IT Support Diary Everyday IT support issues and solutions

If one day you ever need to restart or turn off a server which you don’t know much about, and would like to know the implications, there is a few things you can do to find out. 

• Computer Management console -  Under the Shared Folders section, you can find out all the shares available on the server and who are accessing them.

• Active Ports - This is a great tool that allows you to monitor what tcp or udp ports are opened in your local machine. You can use it to find out what ports are being used by what applications. It displays a local and remote IP address along with the port for each connection

• Services console - Check for any applications specific services, and check if they are started

• Check the Program Files folder and Add Remove Programs section in Control Panel to check what applications are installed on the machine.

• Scheduled Tasks and Crontab - You need to look for any scheduled tasks running on the server.

• Any other services in Administrative Tools - Check if there are any other services such DHCP, DNS, Routing and Remote Access, and Certificate Authority installed on the server. You can also go to Manage Your Server to find out the server roles.

Add to Bookmark:

I am in the process of decommissioning a server to a newer hardware, and I need to move 10 jobs from the Scheduled Tasks to the new machine. Instead of creating the jobs from scratch again, which can be tedious especially when you have to create multiple schedule times, I’m copying the jobs across. The jobs are located in C:\Windows\Tasks in Windows 2003 and C:\Winnt\Tasks in Windows 2000. Make sure you have the proper credentials setup for the jobs to run on the new machine.

Add to Bookmark:

If one day you ever have to backup Outlook email signatures, you do so by copying the Signatures folder in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Microsoft. This is particularly useful when someone changes computer or has a new outlook profile. Make a copy of the Signatures folder and restore it back to the User profile folder. And to setup the signatures in outlook, go to Tools -> Options -> Mail Format tab.

Add to Bookmark:

I was wondering what are the best and most effective anti-spyware software available to download for free on the internet. Personally I tend not to stick to one software, and have at least 3 of them scanning my pc every week. The ones I find easy-to-use, and effective are listed below:

• Spybot Search & Destroy - I have been using Spybot for years now, and this free anti-spyware software is still one of my favorite. Spybot can be downloaded for free here. The installation is easy, and there is even a wizard that helps you to get the configuration right. Make sure you always download the latest updates before running any scan.

• Lavasoft Ad-Aware - There is a free version of Ad-Aware and it is as effective as the paid version. It can be downloaded from Lavasoft website, and the installation is simple. The feature I like the most in Ad-Aware is the scanning options. You can do a full scan, smart scan, and a customised scan.

• Malwarebytes - This anti-spyware software saved me a lot of time the other day when I had the “XP Anti-Virus 2008″ malware on one of my client’s machine. When all other anti-spyware failed to remove this virus, Malwarebytes detected it and removed all aspects of the virus. The application can be downloaded from Malwarebytes website.

If you have experienced other good anti-spyware software, and would like to share it, please do not hesitate to add a comment.

Add to Bookmark:

This is one useful tool that allows you to search for expressions in files and folders. PowerGrep will output the filenames and the line numbers that match your search expressions. I use it all the time to look for connection strings in web config files.

Consider this example below:

I need to look the word “powergrep” in a file, and I don’t know what file it is. Run WordGrep and do a search

I type in “wordgrep” into the Search area and I select the location where I think the file might be. In this case, I have selected a folder in the C:\ drive. Note that you can also do a search on a mapped network drive.

Run the search. It will look for the expression “wordgrep” in all the files. And the output result displays the location of the file and the line number.

You can download PowerGrep from here.

Add to Bookmark:

GNU Wget is an application that allows to retrieve files from the internet - http, https, and ftp. My company uses Wget to download files from an FTP datafeed provider and this is how it is setup: 

• Download Wget from here
• Install it on your machine
• Add “C:\Program Files\Gnuwin32\bin to the path variable in the system variables section in Environment Variables in Windows

After this, you are good to go. Write a batch file like this one below:

FOR /f “tokens=2-4 delims=/ ” %%a in (’DATE/T’) do set day=%%c%%b%%a
wget -nv –passive-ftp -m -nH “ftp site” -P Destination\ -a Log
Exit

Use crontab to schedule the Wget download. Make sure you have the proper ports open in your firewall.

Add to Bookmark:

This is a great tool that allows you to monitor what tcp or udp ports are opened in your local machine. You can use it to find out what ports are being used by what applications. It displays a local and remote IP address along with the port for each connection. This is particularly useful in detecting trojans and viruses.

This tool is very useful in troubleshooting situations. You can download a copy from here. It is free, safe and easy to install.

Add to Bookmark:

In case one of the application servers blows up. For servers such as SQL and Exchange, you will need a beefed up server hosting the ESXi server.

The BIG picture

1. Convert physical machines (mostly Windows 2003 servers) into virtual machines (.vmx)
2. Save the virtual machines into a central repository
3. Restore the VM image when needed to a standby VMware ESXi 3.5 server
4. Restore latest data from backup tapes

Converting physical machines

• Install VMWare converter v3.0.3 build 89816 on the physical server
• Convert machine to a stand alone VM (.vmx)

Restoring VM images to ESXi 3.5 server

• Import the .vmx file to a VMware infrastructure server. Follow the screen shots

Make sure you have a VMware ESXi 3.5 server on standby. Also it is recommended that you test the backup and restore procedures to make sure that it really works. Applications servers need to be tested in VM environment to make sure they behave properly.

Add to Bookmark:

On Monday, I was getting this error “Could not interpret the client’s request” when connecting to my ESXi 3.5 server using VI Infrastructure client v2.5. Without access to the VMware server, I could not manage the virtual machines. I did a bit of research on the internet, and according to a post on the VMware community forum my VI client was out of date. I thought it was very unlikely plausible because it was working all the time before that. Anyway I updated the VI client (which wasn’t that easy) and I was still getting that error. At last today I fixed the issue and I was able to connect to my Vmware server. I have compiled some notes on how to download the latest version of VI client and the solution to the connection error.

Downloading and installing VI client v2.5

Go to this link here to download the latest version of VI client. Choose ESXi Embedded and Installable

Once downloaded, you need to unzip the file.

After unzipping, do a keyword search on the folder for “client”.

You will find the VI client .exe package and you can then install it

Solution to error “Could not interpret the client’s request”

The VI client build version has nothing to do with it. If you VI client is outdated, you will be automatically prompted to download the latest version. The cause of this issue is that the VMware Management agent has stopped and needs to be restarted. You do this by going to the VMware server console. Refer to diagram below

Select Restart Management Agents.

By restarting the agent, all client connections to the VMware server will be reset. If you are not sure how to get this console above, plug in a monitor to your VMware server and you will see it.

Add to Bookmark:

Being able to administer a server remotely is important. As a matter of fact, most of the servers administration is done remotely, that is you are not physically in front of the machines. I use three main remote access tools to manage my machines.

• Remote Desktop - this is a free software from Microsoft that allows you to run a terminal session on another networked machine. On a Windows 2003 server, you can run two RDP sessions at the same time, that is two administrators can be logged in and doing work on a server simultanuosly.

• Dameware - this tool allows administrators to remotely control another computer. As opposed to RDP, when you use Dameware to connect to pcs, it connects to the actual console instead of creating another session. Therefore Dameware is particularly useful when connecting to application servers - where you have applications consoles running. You will see whatever there is on the desktop as if you are in front to the machine. However the best thing about Dameware is that you can connect to any machines even though there is no Dameware client installed originally. Dameware has the ability of pushing and installing the client.

• UltraVNC - it is quite similar to Dameware in the way that it connects you to the actual console window instead of a different session. However I find that UltraVNC tends to be more CPU intensive and to use it, you need to have the client installed beforehand.

What remote access tool do you use?

Add to Bookmark: