My Virtual World

Remove an Individual DNS Entry

2009-10-06T20:07:00.008+01:00

Simple I hear you say?! I work in an enterprise with 51 Windows DNS servers though. I don't really want to connect to each one to delete an individual record. The scenario was that due to some heavy handed builders cutting through some data cables, a company that we frequently email had to change it's public MX record in a hurry.

There was no staged phase over, it's MX record was this one minute and that the next. However, it sometimes takes days for DNS changes to filter across the globe and we were with out email correspondence until the new MX record was in use on our DNS servers.

I needed a quick way to wipe this record from each server so that emails could flow freely from my company to theirs. Which is why I created this script; by using the dnscmd line and a few questions it compiles the 51 lines I needed to wipe a record from each of the DNS servers.

@ECHO OFF

ECHO.
ECHO Clear individual entry from Windows Domain DNS servers.
ECHO Top Tips from www.vMowfo.co.uk
ECHO.

SET /P A=Enter the DNS record name (www.google.com):
SET /P B=Record type (A, MX, etc):
SET /P C=Incorrect IP:

dnscmd SERVERNAME /recorddelete /cache "%A%" "%B%" "%C%" /f

It starts of with the ubiquitary information text. Then goes into the 3 questions; DNS name, record type & IP in question. These are the 3 variables for the dnscmd /recorddelete command.

A quick example of the script in action. We have a DNS entry we need, which just happens to be www.vmowfo.co.uk.

This is the script running. As you can see I've entered www.vmowfo.co.uk as the DNS name, A as the record type and it's IP.

Voila, the record has gone. To make the whole thing worth while I need to do it to all the 51 DNS servers. To get a list of your Windows DNS servers, type this at the prompt:

nltest /dclist:FQDN

Where FQDN is your internal domain name. A few quick data organisation tricks in Excel soon produced this as the new batch command file:

AD Queries & LDIFDE

2009-09-30T22:56:00.011+01:00

The other day I was required to report on how many users had thier email addresses hidden from the Global Address List, but also who were not disabled. This was a first for me, but was surprisingly easy to produce.

Starting in ADUC there is a Saved Queries folder, which leant itself to right clicking > new > query. From there I typed in the name of the search and followed the define query link.

This brought up a search window much like the advanced find in ADUC itself. It had a custom search option which selected, as I already knew what I was looking for from flicking through a user account in ADSI edit. So I thought!

As previously mentioned, I had scoured a user account in ADSI edit to see what options I needed to search for. I had guessed they were msExchHideFromAddressLists and userAccountControl. The msExchHideFromAddressLists values were quite simple to work out; true or false. userAccountControl was interesting though, as for a disabled account the value was 2, I assumed the value for an enabled account would be 1?! I had to search around to find out the value should have been 512!

This produced the result in the image to the left. It automatically put in the object category and object class.

After clicking OK and OK again the results of my search were displayed. Success! Not quite finished though, as I wanted to email these results to another member of staff, what I needed was ldifde!

This was another first, which I just went straight to google to find out a suggested string which I could customise. I ended up with:

ldifde -f DisabledUsers.txt -d "OU=User Accounts,DC=domain,DC=name,DC=net" -p subtree -r "(&(objectCategory=person)(userAccountControl=512)(msExchHideFromAddressLists=TRUE))" -l "cn"

The options in detail are:

-f DisabledUsers.txt - export to file of this name
-d "OU=User Accounts,DC=domain,DC=name,DC=net" - specific domain and OU
-p subtree - to include sub OU's
-r "(&(objectCategory=person)(userAccountControl=512)(msExchHideFromAddressLists=TRUE))" - the search string, copied from above
-l "cn" - what to list in the results

After running this command I was presented a screen like this:

and a text file like this, ready to be copied into an email:

Back to Hyper V

2009-09-17T20:49:00.004+01:00

I've been unable to locate a spare Broadcom network card at work (they're all built in) and XFX (my motherboard) doesn't provide Linux drivers - shock! I suppose I could hunt out alternate driver sources, like extracting them from a proper Linux distro, but I don't know how!

I believe I have a full version of 2008, so I'm going to give Hyper V another go at the weekend.

VMWare & Exchange 07

2009-09-12T17:16:00.003+01:00

I'm bored of the Hyper V server now that it's working (the trial software is about to expire too). I need a new challenge! I've decided next up is to have an Exchange 07 enviroment running on VMWare's ESX server.

I've broken it down to a similar front end/back end deployment as my last setup, with 2 firewall/routers separating the 2 subnets. In the 'DMZ' will be an ISA 04 box running Windows Server 2003. The back end will host an seperate OWA, Bridgehead and Exchange servers (Windows Server 2003) as well as a AD/DNS box.

There will also be a Virtual Center server running virtually on my main PC. This will also have the VI client and the license server features running on it.

So far I have built the Virtual Center box and installed the required features:

In other news, I cancelled the house purchase. It has become clear that the Indian take over will involve me being made redundant as my job gets 'off shored'. I even have to train my replacement!! Oh well, I'll do anything for the money.

not many NIC's are supported, including the 3 I have in there. I need to get a Broadcom NIC by the looks of it.

Running a Scheduled Task Using the System Account

2009-07-12T09:53:00.004+01:00

I quick guide on what the title says really. It came about through a need of moving data you might not necessarily have permission to access and that the 'system' does. I am also publishing the guide because I saw several other webpages saying it wasn't possible.

In this example I'm performing a data move using the RoboCopy program. RoboCopy (Robust Copy) is used because it has comprehensive logging, the ability to restart a failed attempt & keeps all NTFS permissions intact.

Although I have an admin account, which should have access to all the files, it is possible for somebody to strip this access out blocking me access to the files unless I take ownership - this would also cause the RoboCopy job to fail.

Right, that's the reason behind this then - lets get started. Open up the Scheduled Task's page from the Control Panel and then start the New Scheduled Task wizard. Go through the initial options as you require. In my scenario I selected the batch file I created for the robocopy job and it's options, I also selected the run once option and the time/date the move was due to take place.

When it comes to the user name/password option just type in system and leave the password fields blank. Open up the advanced properties dialog box and you should see the run as box listing 'NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM' populated.

Easy.

Advanced nVIDIA RAID Options

2009-06-25T14:59:00.007+01:00

My current motherboard has a built in SATA RAID controller made by nVIDIA. This is hardware RAID and, as such, is invisible to the OS - unless you install the drivers. It was only a few days ago that I decided to investigate what these drivers actually did.

A quick flick though the start menu revealed the nVIDIA control panel with storage options. Opening this up showed all the extra RAID information which would normally be transparent.

It also included SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) options. For those who don't know SMART technology monitors HDD's and gives you warning of impending failure. Without the drivers this feature would be unavailable, which could leave you missing out on important messages/warnings.

These options included how to record logs, how often and also the ability to run an advanced test straight away. I was interested in the events logged and configuring advanced warning options from them.

First open the Computer Management tool and browse to the Event Viewing section. Right click on Custom Views and select new. I included all sources with NV at the beginning, however NVRAIDSERVICE seems to be the big one.

I then created a custom view to only include Critical, Error and Warning events to be displayed. Luckily none appeared! The last step was to 'Attach a task to this custom view'. This allowed me to configure an email alert when ever a event was logged under this criteria. There was also an option for running a script, which would allow you to do almost anything!

My First Domain Name

2009-06-12T22:03:00.003+01:00

Well, I ummed and arred for quite a while at what it should be and if I should even bother - knowing it's going to be a few months until I get a static IP sorted. I really shouldn't have worried so much though, as it was only £2.99 a year.

SO far so good though, I have configured www.vmowfo.co.uk to point to here as well as a bunch of subdomains point to my public twitter, facebook and blog profiles (twitter.vmowfo.co.uk, facebook.vmowfo.co.uk & blog.vmowfo.co.uk).

Add to that my new email addresses pointing to my actual email addresses, it lends to a lot of future flexibility. Very pleased!

My Revolutionary Firefox Setup

2009-06-10T19:54:00.004+01:00

I'm so pleased with my latest idea I thought I'd share it with you all (if anyone reads this!?!)! I do realise I'm probably not the first to come up with the idea. I've also included my other Firefox setup essentials just in case.

Firefox Portable

Since they reiterated the need for untested software at work to not be installed, I've been using Firefox Portable. This neat utility lets you run Firefox from a USB stick which, obviously, means you don't have to install it. I'll just claim ignorance if work somehow catches me.

The really good thing about this is that it remembers all your shortcuts, browsing history, add-ons and even passwords! I guess not so good if you lose it though - mental note, move this to my encrypted folder on USB stick.

Due to the nice folk at PCFormat I recently acquired a new HDD drive, which was promptly installed as a mirror of my primary drive. This of course required a reinstall of windows and all the following apps, of which I think it was Firefox that took the longest to configure to my liking.

So back to my idea - to install Firefox Portable onto my data drive! This way it remembers all my history/settings after a reinstall of Windows. Great! ps. although I'm running it now, I've yet to test it with a reinstall - I see no issues though :).

The Bookmarks Toolbar

The next thing I do is to cram all my shortcuts onto the Firefox toolbar. I remove the description from the bookmark to cram it down to just the address bar icon. I also group them into relevant sites (News, Technical, Banking, Pron, etc) together and separate them using the (you guessed it) separator.

Foxclocks

This one is more relevant for me as I work for an international company. It displays the current times of what ever cities you chose from it comprehensive list (or make up your own). I've chosen major sites so I quickly know what time it is there. Foxclocks.

Adblock Plus

The staple diet of a Firefox user. I think the tag line says it all; 'Ad were yesterday!'. Don't leave home without it. I struggled to chose an image for this one as how do I capture what isn't there!? Adblock Plus.

The rest: Foxit PDF Reader, IETab, Flash, Shockwave.

Which Came First, the Host or the Client!?

2009-06-08T19:43:00.012+01:00

I've taken my Virtual environment to the next level, by adding the rest of the machines to the domain and taking them off the old network. I still can't get over the fact that I added the Hyper V host to the domain - the DC is virtual!

Adding the Windows 7 clients to the domain was harder than you'd expect. It seemed to go well to begin with as I filled in credentials and domain name. Click next to be told it has found the pre-staged computer account and whether I'd like to use it.

On the next screen though there was some kind of SRV record query error:
"The following error occurred when DNS was queried for the service location (SRV) resource record used to locate an Active Directory Domain Controller (AD DC) for domain "domain-name". The error was: "DNS name does not exist." (error code 0x0000232B RCODE_NAME_ERROR)"

(see image)

Now this was strange as I had joined other servers to the domain. DHCP had allocated all the setting, including the DNS server address - which was correct (I could access the Internet). I was also able to complete successful nslookup queries on the DC.

It took quite a while of trying different options and a lot of tinkering with DNS zones. It does seem to be a Windows 7 bug though.

It seems the bug lies with this initial query. To get around it, I put in a fake name in the initial domain name field. This would cause an error in computer account (when joining a domain a computer authenticates its own account before the user account) and bring up the confirm computer name window. Going forward this is a good thing, as with W2K8 image deployment you'll quite often want to change the computer name and join a domain at the same time. A step which would require 2 reboots with W2K3.

In this window enter in the real domain name and click on next. This should bring up the final window, asking you to enter in your user name credentials. It will then go on to ask a few final questions about who will be accessing this computer regularly and if they should have admin access - another good thing.

The Sting in o2's Tail

2009-06-08T00:25:00.002+01:00

I have to say I would recommend o2 Broadband to anyone, even with the tale I'm about to tell. So, as the previous post shows I've managed to get TS working, and after a few days of testing I can confirm it does what I require (for now).

I can log on to my P2P box remotely to get access to files and a working desktop.
I can also log on to the TS server* and play with the network**

*Although my normal account doesn't have any domain admin privileges, I can use the run-as command using my admin account to open server manager.

**What I was planning to do tonight, mess around with ISS and Sharepoint

All my testing has been using my external IP, but from my internal network. What I discovered tonight when I tried to access from work is that my Internet facing IP is hidden away from the outside world by the ISP - o2!

If I want them to put my router on a DMZ as such, I have to pay for a static IP, which will cost £5pcm. Rubbish!

It's Terminal! (or it could just be the answer to VPN)

2009-06-03T23:39:00.003+01:00

I've been batteling for most of the day, but finally managed to get TS working. It's pretty clever too, I can RDP to my P2P box using the RDP over HTTPS protocol - so it should work anywhere.

More to follow tomorrow - as it's my bed time!

28 Days Later

2009-05-27T11:23:00.005+01:00

and all is good! I was expecting to have to plead to get a loan machine while they waited for my one to come back. The PCWorld chap just said "as it's been 28 days we are happy to give you a new one of the same value".

This was after checking my ID. I didn't think of that! I'm here happily advertising my name, location and what I've returned. I guess anyone reading could have walked into the shop pretending to be me.

I would've gone with a like for like replacement if it were available (saving money on the OS), but it wasn't. Then the Samsung N110 started calling my name. Ever since getting my Acer I'd been wanting the Samsung - it's just slightly better in almost every way. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get one. :)

Back on track with the W2K8 70-643 course then; I've just finished the chapter on deploying images. This seems like the perfect opportunity to test out WDS as the netbook doesn't have a DVD drive and I want to deploy Windows 7.

So, I've installed a fresh W2K8 Enterprise machine and went straight ahead with installing WDS. After WDS had installed as a deployment server I tried starting the WDS service but received error in the event log. I'm just getting ahead of my self as I had forgotten to join it to the domain.

I then went on to add the W7 boot image and the W7 install image, my network infrastructure just wasn't configured properly (the WDS server was on a virtual LAN and I didn't have time to work out all the routing. It was quite simple to install W7 of a USB though, due to the fact that the W7 install program is WinPE - which is what you would have to create if you wanted to install XP off a USB.

A Different Direction

2009-05-23T23:16:00.004+01:00

The MS 2nd Shot offer is coming to an end at the end of June (that's apply, book and retake by the end of June), so I have decided to pull my finger out and get cracking with the 643 exam. It's only 9 chapters so hopefully all will go ok.... we'll see!

Highlights include:

WDS
Clusters
Terminal Services
TS Infrastructure
Web
Web security
FTP & SMTP
Media
Sharepoint (shudder)!

So you can expect some quite random posts over the next few weeks!!

I just shutdown a W2K8 server core installation using the command > shutdown /p, thinking /p meant supplying options - it doesn't. It means shutdown now, without warning!.

Contact Field Label Modification - Exchange 2003

2009-05-22T09:35:00.004+01:00

My Hyper V progress has been a bit slow this week as I am still wrestling with VPN over SSTP. Although I have learnt a few tricks worth blogging I feel without the complete solution they are worthless.

I am currently at the stage where I believe the way the network traffic is routed is causing an issue. Basically outbound traffic goes through an extra router compared with the inbound - don't ask! While trying to sort this I thought I would re image a couple of the machines in question, but my ISO has been corrupted.... the list goes on!

Anyway, yesterday at work I was investigating the issue of updating the GAL label titles. We have an online intranet address book and of course a GAL, and at the moment there is a project to integrate the 2 lists. The issue is that the title of a field in one address list is 'Alternate Contact' and in the tradition GAL it reads 'Assistant'.

These title labels are actually quite accessible though. Open up Exchange System Manager and browse to 'Recipients/Details Templates/English' and open up the 'User' object. You'll see this includes all the different GAL objects, what they point to and their labels.

It really is a case of updating the relevant one and clicking OK. I ignored the ampersands but added the colon at the end and I got my required result.

This update involves modifying the Schema, so you'll need to be pretty high up in the technical food chain to accomplish this (Schema Master). Messing up the schema would have forest wide implications too!

The problem is that this is a Global change and will therefore affect everyone. If there are people using it for the traditional purpose then this might not be feasible.

Please note, this is relatively untested by me. My Exchange lab only has 2 mailboxes, etc etc. It's definitely worth testing in more realistic labs if this is planned.

Hyper V - Day 4

2009-05-17T20:55:00.005+01:00

HDD thrashing is what I'm discovering! Everything was running slowly and looking at the task manager it would appear the CPU wasn't really doing anything. Seems obvious now I guess, 8 servers running on one HDD was always going to cause trouble. MS recommends monitoring these key 4 physical HDD counters:

Current Disk Queue Length
% Disk Time
Disk Reads/sec and Disk Writes/sec

So I set the counters running on the server and compare it to my computer... oh dear! It was very clear, the queue length on my pc average was around 0.01 & on the server it was around 400!

I do have a plan for the future though, and with these machines all being virtual it's going to be very easy to implement. The physical server was specced with 2 LAN connections, one for the modem and a gigabit direct connection to my computer.

This means it is feasible for this server to host all my files. These will be hosted on 2 disks transferred from my main computer. I will also permanently attach a 4gb USB stick to bring the total amount of drives to 4. The 2 routers hosted on the USB stick, 2 virtual servers to run on each of the HDD's, to be divided up according to IO activity.

I also created static route on ROUTE01 to the internal LAN. Network configuration is very satisfying, and there is so much more to do! Firewall rules, port forwarding & QoS to name a few.

And finally I tried to find some kind of MMC to manage my virtual machines from Windows 7 (my main PC). The Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for W7 were what I was looking for.

Goodbye FreeSCO, hello Vyatta!

2009-05-16T19:56:00.005+01:00

The build so far: There are now 5 copies of W2K8 buzzing along on my server, along with the Hyper V Manager server and 2 routers. DHCP, AD CS, AD DS, DNS, Web, P2P, File services installed. Inter-LAN traffic is still at a brickwall, still it makes for a small attack surface!

My problems have been with FreeSCO, it just starting loading and then just stops with no error messages to work on. It also used 100% processor usages... which on a virtual server is not good news for all the other services.

After a bit of Google browsing I came across a neat program called Vyatta. It is very similar to FreeSCO being a freely distributed DSLinux. The difference being I can get it to work with Hyper V!!

There were a couple of teething problems, over come by tweaking the settings on the virtual machine. The notable settings I used to get this to work were:

128mb RAM
2gb HDD
a blank floppy disk drive attached (debatable if this matters)
Legacy network adapters

For it to work with the network adapters you need to remove the standard one and go through the add new hardware motions, selecting legacy network adapters. I believe this downgrades the networking ability of all the network connections of the machine but can't remember when I read this.

Once the hardware settings had been configured it was just a case of installing Vyatta and setting it up (IP's, hostname, domain, NAT).

For the record; 5 virtual W2K8 boxes, the 2 routers & the Hyper V manager require a total of 3.6GB RAM.

Networking Chaos

2009-05-15T19:11:00.010+01:00

An interesting start so far. Hyper V is installed via the server roles wizard which I find a bit backwards - installing windows and then putting the hyper visor in between. It seems to be working though.

Speaking of working, I had a interesting start with the networking settings. I'm currently setting it up next to my desk - this allows me to use my physical keyboard and screen until I had got the network and RDP working.

While it's there I'm using my PC to route traffic through one of my Virtual PC images on my main machine, which has RRAS installed on it. The problem I had though was that my PC would then pick up a IP from it's Virtual DHCP server and then using it as the primary route for everything.

Disabling the network card on my machine wouldn't help either, as it would then be unavailable to the VPC. I initially tried altering the advanced network settings - bringing the actual Internet adapter to the top of the list but this didn't work.

It took a good 15 minutes before I started to think of the routing metrics. Windows had given the wired connection a metric of 20 and the wireless connection (which was also the Internet connection) a metric of 25. I then lowered this to 10 and we were away on my main machine.

Internet names still couldn't be resolved on the hyper v server. After checking the network setting I discovered that the DNS server setting hadn't been configured. The trail quickly led to a missing option on the DHCP.

All this meant I finally had a Internet connection on the hyper v server - next step is setting up the routers.

The Physical Build

2009-05-14T19:00:00.007+01:00

Hail my Exchange prowess! Luckily I passed, it was hard though and I'm glad the Exchange 07 exams have been split up into smaller segments (which should reduce the revision footprint). This morning my computer parts arrived - thanks again to eBuyer's free 5 day delivery which arrived the next day.

I got the case out first, which was a bit of a shock as it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. The DVD drive is also forced upon the HSF, which is a bit annoying.

The build went OK, having worked on my Antec P180 for the pas 18 months moving to a cheap case made me realise where the money went. Still, this should be a once in a lifetime operation.

Couple of annoyances about the motherboard: its an American Megatrends BIOS, the back plate required the holes to be pushed through and the memory slots colour coding is confusing - despite it going green/black/green/black the colours mean nothing.

It also didn't come with a physical manual, which was OK for me as I had another machine to display the CD manual, but it wouldn't have helped the initial Greek read out I got.

Anyway, it's now running, a bit hotter than I would've hoped (50 on idle!? - a decent HSF and TIM is required me thinks) but I'm about to press ahead with HYPER V WARP SPEED. WOOP WOO!

Hardware Bits! (and other things)

2009-05-12T19:00:00.006+01:00

A few quick questions to answer before getting to the hardware. I saw the spotty teenager from PUKWorld on my cycle home from work today. I shouted at him 'where's my netbook?!' to which he just laughed! Is it still located in their 'out' tray or did he find the pron? Who knows - but I doubt I'll see it by the end of the month, which is a shame as I'm off to Berlin at the start of June.

I'm still to take the Exchange exam, however I justified it by the fact the parts should arrive after the exam ;). I guess if I fail this virtual box will also be hosting a couple of Exchange servers. On the topic of Exchange, today at work I got a call that a printer wasn't sending its scanned emails to the selected mailboxes.

After quite a bit of investigation I found that the SMTP Virtual Servers had lost their network presence!? They still had an IP configured, it just wasn't possible to telnet onto them (port 25 obviously). Restarting the virtual servers didn't work - but restarting the physical servers did. Luckily this was a problem in Asia which didn't come to light till after lunch (aka out of office hours for them).

IPv4 vs v6 - I'm going to stick with version 4 because FreeSCO doesn't support v6/I don't understand v6. I might do both to see what happens.

W2K3 vs W2K8 - As I'm also in the process of getting my MCITP:EA (which is all about W2K8), I'm going to use W2K8. SSTP (the VPN protocol I want to use) also only works with W2K8.

ESX vs HyperV - HyperV wins again because its course related, it's also easier to *borrow*.

On the subject of *borrowing*, I'm not paying for any software because I have no direct financial gain from it. I guess I do indirectly, because my computer knowledge relates to how much I get paid. At the moment HyperV is easier (less complicated) to pirate - although I might change my mind after working with both.

Once the initial setup/testing/fun is over I will start again with ESX.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I ordered a bunch of parts today!

LiteOn 16x DVD-Rom Internal SATA Black Bare Drive
EV Shiny Piano Black/Silver Super Slim Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - With 200W PSU 20+4pin 1x SATA
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 GOLD XTC Memory Kit CL5(5-5-5-18)
AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core 8650 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 2MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
XFX GeForce 8300 Socket AM2+ onboard graphics 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard

Network diagram

2009-05-10T21:20:00.002+01:00

Drawing this network diagram was quite easy actually. I used Visio 07 which already has all the different devices already loaded. It was just a case of dragging the icons from the Shapes bar onto the diagram.

Of course my network is quite simple! I have been thinking about this for a while so this all flowed quite quickly. If anyone has any tips I'm quite interested in feedback.

Basically, there will be 3 different subnets. One for the DMZ, which will host a web server and a VPN server. The initial firewall will (hopefully) block the majority of traffic. This firewall will also serve DNS requests (with requests being forwarded too the ISP's DNS). None of the devices in the DMZ will log onto the domain.

Another firewall will only allow traffic which originates from the DMZ network, it will also be stricter than the first firewall. I'm contemplating getting the router to also be the DHCP server - we'll see when the time comes ;).

There will be 2 internal subnets, one for wireless clients and one for (you guessed it) wired clients. These will be the rest of the servers and the printer.

IP's on the real thing will probably be changed.

AMD vs Intel (plus hardware list)

2009-05-08T09:34:00.000+01:00

It's every geeks favourite job - building a shopping list of computer parts!

As mentioned in the previous post, the system needs 5.5ghz processor power and 2.5gb RAM. Form that I have put together the following kit list:

ASUS M3N78-VM GeForce 8200 Socket AM2+ VGA DVI HDMI 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard 152752 £52.50
Shiny Piano Black/Red Super Slim Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - With 200W PSU 20+4pin 1x SATA 134831 £24.99
Crucial 4GB (2X2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Ballistix Memory 143844 £35.99
AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core 8650 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 2MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 144635 £69.95

As you can see, the Phenom X3 2.3ghz should provide enough grunt (2.3 * 3 = 6.9). I went for the AMD route because it seems to offer the best bang per buck in the lower price ranges. The AM2+ socket seems future proof enough to get another upgrade.

The equivalent Intel was a Dual Core E5400 2.7ghz (not duo) which I feel would be lacking for the type of apps (heavily multi threaded) that I would be running. There are also some rumours going around that you can unlock the 4th core, although this does seem to be for the Phenom II.

I've also been an AMD fan boy since my K6-2 300 processor beat a mates PII-300 in a Q2 benchmark. The K6-2 had a lowly 9.5million transistors compared to the X3's 450 million!

I'm not allowed to buy any computer parts until I pass my Exchange MCP though, which isn't far away now. I'm sure the retake will be along shortly after that too ;).

We Need "More Power", ug ug ug!

2009-05-04T09:59:00.000+01:00

Tim Allen said it better I reckon. Anyway, today's topic is what hardware do I need to run this box. As all of these boxes will only be supplying one user (me) I will be calculating everything using the minimum levels.

If we start by adding up all the separate systems, which include: 2 x routers, a web server, VPN server, P2P box, AD DS/DNS, DHCP/File/CA and a Virtual Center Manager. That totals 6 copies of Windows Server 2008 (W2K8). Eeak!

64bit versions of W2K8 require a 1.4ghz processor and after getting out my calculator that equals 8.4ghz! After seeing this requirement I took another look at the server list and decided the Virtual Center Manager can be off loaded onto another machine - namely my main machine. As far as I understand it this doesn't need to be on all the time. We'll soon find out.

This brings it down to a 7ghz, however if I were to use the 32 bit versions of W2K8 then I could get away with a minimum of 1ghz. This makes a more reasonable 5ghz minimum. Another important factor is that hardware vitalisation assistance is a required ability from the chip - all the newer ones have this feature though.

Memory is the next big question, of which would require a lot of thought in real life. Having said that, in an enterprise environment the types of servers being virtualised and generally the low key/under utilised server - as these reap the biggest reward of being virtualised (vmotion/redundancy aside). The minimum of W2K8 is 512mb and 5x512mb is 2.5gb.

HDD space is next, with W2K8 requiring at least 20gb - not much else to talk about here! I will say that I am not doing any kind of RAID setup and the disk which I will be using is a fairly average drive, so I'm expecting higher than normal queue lengths.

So there we have it! I'm adding on a little extra for the 2 routers, however they don't require much resources (32mb RAM, no HDD & a couple hundred mhz processor usage).

So there we have it - the server needs the following:

Combined CPU min = 5.5Ghz
Memory min = 3gb
HDD min = 120gb

Other items include: 2 NICs & a wireless NIC

Only Change One Thing at a Time!

2009-05-01T22:26:00.000+01:00

A lesson in stepping back was learnt today. My data disks have been quickly filling up recently and with no space in the case to buy a new small one I was going to have to dig deep and buy a new OS and large data drive to replace the 4 smaller drives that had been doing the job. So, with the dawn of the Windows 7 RC being released (and the fact it's valid for 14 months) I thought now is a good a time as any to start the digging as such.

My previous setup was 4 physical (250gb) disks in 2 striped RAID arrays, one for data and one for the OS and apps. This was to be replaced, initially, by one 500gb disk and a tb disk (with a later view of another of the 500gb to be striped (I swear it makes a big difference) and another tb drive for a second data disk).

After ordering last night and, surprisingly, have them arrive this morning I got cracking today. It was eBuyer's free 5 day delivery that surprised me, honestly, why pay for delivery from that site!

I started off by plugging the tb drive into the dvdrom's connectors and backing everything up. After I confirmed it was successful (I performed a chkdsk as well as comparing file count/size) I decided to unplug the other drives and plug the 500gb disk in. The BIOS needed a reconfig due to the disks no longer being available to the RAID setup and while I was there I thought I'd tweak a few other settings. Namingly the AMD Live! and AMD Cool'n'Quiet which I'd never manager to get working successfully.

It's dinner time while Windows 7 RC is installing and I'm half Kitchen based (homemade meatballs and a tom&spinach sauce) and half keeping one eye on the install.

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

What's worse is the food is on the brink of being ready; what dare I do?! Lets run through the troubleshooting checklist:

Has it ever worked: yes!
When: before I made all these changes
Have any changes been made since then: Oh god yes!

Which one though? Could it be the RC of Windows? One of the new HDD's? One of the many BIOS changes? Dodgy media? That funny Vista/2gb install limit? Spilt tea on the PCB?

Luckily I was able to quickly get back on track with this one, saving the day and the food. Previous attempt to turn on AMD Live! had been met with blue screens, so after a couple of minutes of thought I turned this off and it installed successfully (and has been going strong all evening).

Lesson reinforced with me though.... change one thing at a time!

PC World and Passwords

2009-04-29T19:22:00.000+01:00

So my Acer Aspire One was still dead this morning. On the bright side is that I bought it from PC World and thought it would be easier enough to just drop it in a leave them to it.

Living within half a mile of a PC World has its advantages.

After queueing behind some middle aged lady for a little while (who appeared to know more than the employee - poor lady, they didn't have a clue) I was served. It was going OK until he asked if I had a Linux password, to which I answered with "I use Windows". Pure horror struck the boys face, "you've voided your warranty then".

OMG?! After trying to explain it was a hardware warranty he warned that any subsequent charges from Acer would be passed on. Success!

This leads me onto the password issue. I skirted the issue for the rest of the transaction because I didn't want to give anyone my password, even though I only class it as a medium password. Private documents contained on the disk (of which there aren't many) are then further protected with TrueCrypt. Paranoid? Maybe.

You see, I rate what information I'm protecting and then assign a password strength according to that. As Luis put it in a recent PCF, forums and other non important sites get a low password, raising up to if the site holds banking information and that it then qualifies for a high security passwords. Banking websites are in their own separate league.

I have once used Keypass which stores all your passwords in encrypted format to be accessed freely after entering a master password. It can even create it's own super secure passwords for each website.

I stopped using it due to it's lack of portability, although it can be stored on USB there are frequent times when I don't have my USB drive with me (or it gets corrupted). Feel free to check it out.

Seconds From (CPU) Disaster!

2009-04-28T16:37:00.000+01:00

Since getting my new desk last year it's not been practical to open up the PC case any more. Recently the CPU temp reading has been rising, so I decided to do a little spring cleaning (it's also pretty good to hoover behind the desk - all sorts of scary stuff accumulates back there).

Now it's been 6 months since I last opened it up and sure enough the HSF was covered with dust. I promptly un-clipped it and pulled upwards with a slight turning motion. It wasn't till I had gotten outside that I noticed that the CPU was still stuck to the copper base - obviously my turning motion hadn't worked! My first thoughts were 'oh wow, probably best leave it' and carried on.

The initial horror struck when I went to put it back in, as I wasn't able to lift the ZIF lever, place the CPU/HSF back and then close it again. So I applied some force on the CPU to try dislodge it from the HSF, only to see it un-stick and fly across the room. Oh crap!

5, 5! bent pins. This isn't like the days of the *86 when pins where built properly - these little things just had 'break me' written down the sides.

Anyway, after some very gentle tweaser work (the very same kind I'd learnt pruning my finger nails) I was able to get the pins straight enough to slot in the socket... whack the HSF back on (less dust) and power on. It works! and it's running cooler too!

Strangely my AA1 won't power this afternoon.... AMD 1, Intel 0.

FreeSco NAT and VPC

2009-04-27T22:00:00.000+01:00

I'm sure we can all guess that MS and Linux don't mix well, well I've been working on this all morning! After my work last night getting to grips with VFD's and FLP's (see previous post) I was able to breeze through the install of this program. There was one hitch though....

To start with I mounted the VFD in my virtual Win2000 box and then formatted it. I then ran the FreeSco (pronounced Free Cisco) 'make_fd' batch program, which copied the necessary file accross. Finally I dismounted the VFD from the Win2000 box and mounted it on my FreeSco box. This has been set up with 32mb of RAM and no HDD drive. It has also been set up with 2 NICs, one physical and one virtual.

Initallially when I turned it on I got an error message (see image on the right). To combat this I disabled 'Hardware-assisted virtualisation' in the VPC settings.

Although I have loads of further config to do, the finished item, once booted should look something like this:

FLP to VFD!

2009-04-26T22:35:00.000+01:00

Creating a virtual floppy disk to install FreeSco onto proved a little difficult. I had previously been using it on an VMware virtual machine, at home though I am stuck with virtual PC.

VMware uses a virtual floppy disk format of .FLP, VPC uses a format of .VFD and it is very annoying that they don't work with each other.

I managed to find a utility called VM Back which helped me create .VFD, then mount the .FLP disk and copy the contents accross to each other. It was quite a bit of hit and miss. In the end I managed to create a blank VFD and then I could mount this in VPC to run the FreeSco 'make_fd' batch file.

To create a blank VFD:

Download and then run the VM Back program linked above. You don't have to install, but exraction is required. It only works on 32bit systems.
Select the Drive0 tab and then click 'Open/Create'.

The 'Open Virtual Floppy Image' window will pop up. Click on 'browse'.

Then type in the name of the virtual floppy dis k you want to create, don't forget to end it with the extention .vfd.

Select the disk type as 'FILE' and leave the 'Write Protect' box unticked. Then click 'Create'.

What do I want to accomplish then?

2009-04-26T21:12:00.000+01:00

Ultimately I'm doing this to learn new stuff, as well as geek points and being able to access my desktop from anywhere (that'll be the VPN then).

The services I want to host are (as mentioned earlier):

web server
vpn server
P2P box
AD DS/DNS
DHCP/File/CA
virtual center manager

For the webserver I was initially undecided about either using Windows Server's built in IIS or maybe an old copy of Windows 2000 and Apache web hosting software. I've used the Apache web server software before, when hosting a live webcam of my chili plants a couple of years ago. It was quite good fun.

This was my initial attempt at a home server, however the box was just too darn noisey to be used permanently (it also was a bit underpowered too), but it did have the benefit of being free! At the time I was happy for any free equipment.

Anyway, I want to keep all the OS's uniform and as I need Windows 2008 for a later service (explained later), I'll use that. It has the benefit of being quite up to date by using IIS7.

On to VPN then! So remote access to my files seems great, however there are a simpler ways to do this (SFTP, HTTPS, SSH). It's to be able to control my desktop(s) remotely and also set certain things running.

A current limitation of most VPN set ups is the requirement of extra ports being set up; UDP port 1701 for instance. SSTP, as featured in Windows Server 2008, uses the extremely common TCP port 443 (or HTTPS) to maintain communications and because of this no extra network set up is required. Although this extra set up requirements shouldn't be a problem at my end, trying to get the company I work for to agree might be a different ball game.

A copy of W2K8 server core will be used for DNS and AD DS services. I'm still undecided if server core boast any security improvements, it'll just be good practise. It'll also be less of a drain on the server resources.

P2P will be required for sharing all my freeware *ahem*, I'll probably just use a standard W2K8 box for this. Another standard W2K8 box will be used for the file/DHCP/CA server. CA and DHCP will be required to complement the VPN server.

One final box will be requires for the VI manager, apparently it is possible to virtualise this - although the theory is mind boogling! We will see!

Additional requirements will be 2 DSLinux boxes to act as firewalls/routers. The first one will be connected to the modem and the other will seperate the DMZ/Internet from the client machines. More details on these will be available later.

nb, I reckon this could change! Either when I get to network design or actually building!

My New Blog!

2009-04-25T20:56:00.000+01:00

Hi to who ever is reading this. I've decided to blog my experience in case it helps anyone else get a home virtual environment up and running. This whole thing might take a long time, as I'm supposed to be buying a house (although I don't like the sound of that commitment) as well as a billion other things.

First step though is planning: what is my ultimate goal, what other services do I want to provide, how can these be provided in a secure way, how many servers will be required and what OS will be required to accomplish this?

There are loads more questions really, most of which will be answered on the fly I guess.

The following blog posts coming up:

What do I want to accomplish? - web server, vpn server (SSTP), P2P box, AD DS/DNS, DHCP/File/CA, virtual center manager, no redunduncy,
What hardware is required for this?
Power/noise, minimum of both
ESX vs Hyper-v
Network plan and diagram
IPv4 vs 6
W2K3 vs 8
Hardware requirements (virtual technology)
Intel vs AMD
Physical purchasing
Who's paying, aka software theft justified
Physical build
Noise level tweeks
Physical network set up
Installing virtualisation layer
Configuring the vlans
Configuring the routers/firewalls
Set up the DC & DNS (and securing)
Set up the P2P
Set up the DHCP/CA/File
Set up the web server (and securing, see MS book), mirroring blog on home site
Set up the VPN server