GenivNET

If you are getting a certificate security alert with the following error when you open Outlook 2007.

“the name on the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site”

 This is because the name on the server and the name on the certificate is mismatched.  To resolve this, you will need to type in the following command in Exchange Message Console.

Set-ClientAccessServer -Identity CAS1 -AutodiscoverServiceInternalUri https://cas1.domain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory -Identity “CAS1\EWS (Default Web Site)” -InternalUrl https://cas1.domain.com/ews/exchange.asmx

Set-OABVirtualDirectory -Identity “CAS1\oab (Default Web Site)” -InternalUrl https://cas1.domain.com/oab

Set-UMVirtualDirectory -Identity “CAS1\unifiedmessaging (Default Web Site)” -InternalUrl https://cas1.domain.com/unifiedmessaging/service.asmx

 You can also use the Get-ClientAccessServer command to get the current settings on the server. 

Once you have typed the above commands into the server, make sure to restart the IIS service.  You can do this with the IISRESET /NOFORCE command or restarting the IIS service under the IIS Management console.

Below are instructions on configuring Virtual Servers failover in a Netscaler device

1. Login to the Configuration page for the Netscaler

2. Find the Virtual Servers and Services node and expand it

3. Click on Services and choose “ADD”

4. Type in the Service Name (e.g. NODE1) and Server IP address for the first Node and click “Create” to add

5. Do the same to add the second Node (NODE2)

6. Now with both Services nodes created, we can go ahead and create the Virtual server to link them.

7. Click on the Virtual Servers and choose “ADD”

8. Type in a Virtual Server name (e.g. VServer1)  and choose ONLY one node from the Services nodes that you created earlier.  (Choose NODE1 for this example)

9. Do the same and create a second Virtual Server name (e.g. VServer2).  This time choose NODE2 as its service node.

10. Now open VServer1 and under the “Advanced” tab, look for the “Backup Virtual Server” option and choose VServer2 as a backup server.

If you are getting the following errors when trying to connect to your Oracle database.

ORA-01034 ORACLE NOT AVAILABLE
ORA-27101 SHARED MEMORY REALM DOES NOT EXIST
Checklists to Check:

-Check your TNANAMES.ORA and SQLNET.ORA files and make sure it is correct and  pointing to the correct database.

-Check your Server’s logs to see if their are any events logged.

-Check your disk space and memory, and make sure it isn’t used up.

-If everything looks normal, restart the server and see if you can get the Oracle database back up.

Our Exchange 2007 CAS server recently logged with an IIS deadlock error.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: W3SVC-WP
Event Category: None
Event ID: 2262
Description: ISAPI ‘C:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll’ reported itself as unhealthy for the following reason: ‘Deadlock detected’.

All of our users weren’t able to access their emails with OWA or Outlook clients.  The only solution was to restart all of our Exchange servers so that our users can temporary access their emails until we find a fix for it.

Later, we upgraded all of our Exchange 2007 servers to the latest service pack (Exchange 2007 SP2).  So far there was no deadlock error showing on the Event logs and users haven’t experienced any issues logging in.

There are several ways to do this, but the two most common are:

1. Using the shortcut keys:  By holding down the Control and Shift keys, you simplying double clicking on the program that you want to run as administrator.  You might be prompted for UAC.  If so, simpily select “Yes”.

2. Right clicking on the program:  When you right click on a program file (e.g. exe file), there will be a “Run as Administrator” option in the popup menu.

When a machine loses its file associations to the .exe and .reg, it will prompt you with the Open With windows everytime you wanted to run these files.  The reason whythe  machine loses its associations is most likely from viruses or malwares.  Make sure to run a virus and malware scan afterware.

How to associated .exe and .reg files:

- First go into the Task Manager

- On the “File” menu, click on the “New Task (Run)” option

- The Command Prompt will pops up, type in the following command

assoc .exe=exefile
assoc .reg=regfile

- Now, you should be able to run exe in the command prompt to install the necessary scanning software.

Today, one of our client computer was infected with the nesty Antivirus 2010 malware. 

To remove this malware, we have to download and install the Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware program.  Once installed, closed out all programs and run the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware program to scan your computer and remove the virus.  For the first time, the Malwarebytes might need to connect to the internet to update its malwares database file.

Okay, this might be old stuff.

How to create a custom Windows OS Installation?

Here is the situation:

One of our server died and we need to rebuild it.  The server is giving an error “Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed” when we tried to reinstall the OS (in this case, Windows 2003 server).  Also, the server doesn’t have any floppy drive.

From searching around on the error message, it seems that the standard OS installation disc doesn’t have the drivers for our server’s hard disk controller.  So, we downloaded the driver from the vendor’s website to add as an additional drivers from the windows OS setup.  To our surprise, the additional drivers option only accept drivers from a floppy drive.   Doing a little more searching, another option is to add the driver into the Windows installation disc (Slipstreaming).  Once we did that, the setup was able to see the hard disk and was able to continue on with the installation.

How to create a custom Windows OS installation?

1. First you will need to download and install a program called nLite  (Freeware)

2. Once installed, you will need to start the program.  It will first prompt you for the source Windows installation disc location (usually this is your CD/DVD drive).

3. Next, it will prompt you for the location of the destination ISO folder.  It is best if you create a new folder name for it.  (e.g. c:/newwindowsISO)

4. nLite will then copy all the files from the CD/DVD to the new ISO folder (e.g. c:/newwindowsISO)

5. Hit the “Next” button to go to the next screen

6. This is were you select how to customize your new Windows OS disc.  In this example, for the “Integrate” section choose drivers, and “Create” section choose bootable ISO.

7. Hit Next and Add the path to the new drivers that you want to add

8. Set through the setup to the burn or create image screen.

9. Choose to create an image then burn it to CD

10. Now you should have a custom Windows OS disc.

Here are the steps I used to upgrade all of our Exchange 2007 servers to SP2:

Installation Order

- Upgrade CAS servers

- Upgrade HUB servers

- Upgrade Edge servers

- Update Mailbox Servers and CMS (cluster mailbox server)

- Backup AD and Exchange

- Stop all monitoring agents (e.g. MOM)

- Stop Antivirus program

- Make sure no pending installations and do a restart of the server to make sure

- Enable IPv6

Upgrade CAS and HUB servers roles

- Copy the Exchange 2007 SP2 install files into the CAS servers and run the “setup.exe” file * If you haven’t extract the files yet, you will need to extract it first

- The Exchange Server 2007 Install wizard should pops up, select the “Install Microsoft Exchange Service Pack 2″ option

- Click “Next” and following the on screen instructions

- The installation will go through several steps:

1. Organization Preparation
2. Preparing Setup
3. Remove Exchange Files
4. Preparing Files
5. Copy Exchange Files
6. Hub Transport Role
7. Client Access Role
8. Installs Management Tools
9. Finalize the setup

- Click “Finish” to finish the installation – Restart the server

- Copy the Exchange 2007 SP2 install files into the CAS servers and run the “setup.exe” file

* If you haven’t extract the files yet, you will need to extract it first

- Login the the Passive Node server

- For Clustered Mailbox server, the upgrade installation needs to be ran in the Command Prompt.  So start the Command Prompt and enter the follow command to initiate the install (make sure you are in the Exchange 2007 SP2 setup directory) :

setup.com /m:upgrade

- Once the installation finished, do a restart of the server.

- Now we only have the Active node and the CMS left to upgrade.  The next step will disconnect any connected users.  So it is best to do this off hours.

CMS upgrade

- Still on the Passive Node, start the “Exchange Management Shell” and type in the following command to stop the CMS.

Stop-ClusteredMailboxServer -Identity clusteredMailboxName –StopReason “Exchange SP2 Upgrade”

*replace “clusteredMailboxName” with the name of your Clustered Mailbox name

- Type “Y” or hit enter to confirm

- You can also use the “Failover Cluster Management” to shutdown the cluster too.

- Once the cluster is stopped, we will need to move all the clustered roles into the Passive Node.

- Still in the EMS, type in the following command to move the roles into the Passive node:

Move-ClusteredMailboxServer  -Identity clusteredMailboxName –TargetMachine passiveNodeMachineName –MoveComment “Exchange SP2 Upgrade”

*replace “clusteredMailboxName” with the name of your Clustered Mailbox name and “passiveNodeMachineName” with the machine name of the Passive Node

- Type “Y” or hit enter at the confirmation prompt

- Open up the “Failover Clustered Management” and doublecheck that all roles have been moved into the Passive Node.

- Close out the “EMS” windows and open up the Command Prompt

- Type in the following command to initiate the CMS upgrade:

Setup.com /UpgradeCMS

- Once the installation is done, the CCR or SCR should be back up and online.

Previous Active Node

- For the previous Active Node, you will need to follow the same instructions as for the Passive Node.

- Copy the Exchange 2007 SP2 install files into the CAS servers and run the “setup.exe” file

* If you haven’t extract the files yet, you will need to extract it first

- Login the the Passive Node server

- For Clustered Mailbox server, the upgrade installation needs to be ran in the Command Prompt.  So start the Command Prompt and enter the follow command to initiate the install (make sure you are in the Exchange 2007 SP2 setup directory) :

setup.com /m:upgrade

- Once the installation finished, do a restart of the server.

All of your Exchange 2007 servers should be updated to SP2 now.

Today, we came across an issue with Outlook Web Access 2007 (OWA).  Whenever a user is using Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), OWA will kick them out after a short period time, and if  they doubleclicked on an email, OWA will prompt them for the username and password credential again.  This seems to be only happening with IE8 regardless using the light version of OWA or not.  All other version of IE, e.g. IE6 and IE7, worked with no problems.  Other browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome worked fine too.   From searching and reading online, IE 8 was built with more secure security settings which in turn causes OWA to act differently.  We have tried changing some of the IE security settings under the “Tools” menu.  For example, we unchecked the “Enable Integrated Windows Authentication” as a site suggested, but this didn’t work.   With more searching, we found a site that mention an option settings in OWA itself that when downloaded and installed it worked.  User’s are not prompted for multiple credentials or kicked out from session timeout.

OWA Settings

• Logon with OWA, the user will need to click on the ‘OPTIONS’ menu on the top right hand side. 
• On the left hand options menu, look for the ‘E-Mail Security’ link and click it. 
• From the ‘E-Mail Security’ page, download and install the “Outlook Web Access S/MIME control”
• IE will prompt you for permission to install this add-on, allow this.
• Logoff and relaunch IE 8