Senior Systems Engineer's questions

What are the Linux distributions that are compatible with the Immutable repository?

Can you give me some advice on the best hardware or virtual machine configurations to deploy a large backup repository to hold all of my virtual machine backups that will be kept for a year?

According to https://www.veeam.com/blog/installing-ubuntu-linux-veeam-hardened-repository.html, Ubuntu Server Linux is an example.

What about a single large virtual machine, a LUN formatted with ExtFS, or some other fancy secure file system?

I'm running Windows Server 2016 Active Passive ADFS server, the primary ADFS server ADFS01-VM has been set up fine using the steps in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-fs/deployment/install-the-ad-fs-role-service

The SSL SAN certificate *.domain.com has been imported with no issue on the primary server.

However, moving on to the secondary server called ADFS02-VM the error showing like below:

I have also executed the steps described in: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-fs/operations/ad-fs-support-for-alternate-hostname-binding-for-certificate-authentication

Under the Primary DFS server ADFS01-VM

Set-AdfsAlternateTlsClientBinding -Member ADFS02-VM.DOMAIN.com -Thumbprint 'B6DA73B83A759DEE37F975668266FE92B4E5F788'

This is the error message:

Set-AdfsAlternateTlsClientBinding : 
PS0317: One or more of AD FS servers returned errors during execution of command 'Set-AdfsAlternateTlsClientBinding'. 
Error information: 
PS0316: AD FS Server: 'localhost', Error: 'The specified SSL certificate with thumbprint 'B6DA73B83A759DEE37F975668266FE92B4E5F788' does not meet the requirements for configuring alternate Tls Client binding. For more information see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=613586.'.
PS0316: AD FS Server: 'ADFS02-VM.DOMAIN.com', Error: 'The specified SSL certificate with thumbprint 'B6DA73B83A759DEE37F975668266FE92B4E5F788' does not meet the requirements for configuring alternate Tls Client binding. For more information see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=613586.'.
At line:1 char:1
+ Set-AdfsAlternateTlsClientBinding -Member ADFS02-VM.DOMAIN.com -Th ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Set-AdfsAlternateTlsClientBinding], RemoteException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException,Microsoft.IdentityServer.Management.Commands.SetAlternateTlsClientBinding

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have 6 servers running Windows Server 2016 File Server DFS replication.

I'm having trouble with my DFS File server replication, the report generated from the health report and

dfsrdiag backlog /smem:$src /rmem:$dest /rgname:$GroupName /rfname:$foldername

Result:

SourceComputer  DestinationComputer Enabled MinimumRDCFileSizeInKB  RdcEnabled  State   BackLog
SERVER-B    SERVER-C    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  226450
SERVER-B    SERVER-X    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  243177
SERVER-B    SERVER-N    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  227989
SERVER-B    SERVER-A    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  227281
SERVER-N    SERVER-X    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  322091
SERVER-N    SERVER-B    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  321380
SERVER-N    SERVER-A    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  2
SERVER-N    SERVER-C    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  6
SERVER-C    SERVER-B    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  625585
SERVER-C    SERVER-A    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  255773
SERVER-C    SERVER-N    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  298674
SERVER-C    SERVER-X    TRUE    64  TRUE    Normal  626278

keeps on increasing, not decreasing. I have checked, that all of my File Servers are online and with more than 40% of free disk space capacity.

Any help to force the File server replication from one source to multiple target servers will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Does anyone know what's the difference between the below command in CentOS Linux ?:

dnf update
yum update

Which one is better to use with Cron as automated OS update?

Thanks in advance.

How to configure so the Linux CentOS v8 VM I have with static IP address?

I have already set the networking parameter during the GUI installation, but after the reboot, it still reverting back with DHCP IP addressing?

Do I have to create a new interface file rather than modifying the below:

 cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens192

Note: I cannot even restart the network service as mentioned in the various blog:

[root@PRDSIEM01-VM etc]# systemctl restart network
Failed to restart network.service: Unit network.service not found.

Can anyone please suggest me what is the best practice for me to follow when consolidating multiple stand alone DB from SQL Server 2005 - 2008 boxes into just 2x SQL Server 2012 Enterprise nodes in two different sites (1 x physical server in PROD and 1 x physical server in DR with different geographical location and VLANs as well) ?

Because my understanding with SQL Server 2008 R2 (I Installed on top of the MSCS 2008 R2) is that I will need 2 nodes in each site as follows:

PRODSQL1 PRODSQL2

and then

DRSQL1 DRSQL2

respectively.

and the proposed design are as follows:

PRODSQL2012-1 DRSQL2012-1

only.

The problem is that not all of the Tier-1 app database has got Mirorring or Transaction log shipping capability, so I wonder what should I do to avoid major Database outage when I patch the PRODSQL2012-1 ?

I need to get the owner of files which I have the list in .CSV file as the absolute folder path so that I add the result in secondary column which list the owner of the files.

Thanks in advance.

The first column of the CSV:

G:\Directory1\file1.zip
H:\Directory3\file4.docx
.
.
.
F:\Directory99\file234324.bat

The second column is none, but I'd like it to be:

Username1
Username2
.
.
.
Username99

I'm having a mysterious problem with my Failover cluster,

Cluster name: PrintCluster01.domain.com
Members: PrintServer01.domain.com  andPrintServer02.domain.com

in the Failover Cluster Management – Cluster Event I received the Critical error message 1135 and 1177:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering
Date: 15/06/2011 9:07:49 PM
Event ID: 1177
Task Category: None
Level: Critical
Keywords: 
User: SYSTEM
Computer: PrintServer01.domain.com
Description:
The Cluster service is shutting down because quorum was lost. This could be due to the loss of network connectivity between some or all nodes in the cluster, or a failover of the witness disk. 
Run the Validate a Configuration wizard to check your network configuration. If the condition persists, check for hardware or software errors related to the network adapter. Also check for failures in any other network components to which the node is connected such as hubs, switches, or bridges.


Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering
Date: 15/06/2011 9:07:28 PM
Event ID: 1135
Task Category: None
Level: Critical
Keywords: 
User: SYSTEM
Computer: PrintServer01.domain.com
Description:
Cluster node 'PrintServer02' was removed from the active failover cluster membership. The Cluster service on this node may have stopped. This could also be due to the node having lost communication with other active nodes in the failover cluster. Run the Validate a Configuration wizard to check your network configuration. If the condition persists, check for hardware or software errors related to the network adapters on this node. Also check for failures in any other network components to which the node is connected such as hubs, switches, or bridges.

After further investigation, I found some interesting error here, from the very first critical error message logged in the Event viewer on PrintServer02:

Log Name: System
Source: Tcpip
Date: 15/06/2011 9:07:29 PM
Event ID: 4199
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: PrintServer02-VM.domain.com
Description:
The system detected an address conflict for IP address 192.168.127.142 with the system having network hardware address 00-50-56-AE-29-23. Network operations on this system may be disrupted as a result.

192.168.127.142 --> secondary IP of PrintServer01 how could that be possible it conflict by one of the PrintServer01 node ? the detailed is as below:

**From PrintServer01**
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection* 8:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Failover Cluster Virtual Adapter
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-50-56-AE-29-23
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 169.254.1.183(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

I have double check in all of the cluster members that all IP addresses is now unique.

however I'm sure that I the IP is static not by DHCP as from the IPCONFIG results below:

From **PrintServer01** (the Active Node)
Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : PrintServer01
 Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : domain.com
 Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
 IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
 WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
 DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : domain.com
 domain.com.au

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection* 8:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Failover Cluster Virtual Adapter
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-50-56-AE-29-23
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 169.254.1.183(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Cluster Public Network:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/1000 MT Network Connection
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-AE-29-23
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.155(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.88(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.142(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.143(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.144(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.254
 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.10
 192.168.127.11
 Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.10
 Secondary WINS Server . . . . . . : 192.168.127.11
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Cluster Private Network:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/1000 MT Network Connection #2
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-AE-43-EC
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.184.2.2(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled


From **PrintServer02**
Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : PrintServer02
 Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : domain.com
 Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
 IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
 WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
 DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : domain.com
 domain.com.au

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection* 8:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Failover Cluster Virtual Adapter
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-50-56-AE-5F-E5
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 169.254.2.86(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Cluster Public Network:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/1000 MT Network Connection
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-AE-79-FA
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.172(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.119(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.254
 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.10
 192.168.127.11
 Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.168.127.11
 Secondary WINS Server . . . . . . : 192.168.127.10
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Cluster Private Network:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
 Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/1000 MT Network Connection #2
 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-AE-77-8D
 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
 Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.184.2.3(Preferred)
 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, AWT

I am now in the process of building SQL Server 2008 Enterprise failover cluster for use with 3rd party server monitoring application (which also do some OLAP analysis for trends).

Since this project will be using SQL Server 2008 Enterprise over Windows Server 2008 failover cluster, I wonder do I have to separate the DB engine instance and the OLAP component or just make it as single instance altogether ?

yes I'll use the Physical RDM capabilities so that i can use the built in EMC CX Snapview for data replication to my DR site because the two VMs will be deployed across two different locations

I am looking for any specific tweaking for the VMware: maybe enabling the MMU and using VMXNet 3 and Paravirtual for the boot device ?

or within SQL Server eg. large pagefile in RAM, etc...

Any other suggestion and idea in tweaking and performance tuning of this failover clustering on top of VMware ESX will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

AWT

I am having difficulties in joining my Windows Server to the domain, may I know what could be the problem ?

I suspect that there is a firewall in between this DR internal site and the DMZ where this Forefront TMG 2010 is deployed ?

DCDiag /s: result:

Directory Server Diagnosis

Performing initial setup:
   [DCDNS01.domain.com] LDAP bind failed with error 1326,
   Win32 Error 1326.
   Server DCDNS01.domain.com resolved to these IP addresses: 192.168.127.10,
   but none of the addresses could be reached (pinged). Please check the
   network.
   Error: 0x2b02 "Win32 Error 11010"
   This error more often means that the targeted server is shutdown or
   disconnected from the network.

ok, from the portqry I get the following result while the rest with exits with return code 0x00000000 means that is OK ? so why there are some with Exit code 1 and 2 ?

UDP port 389 (unknown service): LISTENING or FILTERED

Using ephemeral source port
Sending LDAP query to UDP port 389...

LDAP query to port 389 failed
Server did not respond to LDAP query

portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 389 -p BOTH exits with return code 0x00000001.
=============================================

 Starting portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 53 -p BOTH ...


Querying target system called:

 192.168.12.5

Attempting to resolve IP address to a name...


IP address resolved to DR-DCDNS01-vm.domain.com

querying...

TCP port 53 (domain service): LISTENING

UDP port 53 (domain service): LISTENING or FILTERED

Sending DNS query to UDP port 53...

DNS query timed out
portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 53 -p BOTH exits with return code 0x00000002.
=============================================

 Starting portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 88 -p BOTH ...


Querying target system called:

 192.168.12.5

Attempting to resolve IP address to a name...


IP address resolved to DR-DCDNS01-vm.domain.com

querying...

TCP port 88 (kerberos service): LISTENING

UDP port 88 (kerberos service): LISTENING or FILTERED
portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 88 -p BOTH exits with return code 0x00000002.
=============================================

 Starting portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 138 -p UDP ...


Querying target system called:

 192.168.12.5

Attempting to resolve IP address to a name...


IP address resolved to DR-DCDNS01-vm.domain.com

querying...

UDP port 138 (netbios-dgm service): LISTENING or FILTERED
portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 138 -p UDP exits with return code 0x00000002.
=============================================

 Starting portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 42 -p TCP ...


Querying target system called:

 192.168.12.5

Attempting to resolve IP address to a name...


IP address resolved to DR-DCDNS01-vm.domain.com

querying...

TCP port 42 (nameserver service): FILTERED
portqry.exe -n 192.168.12.5 -e 42 -p TCP exits with return code 0x00000002.

any kind of help would be greatly appreciated.

At the moment I'd like to combine my departmental SQL Server into one big SQL Server 2008 instances spread across two servers (for redundancy reason).

How/what is the best way to approach this ? is it through clustering or Log shipping or VMware (hypervisor) High Availability features ?

Note: this DB server cannot go down as it is hosting the VCenter DB and also server monitoring database too.

the SQL Server is spread across several smaller servers 3-4 SQL Server 2000 and 2005 with the total of 70 DB inside those servers, what I'd like to do/build is to migrate them all into SQL Server 2008 in which I must make it redundant so that if one server failed for whatever reason, the other instance can just pick it up straight away.

so from several smaller SQL Servers, I want to consolidate them all into one more powerful SQL Server 2008 x64. but so far don't know which technology that is suitable for that or if it is possible to do in SQL Server 2008 Standard.

Any suggestion and comment would be greatly appreciated.

How do you secure your Windows domain environment while still enabling the Powershell 2.0 remoting capabilities (WinRM invoke-item) ?

Because at the moment my company datacenter would like to implement tight security policy according to this guideline: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/ ?

Normally I use the Powershell for managing and monitoring the Exchange Server, Active Directory and VMware vSphere environment. With Windows Server 2008, 2003 and XP as the client.

Any kind of help and suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Why can't I see any detach / attach command in the 4 SQL Server system DB objects? I want to move it into separate partition for each database files and the log files for greater performance.

Am I supposed to do that or just leave it on C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.(dbinstance)\MSSQL\DATA?

I'd like to know which is the best solution possible to reduce the SQL Server transaction log in the live production server without downtime ?

1. Database full backup - which should commit transaction log ? (like in Exchange Server ?)

2. executing the following T-SQL Script from SSMS manually during the production working hours ?

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    -- Otto R. Radke - http://ottoradke.com
    -- Info: T-SQL script to shrink a database's transaction log. Just set the
    -- database name below and run the script and it will shrink the
    -- transaction log.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    -- Update the line below with the name of the database who's transaction
    -- log you want to shrink.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    USE 
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    -- Don't change anything below this line.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    GO
    -- Declare variables
    DECLARE @SqlStatement as nvarchar(max)
    DECLARE @LogFileLogicalName as sysname
    -- Alter the database to simple recovery
    SET @SqlStatement = 'ALTER DATABASE ' + DB_NAME() + ' SET RECOVERY SIMPLE'
    EXEC ( @SqlStatement )
    -- Make sure it has been altered
    SELECT [name], [recovery_model_desc] FROM sys.databases WHERE [name] = DB_NAME()
    -- Set the log file name variable
    SELECT @LogFileLogicalName = [Name] FROM sys.database_files WHERE type = 1
    -- Shrink the logfile
    DBCC Shrinkfile(@LogFileLogicalName, 1)
    -- Alter the database back to FULL
    SET @SqlStatement = 'ALTER DATABASE ' + DB_NAME() + ' SET RECOVERY FULL'
    EXEC ( @SqlStatement )
    -- Make sure it has been changed back to full
    SET @SqlStatement = 'SELECT [name], [recovery_model_desc] FROM ' + DB_NAME() + '.sys.databases WHERE [name] = ''' + DB_NAME() + ''''
    EXEC ( @SqlStatement )
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Creating maintenance plan - On Demand - for DB shrinking ?

so what's the difference and purpose of those methods ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I wonder if there is any automated tool to get HP serial number from my datacenter, because I'd like to do server refresh and there are more than hundreds of it that I need to identify its base warranty up to date ?

ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I'm having very weird problem in my TS RDP connection,

I can copy and paste from my TS RDP out into my desktop (from any program into any program in my home workstation)

but somehow I cannot copy paste from my desktop into my TS RDP (from any program at all - it always remember the old content of the clipboard) ?

this is going through RDP session over Juniper SSL VPN into the Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server but obviously this is the same TS RDP application that is provided by Windows.

any help regarding this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

I got one problem with my linux webserver where I deployed from Virtual Machine template, usually i go to the console and then

issue the command hostname NEWSERVERNAME to make it happens and then followed by editing the file and its done, but how come this time after the reboot it reverts back to the old template name ?

so i want it to be "wordpress" as the hostname but instead it reverts back to SSV as the name ?

any suggestion and comments is appreciated here.

Thanks.

I'd like to know what's the most publicly installed or widely used Linux system performance monitoring software that is available and compatible with Ubuntu 64 bit ?

I've installed Nagios in place for availability report but for the monitoring performance of more than 10 it is impractical to open SSH console running top for each server.

what I'd like to monitor is: 1. Disk space issue. 2. Resource hog. 3. Failed root / sudo login attempt. 4. anything else here ?

any kind of suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I've got EDIMAX EW-7318USg - USB network adapter, it works fine in Windows 7 but somehow i couldn't get it to work on my Windows Server 2008 R2 ?

Has anyone tried to use Wireless LAN in Server 2008 R2 ?

Thanks.

I'm having mysterious issue that confused me for such a long time till now, I've got one DC which acted as DNS and DHCP as well.

However it is successfully giving out IP address to all IP enabled device and machine but when updating the DNS entry, only the Windows machine (workstations and server) gets their IP registered in the DNS server, therefore i cannot ping and access the other Linux machine apart from using IP address only.

restarting the DNS (plus RELOAD the entry) and DHCP services doesn't help at all and also entering the DHCP assigned IP address into the DNS server caused more problem since the address is assigned to different host already by DHCP but not gets updated in the DNS server (only to non-windows machine).

If anyone know how to diagnose and help me solve this problem that'd be very great helps.

Thanks.