Practical Technology

New view for certs.  After doing a full-day session with a local consulting firm on SC2012 and some new Server 2012/HV3.0 features, I am very enthusiastic about the new possibilities.  So, I'll be rebuilding the lab as MS-only in an effort to get a good grasp of Server 2012 and System Center 2012, especially what you can do with Orchestrator and Service Desk. Unfortunately my MCITP:EA cert doesn't seem to count for much in the new scheme of things, only really counts toward the MCSA2012 cert, same as any of the 2008 admin certs, it seems.   MCSA: Server 2012 - 70-417 - Upgrading your skills to Server 2012 MCSE: Server Infrastructure - 70-413/414 -  ( Design&Implement / Adv.Implement ) MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure - 70-415/416 - ( Implement desktop infra. / Implement desktop application environments ) MCSE: Private Cloud - 70-246/247 - ( Monitoring&Operating / Configuring&Deploying ) That'll keep me busy for a year or two, along with saving up t...

Another handy project. First and foremost, follow this process when changing the passwords: Create Excel file with servers/passwords Import into your password manager Use that Excel file as the basis for the 'serverpasslist.txt' file How to use # Open a command prompt with appropriate DA 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: ---------------  E:\scripts\sysinternals>serverpasschange.bat  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...

Worked on this the other day, very handy! Need to change all the admin passwords for iLO.  It's okay if the passwords are the same, just has to be complex.  Note also there is a 20-char limit for IPMI 2.0 (recommended, not enforced). Batch file I created a batch file and server list file for each domain to keep things simple.  Note if the path has spaces, you need to enclose with quotes.  :P ------------  @ECHO OFF  set FILE=server_list_test.txt  for /F "skip=2 tokens=1,2,3*" %%i in (%FILE%) do (   echo %%i   psexec \\%%i -u %%j -p %%k -h -c hponcfg.exe /f \\testserver.test.local\F$\temp\ilo_password.xml  ) ------------ Quick breakdown of what it's doing: * '-c hponcfg.exe' is in here because '-w' to set local working directory doesn't seem to work, so we copy the exe over * '-h' is for Vista and up, elevates the cmd * '/f' specifies the location of the ilo xml file * Note there are separate source text files...

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.