Practical Technology

After wasting my time searching MS' download site, I finally ran across a blog indicating that the Exchange 2010 management pack has been pulled due to issues.  Unfortunate that this cropped up, what with SCOM 2012 just having been released in the spring - guess my testing will have to wait. Oh, this affects SCOM 2012 and 2007R2 - neither available for download (same file, I believe). The Exchange 2010 MP Update 2 was released August 7, 2012. http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/08/08/exchange-server-2010-monitoring-management-pack-updated-2/

Mass-reset local admin passwords, multiple machines all with different passwords - now with more Easy(TM). How to use Open a command prompt with appropriate credentials. Browse to the directory containing the batch file, list file, and Sysinternals tool files. Run the batch file. If there are issues, like the computer name does not exist, you'll see this: PsPasswd v1.22 - Local and remote password changer Copyright (C) 2003-2004 Mark Russinovich Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com Error changing password: The RPC server is unavailable. Script See below for sources. Removed the echoing to help with visual security. Removed extra parameters as they are not necessary. @echo off set FILE= serverpasslist.txt for /F "skip=2 tokens=1,2*" %%i in (%FILE%) do (   pspasswd.exe \\ %%i .domain.local administrator %%j ) File structure Spacing is tab-delimited - handy for copying out of Excel. Target NewPassword ------------------------------------------...

Figured it out...elementary mistake.  There was still one of the DC's in resolv.conf.  Finally discovered this when I saw that the httpd access_log was not updating even though I'd just refreshed the wiki page.  Well, discovered in the sense that it ruled out httpd/php errors/issues, and I had already ruled out the mysql back-end.  So figured had to be network-related somehow. Thankfully re-pointing everything was a simple affair with Astaro - just re-number the Nagios server object's IP. Anyways...now just have to get a solid backup routine going for all the pertinent areas: Wiki:  - /srv/mediawiki/*  - /etc/php.ini  - /etc/httpd/* mysql:  - DB backups  - /etc/my.cnf nagios:  - The entire VM, really.

Managed to recover some of the VM data from the Openfiler crash, however, still experiencing lots of lag. Logs are frustratingly empty, even debug on httpd doesn't output anything.  Also discovering that I must have missed some security settings, because random spambots are logging in/creating users/posting nonsense.  Less than 6 so far, will look at this tonight. Pretty sure it's not a hardware issue - running on my PC (SSD, i7, 24GB, etc).  Will have to figure out advanced logging for Apache.

Had one of the FC LUNs crash this morning, and of course I had not yet got around to spreading things out back to iSCSI.  Suffice to say that we have good wiki backups (and Google Cache), but I have no time to fix things at the moment. When I do find some time, I'll set up some local VMs to run mysql and MediaWiki. Lesson :  Set up good backups from Day1 (check) for EVERYTHING (not check), and document/test the restore process at least once.

After a positive review at work and some discussion with my manager, I'm taking a new tack for my exams/learning.  VMware stuff is going on the back burner (except VCP5 in Q1-2013) and I'm now focusing on MS technologies. MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Admin on Exchange 2010, 2 exams, 2 books MCITP: Database Admin 2008, 2 exams MCITP: SharePoint Admin 2010 , 2 exams MCITP: Lync Server Admin 2010, 2 exams VCP5, 1 exam, 1 course Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL are the big ones, Lync is new, and we're not using vSphere5 anywhere yet. I am excited about diving into Exchange and SQL, slightly less-so about SharePoint as web-based stuff is a weak point with my skillset.  Still, a great opportunity to learn.  Another item I need to look into is MS Commerce Server.

Welp, passed with a 381.  I should note the only reason I passed is that I got a much better break on question esotericy (new word?).  Guessing that equates to either 70% or 76%, depending on how the grading scheme works. Third time's the charm, eh. I am pretty certain I won't be doing the DCD exam, but will still strongly consider the DCA.