connecting to the Integration Services service on the computer "dummyname" failed with the following error: "Access is denied."

By default, only administrators have access to the Integration Services service. On Windows Vista and later, the process must be running with administrative privileges in order to connect to the Integration Services service. See the help topic for information on how to configure access to the service.

For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=220763

---

Connecting to the Integration Services service on the computer "dummyname" failed with the following error: "Access is denied."

By default, only administrators have access to the Integration Services service. On Windows Vista and later, the process must be running with administrative privileges in order to connect to the Integration Services service. See the help topic for information on how to configure access to the service.

I have set the following configurations:

• The user connecting to the SSIS has sysadmin
• The user connecting to the SSIS has db_ssisadmin
• The user connecting to the SSIS has db_owner on the msdb database
• At the component services, SSIS properties I set the Security for Launch and activiation permissions, access permissions, configuration permissions
• At the component services, SSIS properties I set the location as Run application on this computer
• I added the user to the local group Distributed COM Users
• I added the user as a local administrator
• I gave the service user permissions for Trust this user for delegation to any service (Kerberos Only)

What have I missed, what else could be causing this error.
Perhaps something unique to citrix?

Our Azure portal is showing an odd error to one of our contributors.
When he tries to create a new Virtual Machine, he can input the basic settings.
But once he gets to the part where he is supposed to define the virtual machine sizes, he gets the message Unable to display virtual machines sizes.

And this no matter the type of virtual machine he tries to create.

I've created a support ticket with Azure, however in the meantime, has anyone seen this error before and know how to resolve it?

We've had a rather annoying incident yesterday.
During a routine snapshot backup, a machine failed with the following error:

Backup virtual machine
Cannot complete the operation. See the event log for details.
Incremental Forever - Incremental

Followed by:

Create virtual machine snapshot
An error occurred while saving the snapshot: msg.snapshot.error-QUIESCINGERROR.

Eight hours later, the next backup and snapshot kicked in, and succeeded.
However, the machine itself was completely unresponsive, and the SQL Server that was installed on it was throwing I/O errors.

On the machine itself the following warning occurred every 30 seconds for the next 12 hours:

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

The SQL Server, when attempting to execute any query on the databases gave the following error:

Time-out occurred while waiting for buffer latch type 2 for page

And in the SQL Logs we could find the following error:

SQL Server has encountered 1 occurrence(s) of I/O requests taking longer than 15 seconds to complete on file 

We ended up trying to remount the databases, restart the services (SQL Server and Virtual Disk services). But in the end the only solution was a restart of the server.

What happens during the VSphere Snapshot process that could cause this chain of events?
If this is related to the VSphere Snapshot, why would a reboot fix it?

We are currently experiencing failures on our SQL Server machines.

It appears that once a server on the same (VMWare) host as our SQL Servers starts a maintenance procedure.
The SQL Servers will balloon, loose nearly all of their memory.

What I would expect next is for the SQL Server to receive back its memory after the maintenance window.
However this never happens, the SQL Server will remain at bottom memory until we force a reboot.

Above you can see that the ballooning (black line) starts and ends during our maintenance window.
But the consumed memory does not go back to its expected levels.
The next morning we are forced to reboot, at which time the memory goes back up.
This reboot has to be done through the Vsphere, as the machine is completely unresponsive and we are unable to log in on it.

We've responded by setting memory reservation on all our production machines.
However for our STG and DEV machines there simply isn't enough memory in our infrastructure to reserve everything.

What would be a way to resolve our issue without overtaxing our VMware environment?
What is the reason that SQL Server is unable to get back its lost memory without a reboot?

I was thinking of reserving 4GB of memory for each SQL Server, to make sure that a minimum of working memory is available at all times.
However without a proper reason for this reservation, I can't justify asking for it.

I have a number of SQL Server Agent jobs running CmdExec statements.
They are simple jobs that call simple batch files.

They are run with a Run As: Proxy account, that has permissions to run as a CmdExec proxy, with a relevant linked Credential defined.
However when I try to run the job I get the following error:

Executed as user: PROXY_ACCOUNT.  
The process could not be created for step 2 of job (reason: Access is denied).  
The step failed.

When I grant the SQL Server Agent account permissions on the drive that the Proxy Account is trying to access, everything works.
This despite the fact that the Proxy Account already had permissions on the relevant drive.

As per the definition of proxy accounts the security context of the job step I'm running should be defined by the Proxy Account.
The documentation and articles about Proxy Accounts that I was able to find so far all indicate that when running the job step that has a Proxy Account defined, the SQL Server Agent should impersonate the credential, and run it with the Proxy Accounts security context.

So why is it that the Agent account also needs permissions on the relevant drive?
Am I misunderstanding something about the workings of a SQL Server Agent Proxy Account?

I've been trying to push Azure NetworkSecurityGroup rules through powershell.

Using the console I seem to be able to create what I want, however using powershell I am having little success.

Using the following syntax:

Get-AzureRmNetworkSecurityGroup -Name $SecGroup -ResourceGroupName $RGName 
| Set-AzureRmNetworkSecurityGroup 
| Add-AzureRmNetworkSecurityRuleConfig  
    -Name 'MSTSC' 
    -Direction Inbound 
    -Priority 100 
    -Access Allow 
    -SourceAddressPrefix 'INTERNET'  
    -SourcePortRange '65456' 
    -DestinationAddressPrefix '*' 
    -DestinationPortRange '3389' 
    -Protocol '*'

I am getting an output window that seems to indicate that the security rule has been created:

However, if I then check the portal, or do

Get-AzureRmNetworkSecurityGroup -Name $SecGroup -ResourceGroupName $RGName

The newly added rule is not there.
If I however add the rule with the portal, and try to create it using my powershell command, I receive the following error:

Add-AzureRmNetworkSecurityRuleConfig : Rule with the specified name already exists

I'm missing something, but what?

I'm currently learning how to create azure environments using powershell Resource Management cmdlets.
The classic way of working had no problems, I could use Add-AzureAccount and it would allow me to access my subscriptions.

However, with the new Resource Manager cmdlets, when I use Add-AzureRmAccount I get either one of two errrors.

When using stored credentials using $Cred = Get-Credentials, and then logging in using Add-AzureRmAccount -Credential $cred I receive the following error:

Accessing ws metadata exchange failed.

When using the login prompt. Which means I just type in Add-AzureRmAccount and it forwards me to my company SSO page. In which I log in successfully. I get the following error:

An error occurred while sending the request.

When I tried to use the cmdlet from home, using vpn to connect with the same laptop that I was using before. I can connect perfectly using Add-AzureRmAccount and following the logon prompts. Using the stored $credentials still fails with the metadata exchange error.

I'm assuming that the stored credentials method is failing because it can't redirect to the SSO without the interactive prompt.
However I'm unsure what might be causing the interactive logon to fail, as I can clearly reach the SSO, and the Add-AzureAccount cmdlet works on the same machine.

What is the difference between the Add-AzureAccount and the Add-AzureRmAccount cmdlets that might be causing this?

UPDATE:

The full stack trace error is:

Message        : An error occurred while sending the request.
Data           : {}
InnerException : System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required.
                    at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndGetResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
                    at System.Net.Http.HttpClientHandler.GetResponseCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
TargetSite     : Void ThrowForNonSuccess(System.Threading.Tasks.Task)
StackTrace     :    at Microsoft.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
                    at Microsoft.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccess(Task task)
                    at Microsoft.Azure.Subscriptions.TenantOperationsExtensions.List(ITenantOperations operations)
                    at Microsoft.Azure.Commands.ResourceManager.Common.RMProfileClient.ListAccountTenants(AzureAccount
                 account, AzureEnvironment environment, SecureString password, ShowDialog promptBehavior)
                    at Microsoft.Azure.Commands.ResourceManager.Common.RMProfileClient.Login(AzureAccount account,
                 AzureEnvironment environment, String tenantId, String subscriptionId, String subscriptionName,
                 SecureString password)
                    at Microsoft.Azure.Commands.Profile.AddAzureRMAccountCommand.ProcessRecord()
                    at System.Management.Automation.Cmdlet.DoProcessRecord()
                    at System.Management.Automation.CommandProcessor.ProcessRecord()
HelpLink       :
Source         : Microsoft.Threading.Tasks
HResult        : -2146233088

It looks like my error is firewall related.
I'm unsure why the one command (Add-AzureRmAccount) encounters the error while the older version (Add-AzureAccount) does not.

After changing to TSM for the VMWare backups, we've started experiencing an odd issue with our Snapshot backups.

We take system drive snapshots as a backup solution for the machine states.
All the other drives are independent drives, with their data backed up through other means.

Our problem is isolated to SQL Servers.
For these servers, we use TSM For SQL as a backup solution.
So the drives that contain the databases don't need to be backed up on a VM level.

Since our change from HP DP to TSM for VE the snapshots have started failing on SQL Servers.
The SQLServer VSS Writer is throwing an inconsistent state error.
However, neither the SQL binaries, nor the SQL Server data or log files are included in the backup.
The only things that are included in this snapshot that relate to SQL Server are the few dll's that have to remain on the C: drive.
Probably related is the fact that the dll for the SQLServer VSS Writer is one of those dll's, located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\80\COM.

We're working around the problem by adding a config file as documented here.
But as the problem does not span all SQL Servers, and we don't know the cause for the problem yet, we're still looking for a better solution.

How can we find out what the VSS writer is failing on?

I've been tasked with looking if a combination of NoSQL (in this case possibly Neo4J) and SQL-Server is a possible solution for a performance problem we've been having.

Part of my technical analysis is the maintainability and stability of the platform.
And this means I need to find a way to properly document, and maintain applications (the NoSQL) that are seldom used, in combination with an application we have specific and strict guidelines for (the SQL-Server).

My concern is mainly that when I review similar setups done in the past, one-shot applications tend to fall into black box situations, despite having originally been created in-house.
Those that aren't black boxes tend to fall on the shoulders of a single, unfortunate person who ends up spending most of his working day maintaining and handling some access database antiquated technology that nobody wants to touch and is apparently mission critical.

How do you, as the lucky sysadmin that is tasked with the setup and documentation of this platform make sure that your monstrosity awesome setup stands the test of time?
How do people generally handle one-shot smaller applications in larger corporations, hopefully without permanently shackling their own name to the application?

I've recently had an issue where MSDTC was unable to start up.

The error in the command line when running net start msdtc indicated that there were configuration issues.
I went into the registry and set the configuration settings to the same values as a default installation of MSDTC.

Afterwards, MSDTC was able to start up, however the local dtc seems to be missing in the component services.

I've since followed the steps here.

1. net stop msdtc
2. msdtc -uninstall
3. msdtc -install
4. net start msdtc

And the steps here.
Which is the similar procedure as above only with also deleting the registry configuration.

I've also put back a registry backup and rebooted.
And rebooted after reinstalling.

So far no matter what, the local dtc is hiding from me.
Does anyone know what might be wrong here, and how to reinstall the local dtc?

UPDATE:
As I was trying to find more ways of installing the local dtc, I found out that the Powershell Commandlets are actually entirely missing.

If anyone has a solution/cause for this, that might help me along.

UPDATE 2:
By request on a different thread I redid the procedure, making sure the prompt was ran as administrator.
After running the commands the following events are found in event viewer:

The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service was successfully removed.
The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service was successfully installed.

Update 3:
I've found that the very first time the Component Services is opened after a fresh install, and the Distributed Transaction Coordinators folder is clicked the following error appears in the application log:

The MS DTC Connection Manager is unable to register with RPC to use one of LRPC, TCP/IP, or UDP/IP.
Please ensure that RPC is configured properly. If "ServerTcpPort" registry key is configured(DWORD value under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSDTC for local DTC instance or under cluster hive for clustered DTC instance), please verify if the configured port is valid and the port is not already in use by a different component.
Error Specifics:hr = 0x80070057, d:\w7rtm\com\complus\dtc\dtc\cm\src\iomgrsrv.cpp:2523, CmdLine: "C:\Windows\system32\mmc.exe" "C:\Windows\system32\comexp.msc" , Pid: 6096

Which seems to point to a firewall problem, but completely disabling the firewall and starting the procedure from step 1 did not help.

I'm starting to believe the only available option is nuking the server from orbit.

We have several M$ CRM instances running.
Each one has its own dedicated SQL Server instance.

The permissions are set up in accordance with the Microsoft recommendations for setting up MS CRM.

However, I can't find any documentation regarding minimal required permissions to run CRM.
Currently we have the following two permissions that I would like to remove:

• CRM app pool user has administrator on the SQL Server machine
• CRM app pool user has sysadmin on the SQL Server instance

My main concern is that this user is currently grouped in with other service account users when it comes to permissions (and the process for obtaining/changing the password). However it is for all intents and purposes an administrator account.

Does anyone have any prior experience with removing the CRM app pool users' permission after installation?

Current situation:

Windows server 2008r2 running under VMWare esxi5.5.
3TB drive consisting of 3x 1TB virtual disks under a spanned volume. (D)
The drive contains approx 1,9TB of data.
D drive hosts 30+ SQL Server database files.
Several other instances are hosted on different drives.

We want to move this 3TB drive to a new server.
The new server will have the same OS version and SQL-server version.
It will however have more resources, and be completely dedicated to this one SQL-server instance.

What we're considering:

1. Moving the spanned volume to the other server.
   This would involve detaching the volume from the current server, and attaching it on the new server. We've done this on the staging setup, however that setup did not have a spanned volume, and information on moving spanned volumes across vm's is sparse.

2. Copying everything from the spanned volume to a new, not spanned, volume, and moving that disk to the new server.
   This has the advantage of not having to move the spanned volumes.
   However copying all the data will take a long time, and will mean a long er maintenance window.

The problem:

Our staging environment does not have spanned disks, it has one single volume (1.99TB, as the staging is only 1TB large).
I can't replicate the move with anything of equal size, without spending a lot of time and resources recreating the current setup.

I'm looking for either any kind of documentation that shows that moving a spanned disk from one VM to another will correctly recognize them as being a foreign disk group.
So far I've only found this article.

Or better yet, a cleaner solution for moving the databases across servers.
Would it be safe to replicate this without the 3TB disks, simply with 250GBx3 disks in a spanned volume? Or can I expect additional issues with the larger disks that simply can't be tested without increasing the size over 2TB (the single volume max size).

I'm setting up a powershell script that installs a logman counter on several servers that are in dire need of some performance monitoring.

The documentation states that the -u switch works with create update, start, stop, delete and query. Referenced documentation However when I try to run most of these with the -u switch I get the error

Argument 'u' is not allowed with the other arguments specified.

When running logman parameter /? I came to the conclusion that the only switches that allow for the -u parameter are the update create and delete switches.

My worry is that when rolling this out, I'll have problems passing the user credentials when starting querying and stopping the counters. Because remote access is going to be restricted I have to be able to pass a user that was given the correct credentials, without running my powershell session as that user. (I am not joined to the domain)

Is there anything I'm missing? Perhaps regarding this conflicting documentation?

I'm trying to set up a script that generates blg files every set amount of time, using powershell. I know this can be done using perfmon XML templates, but for this specific project I have to do it with powershell if at all possible.

My main issue is that I am unable to store the list of performance counters I want to use in a variable and reuse them.

I've attempted to use the following script to create a list of performance counters to use:

$Counters = @()
$Counters += '\Memory\Available Bytes' 
$counters += '\Paging File(*)\% Usage'
$Counters += '\PhysicalDisk(*)\Disk Reads/sec'
$Counters += '\PhysicalDisk(*)\Disk Writes/sec'
$Counters += '\PhysicalDisk(*)\Avg. Disk sec/Read'
$Counters += '\PhysicalDisk(*)\Avg. Disk sec/Write'
$Counters += '\Processor(*)\% Processor Time'
$Counters += '\System\Processor Queue Length'
foreach($counter in $Counters)
{
$string = $string + ", '" + $counter + "'" 
$string = $string.TrimStart(",")
}

if I then proceed to use get-counter $string I get the following error:

Get-Counter : The specified counter path could not be interpreted.

Yet when I copy the exact value of the string, and use get-counter -counter Values of $string it works fine...

Could someone advise me on a way to get get-counter to work with either an array or a string with a list of counters?

I am installing a 2008R2 standard edition server on a hyper-v running on a server 2012R2 standard. Every time I install the server I am getting the following error, followed by a restart which causes a blue-screen.

• I have set the server to set memory, 4096MB.
• I've redownloaded the ISO, and rebooted the server.
• I've tried the steps from http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/error-message-the-computer-restarted-unexpectedly/b770f14d-e345-e011-90b6-1cc1de79d2e2

The only thing I can find in the event viewer is:

But this seems unrelated. And I doubt I can resolve it untill the OS is fully installed.

What could I be dealing with? I'm inclined to think corrupt memory in the host server, but I'm not entirely familiar with Hyper-V and would like some alternatives before reviewing hardware.