Archive for June, 2006
06.22.06
Posted in Exchange at 10:49 pm by webmaster
Use the following steps to expose the SCL to Outlook. Information gleaned from ehlo from this post and this post. Also from Vlad’s excellent documentation.
- Download and save the following file as C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\FORMS\1033\SCL.CFG(Program Files\\Office 11\Forms\)
Outlook Configuration file used to expose SCL to Outlook
- Install configuration file into your personal forms library
- Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options | Custom Forms | Manage Forms
- Install button, and choose SCL.CFG …install into your Personal Forms Library
- Hit OK several times to return to the main Outlook screen
- Configure Outlook to “show” the SCL
- Right-click on the Column headings in your Inbox (other any other folder) and choose “Field Chooser”
- Pull-down the scroll-bar and choose “Forms…”
- Set focus to your Personal Forms, choose the SCL Extension Form, then click Add
- Drag and drop the SCL property into your column headings
- Disable Outlook Cached mode
- Create a new view in Outlook
- View
- Arrange by
- Current View
- Define Views…
- Select current view (that exposes SCL)
- Copy…
- Name it something like SCL View
- Select “This folder, visible to everyone”
- OK
- Make sure SCL is listed in Fields… then click OK
- Apply View
- Launch OWA
- Change view (next to folder name at the top of the page) to SCL View
- Administration of IMF
- Get either IMF Companion or IMF Archive Manager
- A good testing methodology. A good overall description of some configuration.
- Default IMF Folders
- Archive C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\UceArchive
- Pickup C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\Pickup
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Posted in OS, win2003, SBS2003 at 1:01 am by webmaster
Often you are administering a system and want to know if that tape has ejected or not.
You can use the rsm in manage computer to determine this:
- Right click on My Computer, and select Manage.
- Under Storage, select removable storage.
- Expand libraries
- highlight the device which you are interested in.
- In the right hand side it will say whether or not there is a tape in the drive, and what the status is.
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06.15.06
Posted in OS, SBS2003 at 10:04 pm by webmaster
I have seen some issues with clients not being able to sync offline files correctly in the past. I know I will need this one day so when I saw this in a newsgroup posting I “lifted” it for future reference.
Thanks Duncan, Robert and Chris
Apparently there are some settings cached in a hidden file in Windows. To try to reset this cache perform the following:
Open My Computer
Click on the Tools menu
Select Folder Options
Select the offline Files tab
uncheck Enable Offline Files
Reboot
Navigate to C:\Windows
Delete the hidden folder CSC
Reboot
Then Re-enable ofline files.
To “rescue” Offline files and folders that are stored on a computer/laptop (They may have been modified while away from the network) download the resource kit tools and use the command line tool csccmd to extract the files.
csccmd.exe /extract /target C:\mydocs\ /recurse
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06.14.06
Posted in OS at 2:33 pm by webmaster
None of the backup procedures currently published by Microsoft allow you to restore your whole sharepoint site back to a different server. Given certain conditions this can be performed (During a swing migration for example) with ease given the assistance of a couple of blog posts from members of the SBS community.
It is important to provide kudos to the people who originally came up with these procedures so here goes:
It should also be mentioned here that if you are paranoid about losing files in Sharepoint because they are not flat files and if you lose the database you won’t have a way to get those files back, check out this excellent tip from Susan, on how to backup Sharepoint sites to flat files.
For the purposes of this discusion I will attempt to explain the whole procedure, step by step of what it takes to restore Sharepoint from begining to end and what options you have in the middle!
- I always start with creating a backup that will provide a means of restoring my data to a flat file. I use the stdadm procedure as documented by Susan.
- Decide if you are going to use the Frontpage 2003 or smigrate method of backing up your data. Frontpage IMHO is probably easier but that requires you to have a machine available on both machines to provide the backup and restore. The smigrate method can also be scripted.
- Use Frontpage to backup your whole site or use the following smigrate command:
- “c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN\smigrate.exe” -w http://companyweb -f c:\sharepoint\backup.fwp”
- Move the files to the new server using a usb drive or other backup means.
- Follow Chad’s instructions to prepare the Sharepoint site for the restore.
- Follow Chad’s instruction’s
- Add step 17 “17. Add any webparts to your site”
- Add step 18 “18. Use the Frontpage or smigrate method to restore your data
- “c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN\smigrate.exe” -r -w http://companyweb -f d:\sharepoint\backup.fwp”
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Posted in SBS2003 at 1:16 am by webmaster
Top three reasons why you can’t join a client computer to the SBS domain
- Primary DNS setting is not pointing to SBS
- Multiple NIC (Network interface cards) installed in system. All but one NIC needs to be disabled.
- Using the Fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Use the IP address or computer name instead.
- Local user that is logged in when connecting to http://servername/ConnectComputer is not in the local Administrators group.
You can take the easy road and use Manage Computer –> Users and Groups snapin but why not get back to your roots (Dos) and use this command line to accomplish the same thing: (Compliments of Jim Harrison of http://isatools.org)
net localgroup administrators /add domain\username
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06.13.06
Posted in OS at 5:18 pm by webmaster
When doing a swing migration of SBS2003 (non integrated SP1 media, but server had all SP1 related service packs installed) to SBS2003 (integrated SP1 media) I noticed that two sets of GPO’s appeared.
Here is what the GPO’s looked like at the begining of the swing (on the old server - Volume license of SBS 2003 non integrated SP1, upgraded to SP1 using the correct procedure for SBS 2003 SP1 (5 SP installs)):
Here is a list of known changes performed to the default installation of SBS 2003 SP1 on the original server:
- GPO’s were Enforced
- The following GPO’s were added:
- Outlook 2003
- IE
- WSUS laptop, regular desktops and domain controller
- Windows messaging
- The following GPO’s were modified to create an account lockout policy that was amiable to the customer (without using the SBS wizard):
- Password policy
- Lockout policy
Here is what the GPO’s looked like at the end of the swing (on the new server - this server was swung using the server listed above as a start. On the migrate DC and the new server SBS 2003 integrated media was used.):
Here is what a default SBS 2003 SP1 integrated GPO setup looks like:
Here is what default SBS 2003 non-integrated SP1 GPO setup looks like (SP1 had been applied here by the usual update process):
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Posted in Exchange at 12:24 am by webmaster
The following information was put togeather with two references. This is quick procedure that I use to ensure Exchange SP2 gets installed corectly. Thanks to Microsoft Petri and Vlad for helping me to understand this process:
Backup Data, System State and Partition Information
- Reboot server
- Ensure no errors in event logs
- Verify
- Exchange SP1 is installed
Exchange Sytem Manager à servername –> properties
- HF 898060 or 913446 (or 893066 ) is installed
Add/remove programs
- Stop Symantec Antivirus
- Stop Symantec Mail for Exchange
- Uninstall IMF 1
- Stop SMTP service
- Add/remove programsàIMF 1.0
- Start SMTP service
- If no previous version of IMF then
- manually create a container in the Active Directory something like this:
Cn=UCE Content Filter,cn=Message Delivery,cn=Global Settings,cn=cn=Microsoft Exchange,cn=Services,cn=configuration,dc=
- Install SP2
- Unzip ahead of time
- Update requires about 30 minutes to install
- Enable auto Update IMF http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=907747
- Enable virus scanners
- Reboot system
- Ensure no errors in event logs
- Create the following dword regiatry key and set the value to 1 (ContentFilterState)
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange
- Tweak the two spam settings for IMF
- Install IMF companion
- Change the default folder for the archive folder
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06.12.06
Posted in SAV at 9:47 pm by webmaster
Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition (SAV) has always run pretty well on Small Business Server 2003 SBS). The purpose of this blog entry is to attempt to make it easy for the SBS 2003 administrator to install and run SAV on SBS.
The objectives will be:
- Install SAV 10.1 on a SBS 2003 server with all exclusions, recomended settings, firewall settings, gotchas documneted and patches.
- Deploy a client(s) using the managed client interface
With this in mind, if you are a user of SAV (of a previous version) the big improvements from 10.0 to 10.1 IMHO are:
- Reporting feature
- Auto Exchange exclsuions (See my previous post on this subject)
With this understanding we can now start installing:
- Obtain your software. SAV is sold as a business pack (essentially a retail version where you have to install a license every year) or a version where you are mailed a serial number and you can download the software from here. You can also order media for both versions.
- Use the SAV 10.1 Installation Guide to perform the following tasks to install and configure SAV on the SBS2003 server
- Install Symantec System Center (SSC) from the CD on SBS2003
- Reboot
- Install SAV server from the CD on SBS2003
- Reboot
- Configure the SBS2003 as a primary server using SSC
- Update your virus definitions using SSC, Action –> AllTasks –> Update Virus Definitions Now
- Install any relevant patches. (At the time of this writing even 10.1 has a serious vulnerability that needs patching
- Set up your exclusions so you don’t scan something that is very importantthat gets tagged as a virus but is really your SQL database and it get’s quarantined. (See my previous post on this subject)
- Install the reporting feature if you want it
- For SBS2003 standard edition be sure to read this tech note about installing a MSDE database before you attempt to install the reporting software. (This is not listed in their documentation)
- Install the reporting server from the CD
- Configure a server group to use the reporting server
- Use http://localhost/reporting to view the reports
- Make the necessary adjustments to ensure that you are deploying a fully patched client that will be deployed to your client workstations. See the appendix of the install guide)
- Open up ports on your firewall for the client deployment to work correctly (TCP 2967)
- Deploy your client with Tools –> ClientRemote Install
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Posted in SAV at 12:19 am by webmaster
Symantec has released a new version of Symantec Antivirus corporate edition version 10.1
The auto exclusions must be viewed from a registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\LANDesk\
VirusProtect6\CurrentVersion\Exclusions\Exchange Server
There are File exceptions
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\SRSDATA\srs.edb
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\SRSDATA\temp.edb
D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA\priv1.edb
D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA\priv1.stm
D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA\pub1.edb
D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA\pub1.stm
There are Folder exceptions:
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\BadMail
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\PickUp
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\Queue
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\mtadata
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\SRSDATA
C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv
C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\gthrsvc
D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA
You can cross-reference this with Microsoft’s document, Here is Symantec’s document. This seems to cover *some* of exchange but what about the rest of SBS. Here is a Symatec generic document that describes how to exclude non-product specific programs.
For SBS 2003 the Yahoo Groups sbs2k3 group files section has a nice document specific to SBS 2003. And don’t forget any LOB applications that you might have (Real SQL in SBS premium, ISA server MSDE instance, Pervasive etc.).
So in a nutshell, don’t rely on Symantec to get your exclsuions correct. Put them in yourself.
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06.11.06
Posted in OS at 2:38 pm by webmaster
Telnet can be used to initiate an email to a server you are trying to debug mail problems with.
Use the following commands in a command prompt to do this.
telnet
set localecho
open SMTPHOST 25
helo FQDMFROM
mail from: USERFROM@FQDMFROM
rcpt to: USERTO@FQDMTO
data
Subject: test message 1
this is a test
.
quit
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