Geo Ego's questions

I know this is a noob question, but I haven't been able to find an answer on exactly what I'm looking for.

My mail server was recently blacklisted due to being infected with cutwail. Part of the de-listing instruction is to block port 25, specifically:

"The simplest and most effective way to stop this is to configure your NAT to prohibit connections to the Internet on port 25 except from real mail servers. Not only does this stop all of these viruses and spams dead in their tracks, the NAT logs will immediately tell you the LAN address of the infected machine."

Looking through our ISA rules (I inherited this setup, so I'm not familiar with everything on it), we have two pertaining to SMTP: one to allow all from local host to external, and one to allow all from external to local host. I assume this isn't what I want.

So to be compliant, I would like to block port 25 on our SBS 2003. We only have this one server, which provides us with NAT as well as acts as our Exchange server.

How do I, as they request, "block port 25 except from real mail servers" without interfering with our email functionality?

I have an issue that I have been unable to find a resolution to: when someone sends an email to an undeliverable address on my domain, they have our old domain in the footer of the reply email. In other words, if they send an email to "invalid@new_domain.com", they receive a reply back from our Sys Admin account, and the bottom line is:

"mail.old_domain.com #5.1.1"

I am running Exchange 2003 on Windows SBS 2003. Where can I change this old domain name?

I currently manage a number of sites (at one point about a dozen, currently four, but soon growing into the dozens or hundreds) that serve a piece of software to clients at their remote locations. Our web server is Windows SBS Server 2k3, and the remote servers are Windows Server 2k3.When we have new versions of the software, I upload this new software to a specific directory and rename it; each time the clients boot, they pull their software from that specific directory. With just a few sites, it's no problem for me to RDP in and copy the files over. As the number grows, this will quickly become quite unwieldy.

So I'm thinking that WebDAV would be part of a solution, so that I could simply push the newest version to our server (Windows SBS Server 2003) and make it available to the sites to grab. However, on the remote server side, what are some suggestions for automating the download? I only want the servers to download the files during downtime (between 3 AM and 9 AM), and I only want them to download if there is a new version available. I had thought of writing a program that checked the files on the WebDAV server at a regular interval, compared a hash of the current software to a hash of the software on the server, and only downloaded if they were different, but I'm wondering if there is something I am unaware of that can automate the process.

I am booting a PXE image via TFTP and getting an error that I cannot resolve. Basically, upon the image booting, it is supposed to download a configuration file with the extension ".txt" from the same server that it got its image from. It's loading the image fine, but it will not download the config file. When I use the shell to browse to the folder where the config file is supposed to be located, there is a .tmp file. Opening it with notepad shows an HTML 404 page.

The home directory is "C:\Root." The file that needs to be downloaded is "C:\Root\Configs\config.txt." The log file shows the 404 on a GET request for "/Root/Configs/config.txt."

In the IIS log, I am showing a GET request from the client for that file, and it is throwing a 404.0 error with Win32 status 3, both indicating the the file is not found. However, when I browse on the server to that file, it is there, and the path is correct. I have checked the home directory as well, and compared all of the settings against another IIS instance running the same system, and I can't figure out what the issue is.

I am trying to troubleshoot a network configuration at a remote site. It's a standard configuration for us, that we use across multiple sites. The only difference here is that this ISP uses PPPoE, whereas our others do not.

We were assigned a block of static addresses, using a default gateway from within that block. We are using a Westell 7500 modem, and currently have two machines attached to it that I am trying to reach via Internet through IPMI. The remote techs configured the IPMI settings, using two static IPs from within our block, and the supplied default gateway and subnet.

They sent me the router configuration, and I find it a little confusing. Our WAN IP is the gateway address, which I believe is the right way to configure it, but our WAN gateway is an address we have no knowledge of (our statics start with 209, this WAN gateway address starts with 69). Tech support told us that's fine but didn't really give an explanation of what that should be set at.

I can ping the gateway but not the internal statics (they time out). When the modem is power-cycled all three addresses throw "destination net unreachable."

I don't ever do router configurations; my setup is always everything behind the modem/router. I'd appreciate advice on what to look at and how to try to troubleshoot this.

EDIT: Another tech recommended that we connect a laptop directly to the modem, configure it to one of the static IPs, and see what we get. That computer is able to get Internet access; however, they then turned off Windows Firewall and I was unable to ping them.

It was recommended that I ask this question here by a member of StackOverflow.

I have a piece of self-serve kiosk software that will be running at multiple sites. I'd like to monitor a small number of parameters remotely.

The kiosk application itself is pretty much finished. I am now in the process of creating a piece of software that will monitor all of the kiosks from a central location so that the customer can view particular details remotely (for instance, how much cash is in the kiosk, if the kiosk is on or off, if it is currently out of order, etc.). Because I am in such an early stage of development, my options are quite open. I understand that I'm not giving very many qualifications, but I'd like to try to get a good variety of potential solutions. Some details:

• Kiosk software is a VB6 app running on Windows Embedded
• Monitoring software will be run on a modern desktop version of Windows (either XP, Vista, or 7)
• Database is SQL Server 2008

My initial idea was to develop a .NET app that would simply report the last database transaction for each kiosk at a set interval (say every second or so) but I'd really like for the kiosk software to report its status in real-time, perhaps just sending a packet with that small amount of information embedded. I'm not exactly sure where to begin in terms of what modifications may need to be made to the kiosk software, and what the monitoring software will require. Links to articles on these topics would be most welcome.

I'm having a problem with SQL Server 2005 where the SQL Server Agent suddenly refuses to start. If I attempt to start it through Services, I get the error "SQL Server Agent (MSSQLSERVER) service on Local Computer started and then stopped." In the Application log, I have the following entry:

Event Type: Error
Event Source:   SQLSERVERAGENT
Event Category: Service Control 
Event ID:            103
Date:       5/20/2010
Time:       11:07:07 AM
User:       N/A
Computer:            SHAREPOINT
Description:
SQLServerAgent could not be started (reason: Unable to connect to server 'SHAREPOINT'; SQLServerAgent cannot start).

This database has been running fine for four months. It contains a SharePoint configuration database, which two days ago stopped working, throwing me a message that the configuration database cannot be reached. It was then that I realized the SQL Server Agent was not running, and I have been unable to restart it. I have tried running it with both the local system account and the network service account, with the same results. So far, I have tried:

• Granting the administrators group, network service, and SharePoint SQL Server Agent account public and sysadmin roles on the database.
• Granting the administrators group, network service, and SharePoint SQL Server Agent account full permissions to the entire MSSQL directory and all files within.

I still have no joy.

I just completed development of a SharePoint site on a virtual server and am currently in the process of granting users from a different domain to the site. I am the developer, and not much of a network admin. The virtual server is not a domain controller, and does not have Active Directory installed. The SharePoint domain is SHAREPOINT, and the domain with the users I want to give access to is COMPANY. They are connected via LAN. I have provided them with a link to the site and added them as users via SharePoint and SQL Server, which is all I thought I would need to do. However, when they go to the link, the site shows them a SharePoint error page telling them access is denied. The problem comes down to a custom web part for SharePoint. If I remove that web part from the index page, they are able to access it just fine.

In the security event log, I am showing the following:

Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source:   Security
Event Category: Object Access 
Event ID:   560
Date:       3/18/2010
Time:       11:11:49 AM
User:       COMPANY\ThisUser
Computer:   SHAREPOINT
Description:
Object Open:
    Object Server:  Security Account Manager
    Object Type:    SAM_ALIAS
    Object Name:    DOMAINS\Account\Aliases\00000404
    Handle ID:  -
    Operation ID:   {0,1719489}
    Process ID: 416
    Image File Name:    C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
    Primary User Name:  SHAREPOINT$
    Primary Domain: COMPANY
    Primary Logon ID:   (0x0,0x3E7)
    Client User Name:   ThisUser
    Client Domain:  PRINTRON
    Client Logon ID:    (0x0,0x1A3BC2)
    Accesses:   AddMember 
            RemoveMember 
            ListMembers 
            ReadInformation 

    Privileges: -
    Restricted Sid Count:   0
    Access Mask:    0xF

Then, four of these in a row:

Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source:   Security
Event Category: Object Access 
Event ID:   560
Date:       3/18/2010
Time:       11:12:08 AM
User:       NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:   SHAREPOINT
Description:
Object Open:
    Object Server:  SC Manager
    Object Type:    SERVICE OBJECT
    Object Name:    WinHttpAutoProxySvc
    Handle ID:  -
    Operation ID:   {0,1727132}
    Process ID: 404
    Image File Name:    C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
    Primary User Name:  SHAREPOINT$
    Primary Domain: COMPANY
    Primary Logon ID:   (0x0,0x3E7)
    Client User Name:   NETWORK SERVICE
    Client Domain:  NT AUTHORITY
    Client Logon ID:    (0x0,0x3E4)
    Accesses:   Query status of service 
            Start the service 
            Query information from service 

    Privileges: -
    Restricted Sid Count:   0
    Access Mask:    0x94

Any ideas what permissions I need to grant to the user to get them access to SharePoint?

I do have one user from the other domain that is able to view the page fine. For this user, I gave him rights to Is there any way I can compare that user to other users and see what permissions might need to be added?

I am working on a development server with a bare-bones installation of SharePoint 12.0.0.4518 (WSS 3.0 RTM). Knowing very little about SharePoint development, we installed the environment atop a SQL Server Express 2005 database. Now I am running into that 4GB limit. The site is just a simple installation that I've been testing a custom web part on; apparently, in removing and reinstalling the web part, the cached copies have completely filled up the database. It is so full, in fact, that I can't even delete content without throwing an error message, so my site has become unusable.

My question is: how do I proceed? I was going to split the content database but that's not possible in its current state. Upgrading to SQL Server is not an option for us. I had thought of going to WID; however, I'm not sure how to do anything at all with this database since everything I try throws an error related to the database being full (HRESULT: 0x80004004 (E_ABORT)). I just don't know how to proceed. Thanks for any help!

I'm splitting a SharePoint content database and running into a problem with the stsadm mergecontentdbs command. I'm pretty positive it is an error in my command, which is as follows:

stsadm -o mergecontentdbs -url http://sharepoint:15741 -sourcedatabasename "SharePoint_AdminContent_5b924b0e-e1ef-46c5-b6c0-d3b4beb4e3b9" -destinationdatabasename SP_AdminContent_02 -operation 3 -filename mergedcontentdbs.xml

The "mergedcontentdbs.xml" file was creately without a problem with stsadm enumsites and does appear to contain the appropriate urls. The SP_AdminContent_02 database was created using a script based on the existing database. The error that I get is "Missing operation name or the operation name is invalid." Thanks for any help anyone can give me!