December 16th, 2008 by Gabriel

If you try to run the Netdom.exe query fsmo command or if you try to run any remote procedure call (RPC)-based tool on the ISA server, you may receive the following error message :

“RPC server Unavailable”

Here is a quick fix for this error message :-

Configure the EnableRSS registry value and the EnableTCPA registry value

1. Click Start, click Run, type in regedit, and then click OK.

2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters

3. On the Edit menu, point to New, click DWORD Value, and then type EnableRSS.

4. Double-click EnableRSS, type 0, and then click OK.

5. On the Edit menu, point to New, click DWORD Value, and then type EnableTCPA.

6. Double-click EnableTCPA, type 0, and then click OK.

7. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the server.

Configure the DisableTaskOffload registry entry

If you continue to receive RPC errors, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters

3. In the details pane, make sure that the DisableTaskOffload registry entry exists. If this entry does not exist, add the entry. To do this, follow these steps :

#. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value
#. Type DisableTaskOffload.

4. Double Click DisableTaskOffload, type 1, and then click OK.

5. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the server.

December 10th, 2008 by Gabriel

Simple steps to configure PHP with Windows

Suppose you have installed IIS and PHP say at C:\PHP on your Windows server then to configure PHP in IIS you can follow the below mentioned steps :-

Open up Internet Information Server(IIS) :-

Click on “Web Service Extensions”, on the left side you will find a green arrow near to “Add a new Web service extension…” click on it.

A pop up window will be appeared. Enter Extension name say .php and for the Required Files put “C:\PHP\php.exe”, enable the check box of “Set extension status to Allowed” at bottom :-

Now to add extension for the web site if its not there, right click on web site in question and select Properties >> Home Directory >> Configuration >> Add >> here you can add the extension shown as below :-

December 6th, 2008 by Mithil

Hi

Their are lots of misunderstanding/confusion in Quorum Disk working and its size required.

I will try to sort out this Confusion in this discussion

This post will help, to understand those people who know what Cluster’s are. However, going in this discussion we must know how cluster work.

Cluster is a service which is used for Fault tolerance of an application, it is not for Load balancing as one server is in Active mode and others are in Passive mode. All resources are owned by one [Active] node in cluster. So when Active node is owner of resources it will serve all the request coming to it.

Now if this Active node goes down then all the services that this server is running will be transferred to other node [Passive], and then Passive node become Active  node.

Now how does the Passive node comes to know that Active node is down and I should start working as Active node.

Now here comes the involvement  of “Quorums Disk” .

When you configure Cluster for very first time, all Cluster configuration Database information are stored in this “Quorums Disk” in \MSCS\quolog.log. The quorum is also referred to as the quorum log. Quorums has to perform two most important jobs, those are, it lets the cluster service know which node should be active and be owner of resources. Node that is owner of the resources can only be in Active Mode. QUORUM is the main interpreter between all Nodes of cluster and help other node to take ownership when Active node goes down.

In some cases if internal communication of Cluster node fails, Say “Heart Beat” link goes down, Passive node will consider Active node has gown down, and start querying Quorum disk that Active node has gone down and request to transfer all the resources to him, but this is not the case as Active node is still functioning, so again Quorum disk play important role to reject Passive node request.

Disk size

Recommended Size is just 100mb, I would suggest to give 300-500mb.

Hope this post will help you

In my next post i will let know what pre-cluster node configuration to check before configuring Cluster.

October 26th, 2008 by Gabriel

100% of CPU usage by Csrss.exe

Csrss stands for client/server run-time subsystem which is essential and must be running all the times.
It is responsible for console windows, creating and/or deleting threads etc.
The csrss.exe file is located in the folder C:\Windows\System32, if you find it at any other location then it may be a virus or spyware.
Csrss.exe process manages most graphical commands in Windows which is important for the stable and secure running of computer.

Whenever Csrss.exe utilizes 100% of the CPU on right clicking an item in Windows Explorer or on the desktop then it may be an issue with user profile, it may be corrupted.

Fix :-

First of all take the complete backup of your “My Documents” folder and all important data stored in your profile.
Log in with an account which has administrative privileges and open the user profiles list.
To retrieve the list of local user profiles right click on “My Computer” icon and select Properties,
click on Advanced tab,
click Settings under User Profiles,
select your profile from the list, and then click Delete.

Logoff, and then log back on as yourself. A new profile will be created when you log on.

October 19th, 2008 by Gabriel

ADSUTIL.VBS is the file that plays important role in creating and managing application pools.
It is a IIS administration utility that uses VBScript to manipulate the IIS configuration.

[NOTE - You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to run scripts and executables ]

Following is the example to create a new application pool called “NewPool” and configure it to use a custom Application Pool identity of domain\username with a password of pass :-

CSCRIPT %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Inetpub\AdminScripts\ADSUTIL.VBS CREATE w3svc/AppPools/NewPool IIsApplicationPool
CSCRIPT %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Inetpub\AdminScripts\ADSUTIL.VBS SET w3svc/AppPools/MyAppPool/WamUserName “domain\username”
CSCRIPT %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Inetpub\AdminScripts\ADSUTIL.VBS SET w3svc/AppPools/MyAppPool/WamUserPass “pass”
CSCRIPT %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Inetpub\AdminScripts\ADSUTIL.VBS SET w3svc/AppPools/MyAppPool/AppPoolIdentityType 3

After executing above commands you will find a new application pool “NewPool” created under “Application Pools” in IIS.

October 15th, 2008 by Gabriel

MRTG :-

MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher) is a simple tool to administer the network traffic with IIS.
It queries SNMP counters and generate HTML pages with current network graphs for incoming and outgoing bytes. You can get detailed explanation of your traffic with MRTG.
MRTG is one of the intrusion detection tool it gives you the big picture of your network traffic in diffeent views like week, month, or year.

MRTG plays a very important role in case of hacking and attacking of server.  It helps to track down the exact cause and source of attack by allowing to monitor network traffic, number of packets, connections to server, protocol error messages, number of connected users, requests, CPU/RAM/disk usage, processes that are currently in execution state in memory etc.

MRTG installation on Windows server :-

Before we proceed to install MRTG we have to install SNMP with following steps

Go to Control Panel >> Add or Remove Programs >> Add/Remove Windows Components >> select Management and Monitoring Tools >> click on Details button >> enable the check box for “Simple Network Management Protocol” >> Click on OK then click on Next to proceed with installation.

Here you have installed SNMP for your server

MRTG is a Perl script hence you will need to download and install ActivePerl. You can refer following link to download and more information on Activeperl-
http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/

Now downlaod the latest version of MRTG at - http://tobi.oetiker.ch/  OR  http://winadmin.co.uk/MRTG_files.zip

Extract the files into C:\Program Files\MRTG

Now we either create a web site for MRTG or create a virtual directory under any exisiting web site.
Set the MRTG site to not run scripts or executables and provide only Read access.
Move all the configuration files in to C:\Program Files\MRTG\Bin directory.
To test the configuration execute following command at mentioned location on command prompt -

C:\ProgramFiles\MRTG>perl mrtg mrtg.cfg

after SUCCESSFULL execution of above command you should now have some more files created in your MRTG web directory.

Now browse the web site/virtual directory you have created to get the MRTG output

October 14th, 2008 by Gabriel

Microsoft SharePoint is a browser based document-management platform.
It can be used by the web sites that access shared workspaces and documents, applications like wikis, blogs etc.
SharePoint interface is a web interface. Share point sites are mainly .Net sites with MS SQL as back end database.
It provide content management features, implement business processes, and supply access to information that is essential to organizational goals and processes.Support specific content publishing, content management, records management, or business intelligence needs.It provide centralized repository for shared documents, as well as browser-based management and administration of them.
Some of its good features includes workspaces and dashboards, navigation tools, lists, alerts (including e-mail alerts), shared calendar, contact lists and discussion boards etc.

The SharePoint family -

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) :-
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) is a free addon in Windows server which offers the infrastructure, supporting HTTP and HTTPS based editing of documents, as well as document organization in document libraries, version control capabilities, wikis, and blogs etc.
WSS 3.0 is built on top of ASP.NET 2.0.

Microsoft Search Server (MSS) :-
Microsoft Search Server (MSS) is a search platform supported by Microsoft. MSS shares its architectural underpinnings with the Windows Search platform for both the querying engine as well as the indexer. MOSS search provides the ability to search metadata attached to documents.Microsoft has made Microsoft Search Server available as Search Server 2008, released on March 2008. A free version, Search Server 2008 Express, is also available.

Microsoft SharePoint Designer (SPD) :-
The “What You See Is What You Get” editor MS SharePoint Designer focus on design of SharePoint sites and end-user workflows for WSS sites. Its nothing but the next-generation Microsoft replacement for Microsoft FrontPage
SPD requires that IIS has Frontpage extensions installed on the server.

October 13th, 2008 by Gabriel

Benefits -

# Improve the performance with faster files

# Reduce Bandwidth Costs with Immediate effect

# Save server resources and in turn save money

Very basic steps that you can easily implement for IIS compression are as follows(provided you have some basic knowledge of IIS :)  )

[Note : Do not forget to  backup your metabase before you proceed ]

You will have to create a temporary folder to cache static file compression with any familiar name or even you can use default folder “%windir%\IIS Temporary Compressed Files”. Make sure IUSR have read/write permissions on this folder.

# Now open your IIS, at the left pane right click on Web Sites and select Properties

# click on Service tab - Enable Compress application files

# enable Compress static files

# change temporary directory to the folder you have created or default temp folder

# set max size of temp folder depending on the size of your hard drive

# Save and close

# edit the metabase at C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\metabase.xml in Notepad

# locate for IIsCompressionScheme

# There should be two of them, one for deflate and one for gzip.  Basically they are two means of compression that IIS supports.

# add aspx,  asmx, php and any other extension that you need to the list extensions in HcScriptFileExtensions.

# HcDynamicCompressionLevel has a default value of 0, which can vary 0 -10, set it as per the need

# restart the World Wide Web Publishing Service

That’s it

October 12th, 2008 by Gabriel

Some basic security policies that a Web Administrator should have to consider are -

1. who/which user is allowed to use the system
2. when the user is allowed to use it
3. which user granted which level of access
4. procedures for granting access to the system
5. remote and local access methods
6. system monitoring
7. suspected security breaches

If you don’t have a clear picture of what is permitted, you can never be sure when a violation has occurred.

General security precautions to take -

1. Limit the number of login accounts available on the machine and delete inactive users.
2. The Crack programs help to detect poorly chosen passwords hence force the people to use strong             passwords who have login privileges.
3. Unused services should be turned off. For e.g. if FTP is no longer needed then it should be stopped.
4. Check system regularly for suspicious activity.
5. Make sure that permissions are set correctly on system files.

October 12th, 2008 by Gabriel

IIS allows you to display your own custom error pages instead of ugly default error pages. You will have to create an HTML or ASP page with the desired information you want to display.

Following are the steps -

1. Open Internet Information Server
2. Select your Web site in the tree view at left pane, right-click and choose Properties
3. Click on the Custom Errors tab.
4. Scroll down to the error you wish to change
5. select it, and click the Edit Properties button.
6. Enter the URL to your page that you have created
7. Click Ok at the bottom.

your customized error page will be displayed next time instead of old ugly and unfriendly default error page