webnoob's questions

I've got a RDS setup on Windows server 2012 and I am trying to stop all access to local resources. I've managed to lock down unc network shares i.e \\someserver\myshare and clipboard etc has been disabled. Also, I can't access \\tsclient\ so thats great.

The only issue I now have is that I can still access my own computer shares via UNC paths i.e \\mycomputername.

Is there any way to restrict this? (please bear in mind, I only want to stop this on this one server).

If it helps, I am running XenServer and this server is a VM so I do have a firewall I can access around the VM which is how I am disabling normal shares.

I can allow access to the machine and block everything else using:

ovs-ofctl add-flow xenbr0 "dl_src={mac-address} priority=39000 dl_type=0x0800 nw_dst={ip-address} idle_timeout=65000 action=normal"
ovs-ofctl add-flow xenbr0 "dl_src={mac-address} priority=38000 dl_type=0x0800 nw_src=ANY idle_timeout=65000 action=drop"

but I would like to allow any IP address to connect on port 3389 only. How can I do this?

I've tried adding tp_dst=3389 to the first rule and setting nw_dst=* but that doesn't seem to work.

I'm struggling to understand the manual for this so apologies if I've missed it: http://openvswitch.org/cgi-bin/ovsman.cgi?page=utilities%2Fovs-ofctl.8

Edit: I'm still having no luck with this. I've tried different variations of params but can't allow RDP port 3389 but disable access to anything else.

In line with this post: http://www.hugheserblog.com/2012/05/22/error-creating-iis-smtp-virtual-servers/ I am receiving the same issues:

When we tried to add more than 4 IIS SMTP virtual servers, we got the error within IIS, “The system cannot find the path specified.”

This post is almost 2 years old and my server is up to date with Windows updates so I assumed it would be fixed already.

Does anyone know if I need to do something special (ie. contact Microsoft) to get a special fix for this? The information in the post suggests it should have been included in an update.

We had an issue with some mail boxes and I have had to recreate some user mail boxes (not a Move Request). After doing this, people can't send to the new mail boxes.

I have read about the x500 record that needs updating when a mail box has been recreated but I am unsure what value to enter. I tried entering the value thrown back in the undeliverable message:

IMCEAEX-_O=FIRST+20ORGANIZATION_OU=EXCHANGE+20ADMINISTRATIVE+20GROUP+20+28FYDIBOHF23SPDLT+29_CN=RECIPIENTS_CN=Some+20Name@mydomain.local
#550 5.1.1 RESOLVER.ADR.ExRecipNotFound; not found ##

but this didn't work (I replaced the +20 with spaces etc).

So my final x500 is:

/o=First Organization/ou=EXCHANGE ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Recipients/cn=some [email protected]

In short, I'm sure the X500 will fix it but I'm not sure the value I should be using.

Note: using Get-Mailbix someuser | fl LagacyExchangeDN returns:

/o=First Organization/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Recipients/cn=Some User89f

This may seem an odd question but I don't full understand SRV records. I am basically trying to point:

something.example.com to and IP like 111.111.111.111:8089

I have done something similar for a minecraft server using the _MINECRAFT service.

Is this possible by any means for a website hosted on IIS?

I am using IIS7 and will have port forwarding via my router as well if that makes any difference.

Every 3 to 6 months we start losing connection to exchange from outlook (i.e Outlook has lost connection to exchange -> Outlook has restored connection to exchange). After this happens the mailbox database inevitably becomes dismounted and won't mount again without me doing something with eseutil to repair it, sort the logs out etc. Sometimes, I need to restore the backup from the night before. In all cases eseutil /mh reports the database to be in a Dirty Shutdown State.

We are small company (20 employees) running SBS 2011 running a variety of windows versions from WinXP to Windows 7 (all running Outlook 2003 - 2010 or Thunderbird with IMAP connection).

Edit: Something else that may be worth noting is that store.exe uses half of the servers memory. I have 16GB in the server and store.exe takes about 9GB with the server running on 90-95% memory usage mostly.

My questions are:

1. How do I go about debugging this situation? - This is my main query.
2. Would moving to a separate server / exchange instance help (if this can be answered without knowing the cause of the problem)?
3. The mailbox is about 20GB, is this too large?

We have a program that compiles executables into a folder into c:\bin. Ideally I would like to share this folder so users can access the exe's within but stop them creating any other files in there. The reason for this is to stop users grabbing source code and putting it in a shared drive then taking it.

We have a Domain Controller setup and all the users belong to a specific security group.

Is there any way to achieve this?

EDIT: TO clarify, I need to stop users from creating or moving files INTO the C:\bin folder which are not executables.

My apologies from the start, I don't have much information to go on and I am just looking for some help debugging my issue.

I have 5 sites running on a Windows Server Web Edition 2008 with SQL Server 2008 RC2 machine. Periodically on all sites (not all at the same time) I will get some errors in my ASP.NET 2 website(s) saying Index was outside the bounds of the array. on an SQL cursor. This is happening in places where data is definitely present and if it wasn't I would get a lot more errors. It's as if the SQL server can't return result for some reason.

I have no idea how to start debugging this, I don't seem to get any timeout errors. My questions would be:

1. How can I tell if the SQL server is under to much load? Can I enable something that allows me to track this?
2. If I have a date and time, am I able to check some logs on SQL Server to show more information? If so, where?

Sorry about the vague description; I don't have much more to go on at the moment.

Edit to the answers so far:

Most of the time, the same code will work without a hitch. I managed to replicate this today by creating an endless loop and perform an SQL query each time, I then tried to load a page on the same website and it brought back this error. My point is that cursors are being returned empty when there should be no possible way for them to be.

Edit2 Ok, maybe I wasn't explaining properly. I understand the out of bounds error is down to coding. What I am saying is that is happens randomly on the same code that works 99.9% of the time. Yes the code raises the error BUT it shouldn't have an empty result set in the first place. Here is the full stack trace (again, this code works 99.9% of the time):

(I am using Delphi.NET so this is where the Borland part has come from) - Please also note that the error is occurring when it's clearing down it's own list internally ...

Borland.Vcl.TDBBufferList.FreeHGlobal(IntPtr Ptr) at 
Borland.Vcl.TCustomADODataSet.FreeRecordBuffer(IntPtr& Buffer) at 
Borland.Vcl.TDataSet.SetBufListSize(Int32 Value) at 
Borland.Vcl.TDataSet.CloseCursor() at 
Borland.Vcl.TDataSet.SetActive(Boolean Value) at 
Borland.Vcl.TDataSet.Close() at 
WebCommon.TStockItemIntf.@13$Initialise$GetPLPrice(TStockItemIntf Self, String CCode, String SkCode, String PLStr) at 
WebCommon.TStockItemIntf.@23$Initialise$FinalPrice(TStockItemIntf Self, $Unnamed205& $frame_TStockItemIntf.Initialise, TKosCompany Company, TKosStock SkItem, TStockPriceCalcType PLCalcOption) at 
WebCommon.TStockItemIntf.Initialise(TKosStock SkItem, STOCK_ITEM SkCatItem, TAssignStockOptions AssignOptions, HttpSessionState Session, String DefaultPriceList) at 
WebCommon.TKosDropInProducerP.@68$AssignStockItem$AssignStockObjLst(TKosDropInProducerP Self, $Unnamed206& $frame_TKosDropInProducerP.AssignStockItem, TKosStock SkItem, String DefaultPriceList) at 
WebCommon.TKosDropInProducerP.AssignStockItem(TStringList StockCodeList, CATEGORY Category, HttpSessionState Session, TAssignStockOptions AssignOptions) at 
RecentlyViewedShortList.TRecentlyViewedShortList.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) at 
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at 
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) 

I have restored a backup to our Windows 2003 SBS domain controller. All the permissions for folders seem to be set correctly for groups BUT when looking at folders that had permissions set for specific users they are appearing as a SID i.e s-1-2-5-124234-23423234234-5643.

I am not really sure where to go to correct this issue. Any idea what is causing it?

I have 4 "NETGEAR ProSafe GS724T Gigabit Smart Switch" that will need connecting to each other. I am not sure of the best way to go about this. Normally, I would just daisy chain them or hook all switches into 1 switch so there is only one hop for data.

Is there a better way to connect these switches?

For Info: Network traffic is for about 30 people running databases, accessing files, VoIP phones ect over the network.

If any more information is needed then please let me know.

Thanks

I have about 150 cron jobs running that process between 6 and 10 inserts every 3 seconds. There are LOTS of select statements happening every 3 seconds as well.

My problem is, things work very well for a while and then start messing up and just don't seem to respond. I have 16BG of memory and only 20% is used and my CPU usage is averaging about 2.0. This makes me think I have some options I can tweak somewhere.

I was trying to mess about with file descriptors on my other dedi box but ended up losing root access for some reason so only want to do this again if someone can point me to a VERY good tutorial.

MySQL's Opened_tables is at 15.6 million (that a a lot?)

I would just like some general advice on settings I should be tweaking and things I should be doing to make the server run well. I obviously have the resources available but I presume MySQL / Apache are limited in some way.

Server Spec: Linux CentOS 5 with Plesk 9.5.4 and MySQL 5.0.

I really appreciate any help in advance.

I was changing some settings on my dedi box to do with adding more descriptors and then rebooted. Since then I cannot log into SSH with root details (or anyone else). As soon as I log in, the putty screen just closes. When I ssh [email protected] from my other VPS, it logs in then says Connection Closed.

I am really stuck now as I have lost shell access to my server and only have plesk ..

EDIT: Verbose output from ssh -v

debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to domain [IP] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: permanently_set_uid: 0/0
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_dsa type 2
debug1: loaded 3 keys
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_4.3
debug1: match: OpenSSH_4.3 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.3
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY
debug1: Host 'domain' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /root/.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password
debug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-with-mic
debug1: Unspecified GSS failure.  Minor code may provide more information
Unknown code krb5 195

debug1: Unspecified GSS failure.  Minor code may provide more information
Unknown code krb5 195

debug1: Unspecified GSS failure.  Minor code may provide more information
Unknown code krb5 195

debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /root/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /root/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Offering public key: /root/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password
debug1: Next authentication method: password
root@domain's password:
debug1: Authentication succeeded (password).
debug1: channel 0: new [client-session]
debug1: Entering interactive session.
debug1: Sending environment.
Last login: Tue Jun 14 00:05:36 2011 from 02dc9b0a.bb.sky.com
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0
debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1
Connection to domain closed.
debug1: Transferred: stdin 0, stdout 0, stderr 35 bytes in 0.3 seconds
debug1: Bytes per second: stdin 0.0, stdout 0.0, stderr 106.5
debug1: Exit status 254

Any ideas?

My MySQL server is VERY busy. It has 750k opened tables. I have been reading that I should increase table_cache in line with opened_tables but I have no idea how I am meant to scale it? If I set table_cache to 750k what would happen?

I have recently aquired a dedicated server running CentOS and Plesk for my applications.

These scripts were running on a 1.5GB ram VPS running CentOS and CPanel and worked very well.

Now they are on the new dedicated server the memory has gone down from 14.1 GB ram spare to 9.9GB. I can't see it being my scripts so presume there is something else using all my memory. How can I see what is eating all the resources?

Note: The only difference between these servers (from my point of view) is my crons were being checked every 5 minutes on the old server whereas now they are checked every minute and there are about 60 of them.

This is the information from "free" via SSH - Although, I am not entirely sure what its telling me:

[root@h31-3-244-194 ~]# free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:      16426796    9373260    7053536          0     390468    3471680
-/+ buffers/cache:    5511112   10915684
Swap:     18481144          0   18481144

EDIT: I have looked against all my cron processes and they have this: bin/qmail-queue against them. Could qmail be eating the memory?

If I have omitted some required information, please let me know.

Thanks.

I need to write a script that backs up databases on my old server and moves them to my new server. I have about 150 to so need this to be automated. I have found this:

$ mysqldump -u username -p'password' db-name | ssh [email protected] mysql -u username -p'password' db-name

Which will allow me to do this, however, it requires me to specify a password every time I run it. How can I make the ssh command take a password parameter? I tried ssh --help but couldn't see anything.

If this command cannot accept a password, can I do this another way?

I have changed the user Apache runs under and am getting the following when trying to use sessions in PHP:

Warning: Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_phbfugace53ngs8kt9pdgovf21, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0

I ran chown myuser /var/lib/php/session and still get the error. What else do I need to do?

I am running a Windows 2008 server with IIS7. I need to use SSL 3.0 for PCI compliance but whenever I read up on using it, all the articles explain to disable SSL 2.0. If I do this, will IIS automatically use SSL 3.0 from that point on?

In the registry here [HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders \SCHANNEL\Protocols] it only has a SSL 2.0 folder with a Client folder in it, is that correct? Shouldn't there be a SSL 3.0 folder?

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or on stackoverflow, so apologies if its in the wrong place.

I have about 7 php scripts running on a centOS VPS. Each of these scripts contacts a game server and processes the logs, with the logs it either does some database queries or sends info back to the game server.

I am having an issue where some of the scripts will randomly become REALLY slow to respond and I don't know where to start with my debugging. Each script connects to its own database schema but on the same MySQL server. Each script will do about 4 inserts per second and twice as many select statements on their respective databases. I thought a database lockup may cause the issue but some console messages that are read from the database are sent to the game servers console without issue every 30 seconds, even when the script is slow to responding to other commands.

Non of the scripts are using a lot of memory or CPU power. About 0.1% each.

I know this information is really vague but I don't know linux very well at all (in fact, top is about my limit) and I really don't know where to start debugging this.

Thanks.

This kind of touches on another post I made but is different so I have posted it as a new question.

I have a script that runs that may take just over 1 minute to process, and my cron is set to run every minute. I can stop another cron job executing the script if the first one hasn't finished by using flock (php) in the file, however, this means that I would lose one iteration of the routine and have to wait nearly a minute before it is triggered again (as my understanding leads me to believe).

What I would like to do is if the script is locked, not bomb out, but wait. Over time however, this could get quite high so I would also like to limit the amount of queued cron's to 10.

I am a real newbie with Linux (had a Linux VPS for 3 days now) so I am not sure if my solution is even practical.

Thanks.

I know this question has been asked already but I either didn't understand the answer or it didn't apply to me.

I have a php script that I am calling every 1 minute using CPanel to set up the Cron Job. The nature of the script means that it could overrun for just over the minute so I need to know how to stop the next one running if the first one hasn't completed.

I have a VPS running CENTOS 5.5 and have access to WHM and CPanel. I have never used Linux before (only just got the server yesterday) so I have no idea what I am doing and would appreciate some help if possible. If I need to provide more information please let me know (I don't know what info you would need at the moment).

Thanks.