ChrisNZ's questions

Here is an OCR of a screenshot of a VPS hosted Centos5 64 bit Linux server that has just frozen up on me. I have now rebooted this VPS guest but would appreciate it if anyone who understands the following could advise what might have caused the lockup?

The screenshot is here: http://i.imgur.com/l5X07BZ.png?1

And my rough OCR is below:

cpu 1 cold: high 0, batch 1 used:0 DMA32 per-cpu: cpu 0 hot: high 186, batch 31 used:29 cpu 0 cold: high 62, batch 15 used:27 cpu 1 hot: high 186, batch 31 used:58 cpu 1 cold: high 62, batch 15 used:52 Normal per-cpu: empty HighMem per-cpu: empty Free pages: 7360kB (31KB HighMem) Active:127313 inactive:82099 dirty:0 writeback:0 unstable:0 free:1840 slab:18478 mapped-file:546 mapped-anon:210605 pagetables:14991 DMA free:3240kB min:32kB low:40kB high:48kB active:0kB inactive:0kB present:9052H pages_scanned:0 all_unreclairnable? yes lowmem reserve[]: 0 1002 1002 1002 DMA32 free:4120kB min:4032kB low:5040kB high:6048kB active:509272kB inactive:328376kB present:102616 afl pages_scanned :2342 all_unreclairnable, no lowmem_reserve[] : 0 0 0 0 Normal free:0kB min:0kB low:0kB high:0kB active:0kB inactive:0kB present:0kB pages_scanned:0 all_unr eclaimable? no lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0 0 HighMem free:0kB min: 128kB low : 128kB high :128kB active:0kB inactive:0kB present :0kB pages_scanned:0 I all_unreclaimable? no lowmem reserve[]: 0 0 0 0 DMA: 0.4kB 1.8kB 2.16kB 2.321,B 1.64kB 2.128kB 1.256kB 1.512kB ,1024kB 0.2048kB 0.4096kB = 3240kB DMA32: 68.4kB 1.8kB 2.16kB 57.3aB 9.64kB 1.128kB 1.256kB 0.512kB 1.1024kB 0.2048kB 0.4096kB = 4120k Normal : empty HighMem: empty 6100 pagecache pages swap cache: add 15557050, delete 15551562, find 330898601/333226192, race 14.1430 Free swap = 0kB Total swap = 1048568kB

pfSense short config summary:

WAN interface is on a registered Internet block of addresses 
    connected to ISP via fibre
LAN interface has IP address 10.200.1.3/24
OPT1 interface has IP address 192.168.184.1/24 

A separate wireless network exists on 172.16.0.0/12 subnet, via an HP MSM760 wireless controller.

Problem summary: I cannot route from the wireless subnet 172.16 to the LAN subnet 10.200.1

Configuration
-------------

172.16.0.0/12 network
HP ProCurve VSC wireless subnet
          |
          |
(traffic from 172.16 intercepted by HP MSM760 and egress to 
 interface with IP 192.168.184.2)
          |
          |
     192.168.184.2  (external interface on MSM760 controller)
          |
          |
          |
          |
     192.168.184.1  (OPT1 interface on pfSense server)



On pfSense the following gateway is set as:

Name: BYOD,  Interface: OPT1,  Gateway: 192.168.184.2

... and the following route is set as:

Network: 172.16.0.0/12,  Gateway: BYOD - 192.168.184.2,  Interface: OPT1

Diagnostics: A host in the 172.16 network has the address 172.16.0.4 and it has no firewall, so it can respond to PING

I can ping 172.16.0.4 from the OPT1 interface in pfSense' Diagnostics/Ping page but I cannot ping that address from the WAN or LAN interface in pfSense.

Is there anything obvious from the above description that would explain why I cannot see the 10.200.1 net from the 172.16 net?

Here is a screenshot of the VSC config on the MSM760. The 172.16.0.0 network is defined by the DHCP server config at the bottom of the shot.

And these are relevant pages from pfSense. As you can see there is a route to the 172.16.0.0/12 network via gateway 192.168.184.2 (which is an IP interface connected to VLAN #9 on the MSM760)

At the end you can see a diagnostic Ping from the pfSense to a host on the 172.16 network.

And just to clarify what the VSC Egress Mapping is going to:

A question for those who know about HP server performance and SQL...

I am trying to spec a suitable server that has the following requirements:

1. Run SQL 2012 Standard Edition (I cannot get approval for Enterprise edition)
2. Main database is currently 600 GB, allow for growth up to 1,200 GB over next 3 years
3. Log files for main database is currently 120 GB, allow for growth to 300 GB
4. OLAP database is 60 GB, allow for growth up to 120 GB
5. Reporting Services is about 5 to 10 GB

Windows 2012 Standard Edition allows >32GB (yay!) and SQL 2012 Standard Edition allows 64 GB RAM usage, so I was thinking that a server with 96 GB of RAM would be sufficient for the OS, SQL, OLAP, and RS...

Now my concern is disk space requirement, I would like to put each component on its own Raid 1 or Raid 1+0 volume, so by that measure I would need:

1. 2 x 300GB 15K RPM 6GB DP SAS disks in RAID 1 for Boot OS (300 gb usable)
2. 8 x 300GB 15K RPM 6GB DP SAS disks in RAID 1+0 for main database (1,200 gb usable)
3. 2 x 300GB 15K RPM 6GB DP SAS disks in RAID 1 for log files for main db (300 gb usable)
4. 2 x 300GB 15K RPM 6GB DP SAS disks in RAID 1 for OLAP
5. 2 x 300GB 15K RPM 6GB DP SAS disks in RAID 1 for Reporting Services
6. 2 x 300GB 15K RPM 6GB DP SAS disks in RAID 1 for Temp DB

OK, I know that Reporting Services and Temp DB do not need 300 GB each, but I think there is something to be said for having all the same disk size

Since the HP DL380p-Gen8 only has 8 disk slots, I would need an external SAS drive array such as the D2700 which would hold the remaining 10 disks.

I am not concerned about having too much disk space.

My main goal is to get the maximum performance out of this server.

So my primary question is: Is the IO throughput between the DL380 and the D2700 sufficient? It appears it only uses a single mini-SAS cable to connect the external drive enclosure to the server.

My secondary question is, does the overall server spec confirm to good/best practice?

I have been given a ballpark budget limit of $60K, which I think is insufficient, so I may be able to ask for a bit more if I can justify it.

Many thanks in advance!

I am unable to make BUE 2012 backup (and truncate) the SQL Logs from our Microsoft SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 database servers that are set to FULL mode. No errors are being reported, but the Transaction logs are not being truncated and continue to grow.

I have already reviewed these two Symantec notes:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-backup-sql-logs-and-truncate-them-be-2012

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO74429

I have created screenshots of the job settings and uploaded them to Image Shack as follows:

1: Backup Properties: http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5034/ddwx.jpg

2: Options - Schedule: http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8697/vc5y.jpg

3: Options - Storage: http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/1231/kqwx.jpg

4: Options - Test Run: http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/9486/p2sb.jpg

5: Options - Verify: http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8334/txlq.jpg

6: Options - AOF: http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/5760/57oh.jpg

7: Options - Security: http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/2145/adi0.jpg

8: Options - Pre/Post Commands: http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/8243/sca4.jpg

9: Options - Microsoft SQL: http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4628/8eek.jpg

9: Options - Exclusions: http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/8192/yt0r.jpg

10: Job Summary: http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/6010/rf6l.jpg

11: BUE Version: http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/8184/k0rz.jpg

Any assistance will be much appreciated!

We used to use a consumer-grade stand-alone Linksys WRT54GL with our Motorola (Symbol) MC3090R mobile scanners, and the battery life would be about 6 hours of continuous wireless scanning.

Now we are using a centrally-managed enterprise wireless using HP E-MSM430 access points controlled by a central MSM760. Since changing the have found that the battery life on the scanners has halved to around 3 hours continuous use.

It doesn't seem to make any difference what encryption type I am using (I have tried both WPA2 and open (no encryption)).

Any ideas what might be happening here and how to resolve this?

Thanks!

A very basic question, but my googling has failed to find an answer...

At present the VLAN config looks like this:

vlan 1  
   name "DEFAULT_VLAN"  
   untagged 1  
   ip address 10.200.1.134 255.255.255.0
   tagged 2,Trk1
   no untagged 3-20,23-24
   exit
vlan 2
   name "VLAN2"
   no ip address
   tagged Trk1
   exit
vlan 4
   name "VLAN4"
   no ip address
   tagged Trk1
   exit
vlan 3
   name "VLAN3"
   untagged 3-20,23-24
   no ip address
   tagged 2,Trk1
   exit

What I would like to do is move ports 23-24 out of VLAN3 and into VLAN2, but I am unfamiliar with the Provurve CLI syntax (beyond the "show config" command obviously!)

Using FreeBSD 8.0 32 bit.

I have installed rsyslogd 5.5.5 with ommysql. (installed ports /usr/ports/sysutils/rsyslog55 and /usr/ports/sysutils/rsyslog55-mysql)

My rsyslog.conf file looks like:

$ModLoad imudp
$ModLoad imtcp
$ModLoad ommysql 
$ModLoad immark.so   
$ModLoad imuxsock.so 
$ModLoad imklog.so   
$OptimizeForUniprocessor on
$AllowedSender UDP, 10.0.0.0/8
$UDPServerAddress 0.0.0.0
$UDPServerRun 514
$UDPServerTimeRequery 2
#
+SG560
*.*     :ommysql:127.0.0.1,Syslog,sysloguser,mypassword

My command line flags for rsyslogd are: -c5 -4 Checking the code with -c5 -N1 returns no errors.

I have confirmed that rsyslogd is working by changing the last line to say:

*.*      /var/log/snapgear.log

which results in messages appearing in the snapgear.log file. So it is probably something to do with my MySQL setup

If I do:

mysql -u sysloguser -p Syslog
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 56
Server version: 5.0.86 FreeBSD port: mysql-server-5.0.86

mysql> select * from SystemEvents;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

:-(

I have confirmed that sysloguser has full privileges for the Syslog database.

If I run rsyslogd on the console in debug mode:

/usr/local/sbin/rsyslogd -f /usr/local/etc/rsyslog.conf -c5 -n -d

I can see this sequence of events each time a message is received:

9244.376687256:28359280: main Q: entry added, size now log 1, phys 1 entries
9244.376705694:28359280: main Q: EnqueueMsg advised worker start
9244.376726647:28359280: Listening on UDP syslogd socket 4 (IPv4/port 514).
9244.376728602:28359280: --------imUDP calling select, active file descriptors (max 4): 4
9244.376890075:283593c0: wti 0x28306e80: worker awoke from idle processing
9244.376892031:283593c0: we deleted 0 objects and enqueued 0 objects
9244.376893986:283593c0: delete batch from store, new sizes: log 1, phys 1
9244.376895942:283593c0: msgConsumer processes msg 0/1
9244.376897898:283593c0: msg parser: flags 70, from '~NOTRESOLVED~', msg 'Jun 29 17:32:24 SG560 kernel: (20000629T1732244'
9244.376900132:283593c0: parse using parser list 0x283080e8 (the default list).
9244.376902088:283593c0: dropped LF at very end of message (DropTrailingLF is set)
9244.376904044:283593c0: Parser 'rsyslog.rfc5424' returned -2160
9244.376905999:283593c0: Message will now be parsed by the legacy syslog parser (one size fits all... ;)).
9244.376907955:283593c0: Parser 'rsyslog.rfc3164' returned 0
9244.376909910:283593c0: testing filter, f_pmask 255
9244.376911866:283593c0: Called action, logging to ommysql
9244.376918012:283593c0: actionTryResume: action state: susp, next retry (if applicable): 1277869250 [now 1277869244]
9244.376919967:283593c0: action call returned -2123
9244.376921923:283593c0: tryDoAction: unexpected error code -2123, finalizing
9244.376926113:283593c0: actionTryResume: action state: susp, next retry (if applicable): 1277869250 [now 1277869244]
9244.376928069:283593c0: ruleset: get iRet 0 from rule.ProcessMsg()
9244.376930024:283593c0: ruleset.ProcessMsg() returns 0
9244.376931980:283593c0: regular consumer finished, iret=0, szlog 0 sz phys 1
9244.376933936:283593c0: XXX: enqueueing data element 0 of 1
9244.376935891:283593c0: we deleted 1 objects and enqueued 0 objects
9244.376938126:283593c0: delete batch from store, new sizes: log 0, phys 0
9244.376940082:283593c0: regular consumer finished, iret=4, szlog 0 sz phys 0
9244.376942037:283593c0: main Q:Reg/w0: worker IDLE, waiting for work.

.... I can see the Action Call to ommysql returns unexpected error code -2123

Now I am stuck! Any ideas on what to look for next? Perhaps I there are extra ports I need to install? I will be very grateful for any assistance here!

I'm setting up a new terminal server for our users on Win2008R2 (I guess I should call it Remote Desktop Services now!)

When I try to change the location of "Documents" (by removing the default Documents library and adding a new one), to use the file server ie \\fileserver\username\Documents I get the message:

"This network location can't be included because it is not indexed"

I certainly don't want to make folders available offline, and in fact, I have set the GPO to prohibit offline folders on the terminal servers.

What is the best practice for document libraries on terminal server and network file shares?

Are there any resources offering advice on how to setup a microsoft based web-hosting service? I currently offer LAMP hosting with cPanel, but there is some demand for IIS & SQL Server.

As far as I can tell MS Windows Web Server 2008 R2 edition allows unlimited IIS connections. And a per-processor license for MS SQL Server Web Edition 2008 also permits unlimited connections.

Where I am falling down is that I can't figure out how to get "unlimited" Active Directory users. I can't use 2008R2 Web Server edition for AD, so I will need the 2008R2 standard edition, I think. Does Microsoft have a provision for using AD in an ISP scenario?

I am looking at using the cPanel Enkompas system to manage the Windows software, and Enkompas requires AD for user authentication.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I have created a new "File Screen" under Windows 2008R2 File Screening Management (part of Administrative Tools / File Server Resource Manager )

In the properties of this File Screen, I'd like to use the "Command" tab to invoke a script, and pass the offending screened file spec to the script as a command line argument.

Firstly I can't seem to get it to invoke my .CMD script, and secondly I cannot find any documentation on what, if any, variables I can pass to the command line.

Would anyone who has used the Command tab successfully care to share some hints or tips on how to make effective use of this?

(I can use the Email tab fine, so for now my Screen sends an email, but I'm keen to get the command tab figured out)

I am starting to add IPv6 addressing to my network, only a couple of Win2008x servers have both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled. The DNS servers at branch offices are still running Win2003.

I am at a branch office with a Windows 7 laptop running both IP v6 and v4. This branch office has a Windows 2003 DHCP and DNS server. The WAN link from this branch back to head office is IPv4 only.

If I try and ping any head-office host it fails unless I use the -4 flag, ie:

C:\Users\chrisg>ping web1 Ping request could not find host web1. Please check the name and try again.

C:\Users\chrisg>ping -4 web1

Pinging web1.ip.hbl [10.200.1.20] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 10.200.1.20: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=125 Reply from 10.200.1.20: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=125

I suspect this problem is related to NRPT (I have a DirectAccess server setup). Perhaps this Windows 7 client has gotten into a confused NRPT state and thinks it needs to use IPv6 when it is not connected to the head office LAN ?

I have just setup a Win2008R2 DirectAccess server (and also a Win2008R2 Active Directory server).

From the Internet I can Remote Desktop login to the AD server, but I cannot RDP into the DirectAccess server. I can PING both servers and get an IPv6 response.

(I can RDP to the DirectAccess server from the internal company network)

DirectAccess is configured to allow full intranet access.

I think I've hit a mental block, the answer will probably be obvious, but I just can't see it.

Some of the execs in the company I do work for are complaining that they cannot access the (PPTP) VPN from various Business Class airport lounge wireless networks. They can access normal web pages. Being a lowly IT serf I've not had the chance to take a laptop into any of these places myself, so I've had to try and diagnose this 2nd hand.

The VPN server is a Snapgear linux appliance running PopTop. According to the logs the snapgear recieves the PPTP initiation request from the client and authenticates, but the client then times-out. To me this sounds like the TCP protocol session initiation works, but the airport lounge router/firewall may be blocking the GRE protocol. (Incidentally I've observed that some models Cisco wireless routers are by default not configured to allow GRE, and have assumed this might be the case here)

So... I'm not 100% sure what to do next. I could setup an OpenVPN server, but that would require installing client software on all the (Windows) laptops. The other idea might be to setup Windows 2008 Terminal Services Gateway, that would allow access to the terminal servers via HTTPS from the internet. That would solve the issue of remote TS access but then for email, I'd probably need to look at setting up RPC/HTTPS for Outlook clients. Is it feasible to setup both Windows 2008 Terminal Services Gateway and an Exchange RPC/HTTPS frontend gateway on the same machine? I am sure that an OpenVPN server would be more secure, but I'd be interested to know how well these windows based gateways work as an alternative to VPNs and if people would recommend them. Thanks in advance!