05.20.06

Quick Raid 5 Disk IO analysis

Posted in OS at 1:57 am by webmaster

I often wonder how my Raid platters are performing. 

Here is a technique I used to come up with something measurable.  Even if it is not a real world test it provides some insight as to what your hardware is capable of.

I used a tool from Majorgeeks to measure my disk throughput on a new system and confirmed that is what would be expected from an article on Toms Hardware.

I tried to measure this with Performance Monitor under the logical disk settings but I could not figure out how to interpret the information as actual MB/s, so were stuck with this.

Dell 2850 Raid 5, 4 disk array with a hot spare, Perc 4/Di

130 MB/s  reads
200 MB/s  writes
HD_SPEED from Majorgeeks
http://majorgeeks.com/downloads8.html

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05.18.06

SBS 2003 Version and service packs (including components)

Posted in OS, SBS2003 at 10:34 pm by webmaster

In an effort to document how to determine the service pack level of any component in SBS 2003 I have accumulated the following information:

Using MBSA 2 is probably the easiest way to obtain a lot of this information but the information below is included for those times when it is not available or you need more information.

1.  Windows Small Business Server Standard Edition
1. Operating System
    
   Start–>Control Panel–>System (Examine General Tab)  orrun winver.exe from the command line or   

   Examine creation date of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\AdministrationApril 29 for upgrated SP1 or April 30 for integraded SP1 or
   
   Start–>All Programs–>Accesories–>System Tools–>System Information

1. no service pack
2. SP1
3. R2?
2. Exchange Server
   Exchange System Manager–>Servers. or
   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/152439/en-us   How To
   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/158530/           Build Number
3. Sharepoint
   http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=841876             Sp1
   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887624                 Sp2
2. Windows 2003 SBS Premium Components
1. SQL
   http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q321185
   or this third party free tool (requires installation)
   http://www.msde.biz/sqlfaq.htm
   or you can use the osql command line  

   osql -E -SYOURServerName\YOURSqlInstanceName -Q”use master SELECT @@VERSION”
   

2. ISA Server 2004
   4.0.2161.50 = ISA Server 2004 no service pack
   4.0.2163.213 = ISA Server 2004 Service Pack 1
   4.0.2165.594 = ISA Server 2004 Service Pack 2             

   Not sure if the above information is correct.  Copied from this thread:

   There are two ways I know of to extract information from the ISSA console:
    
   ISA–>Config–>General–>View ISA Details
   ISA–>Help–>About MS ISA Server 2004

   The View ISA Details method does not appear to show that ISA service pack 2 is installed so I use the Help–>About method.  You can also go to Control Panel–>add/remove programs and select the show updaes checkbox to verify that you see the ISA service pack level you are interested in.

    Control Panel–>Add/Remove Programs–>Show Updates

    (As of 9/30/06)
   MS ISA Server 2004
   MS ISA Server 2004 Standard Edition SP1
   MS ISA Server 2004 SP2
   kb916106

   You may also want to try this vbscript code available at Jim’s www.isatools.org (getisa)

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05.07.06

Small Business Server SP1 Issues

Posted in OS at 4:59 pm by webmaster

The community has put together a gret list of SP1 related information here

I have personally become familiar with one issue that SP1 broke that are not mentioned there.  It is listed  here for you reference:

Windows 2003 SP1 IPSEC hotfix

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How to obtain IPSEC debugging information from ISA server

Posted in OS at 4:34 pm by webmaster

It is well known that by using the following commands you can enable or disable IPSEC logging information  (Also look at auditing especially failed audits in the event log.):

 The first one turns it on and the next one turns it off.

netsh ipsec dynamic set config ikelogging 1
netsh ipsec dynamic set config ikelogging 0

The “turn logging on” command will produce information in the following log file:

c:\Windows\Debug\oaley.log

This information will help you understand exactly what is happening at the IPSEC level.

When debugging with the ipsec protocol it is of benefit to easilly see the logging output in real time.  You can very easily use a tool called tail to accomplish this task.  Download from here .  Unzip and navigate the the usr folder.  Copy the tail command to whereever is conviwnient (Something in your pathname is fine.)  Getting the syntax correct is important.  Use the following:

 tail –follow=name -f C:\WINDOWS\Debug\oakley.log

This allows you to see the contents of the log file in realtime as they are written to the logfile.  This technique can be applied to other text log files as well.

Resources

Microsoft IPSEC FAQ
Microsoft How IPSEC Works
Microsoft Hotfix for Win 2003 SP1 and IPSEC

Please note that there also appears to be another issue with IPSEC on Win 2003 SP1 but there is no fix yet available

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05.02.06

Change CDROM Drive Letter & System Drive Letter

Posted in OS at 11:47 am by webmaster

To change a CDROM drive leter in Windows all you need to do is change a few registry entries.

 I count 19 occurences for the CDROM Drive in a fresh SBS 2003 SP1 integrated install (2 nic premium edition with no sql installed)

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Patches\CC956BF4289AB30428EE2CE7DFBCD
6BA\SourceList\LastUsedSourceHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\0E
3553ACB191F2E4DAC3283EC39B4D4E\SourceList\LastUsedSource

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\1CEB127EA78862D4EB01E730637BA
C7C\SourceList\LastUsedSource

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\399E2598E93117E488F1DD044EBD
F818\SourceList\LastUsedSource

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\79D59CA057B17CA40B162FE173F
98F90SourceList\LastUsedSourceHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products
\9040411900073D11C8EF10054038389C\SourceList\LastUsedSource

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\0D1E392C580
803848B60B10AEF9F4C4A\SourceList\LastUsedSourceHKEY_CURRENT_USER
\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\1422EB35B135BF940BD3603C77715
984SourceList\LastUsedSource

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\25E55BF7D27C
5614580D83E33D7D52F3\SourceList\LastUsedSource HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\56C89E5AA58
5BA54FB3C585503B59992\SourceList\LastUsedSource

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Windows Services and Ports

Posted in Uncategorized, OS at 12:35 am by webmaster

Want to know the nuts and bolts behind Windows services and ports?  Well I am certainly not going to rewrite all of the great information allready out there.  These are two must have reference materials.

For services:

For Ports (and services)

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