Enable Active Directory Recycle Bin fails

My post at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/5329b5fd-013e-48a6-b2a1-b2748e27723d/problem-enabling-adds-recycle-bin?forum=winserverDS&prof=required outlines it kinda but here is more detail.

If you have tried all the quotes options and all the FSMO roles and permissions and whatever else, like I did, check this one last thing:

Start the A/D web service on the FSMO role holder DC and add the -server switch to your Enable command

I also used double quotes on the Identity string and single quotes on the target string.

Enable-ADOptionalFeature -Identity "CN=Recycle Bin Feature,CN=Optional Features,CN=Directory Service,CN=Windows NT,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local" -Scope ForestOrConfigurationSet -Target 'domain.local' -Server mydc.domain.local


Good luck!
Charlie

WebDAV on IIS7.5 with Windows 7 client

Install a cert (trusted) on the website, enable basic auth disable anon. Done. No need for app pool identity, etc.

Multiple cluster per site, Site Recovery Manager (SRM) with svMotion capability

Here is a design VMware told me was 'unique' LOL. Sounded perfectly normal to me.

My plan was (obvious to me):
vSphere/SRM 5.0
2 locations
2 vCenters, of course required for SRM
2 clusters in each vCenter, one cluster at each location per vCenter.
Equallogic SRAs which probably doesnt matter who you have for a SAN SRA vendor.

This would give us sort of an 'X' configuration and allow us to svMotion/vMotion from location to location during business hours by simply mounting a common volume as well as have SRM capability across datacenters if bad things happened. I realize there is no longer a need for the common volume for svMotion in vSphere 5.1. Also keep in mind we have a lot of bandwidth between our sites. Your results may vary.

So the design looked valid, if interesting, on paper. All the svMotion worked fine. I just could not make the Array Managers 'see' or work with one pair of clusters within SRM. How this was visible, was that in my Array pair under site recovery for one of the vCenters, the Devices tab in the Array Pair would not show a 'Remote Device' and a 'Datastore' both for all the datastores I wanted to use. Only the ones associated with one pair. This meant I could SRM across one pair of clusters but not both

The resolution was to create a second Array Manager pair reversing the storage listings in both sites. So if in site A you had storage1 to storage2 and site B you had storage2 to storage1, that is enough to enable a single cluster per site. I had to go in to site A for example and add another pair for storage2 to storage1 and vise versa in site B giving me 2 pairs per site.

I hope this helps and I will elaborate if you want.

Charlie

Dell 11-12th gen 710-720 firmware update observations

I have recently been playing around with a new install of the Dell Management vCenter plugin version 1.6. Very nice tool. Should save TONS of time. I also had to learn a bit about the server's firmware upgrade process now that the LifeCycle controller is involved. Here are a few things. Again this is either r710 or r720. I have been using both a lot lately.
_________________________________________________________
This error after a PERC firmware update:
PR1 PERC replaced part detected
This message is safe to ignore either way.
Enter lifecycle controller from the boot menu, and run an inventory to clear the message.
_________________________________________________________


I forget which update did this, probably the NIC firmware. The machine would not boot. The message was:
"Plug and play Configuration Error:
Option ROM Shadow RAM Allocation error."

The fix is to go into the NIC BIOS and disable all option ROMS for every NIC. Too many loading can cause this as there is not enough Shadow RAM to hold them all if you have many NICs. They apparently all get enabled with the firmware update.
_________________________________________________________


I will post more as I find them.
Hope this helps someone

Charlie

Updated*** Dell OpenManage 7.2 on ESXi5 fails with error 15

I was using VMware Update Manager but the method you use to install probably doesn't matter.

This appears to be the package is not signed correctly. Like the rest of you, I am busy so I didn't spend much time finding a fix. I went back to the 7.1 version of the agents and it installed no problem.

Initially I thought maybe the older 6.5 version might have been the problem and uninstalled it. The command to remove the old VIB, which was 6.5 for me, was esxcli software vib remove OpenManageThat didn't solve the problem however so I got smart, putty'd in and looked at the update log located at /var/log/esxupdate.log. I found this:
esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: InstallationError: ('Dell_bootbank_OpenManage_7.2-0000', "('Dell_bootbank_OpenManage_7.20000', 'Could not find a trusted signer.')")

I changed Update Manage to push out 7.1 and it installed fine.

If anyone has more info please share!

Hope this helps someone.

Charlie

Windows Server 2008R2 missing gateway IP address

OK so this one was fun.  Guess we can't test every scenario in the real world right?

We had several Windows 2008R2 servers that would not have an IPV4 gateway IP address after a reboot. If I entered one and saved it, then went back and looked, it would be gone again immediately. These machines were ESXi5 VMs but that should not have mattered, you'll see why.

I saw lots of articles about going into the registry and adding the gateway IP address when it disappears and cannot be added again normally. Nope. That should not be a fix anyway, more of a hack.
Other articles about deleting the hidden NICs, etc. Still no.

The issue for me was Symantec Enterprise Protection (SEP). Some of the servers here had a version 11 package with firewall, network protection, whatever, enabled. In my defense this was before my time. I do not typically let SEP handle the firewall on server OS's. We upgraded to version 12 package that did not have the firewall enabled. The upgrade from the management console does not call for a reboot because we're all about uptime these days right? Symantec is under the same pressure I'm sure. Well a week or 2 later when our scheduled maintenance patching came around, the machine booted. Bang, no gateway.

The 'no reboot required' install for SEP upgrades works fine normally except in the case when you go from firewall to no firewall. Evidently you need to remove the firewall while still in version 11, or remove SEP version 11 entirely, and reboot, then upgrade.

If you are already stuck with no gateway, like I was, here is the order of things to get back online.

1. Get a version 11 package with the firewall enabled onto a CD or ISO file that you can mount to the Windows OS (because you are unable to get on the network)
2. Uninstall SEP12, you can leave LiveUpdate on.
3. Reboot
4. Reinstall the SEP11 package with firewall
5. Reboot (you should get your gateway back here)
6. Uninstall SEP11 with firewall
7. Reboot
8. Reinstall 12, done.

According to Symantec support, this is a 'known issue' and will be fixed in the next version. How that happens when it is more a problem with the old version, I do not know. Also there have been several releases of version 12 already. If they were going to prompt to uninstall you would think it would have already been instituted.

Anyway hope this helps someone!

Charlie

Hello!

First post. 

I am brand new to blogging. No kidding right? The reason it came to this is I find a lot of interesting methods in administrating all things IT that I would like to share with others. Or remember for myself :) Or should be documented somewhere but I had to work to get so I'll share.

A little background. I have been in IT since 1998 or so. Before that I turned wrenches. Yeah long story. You can find me in LinkedIn also. I am an MCSE many times over since NT4, a 3 time VCP and have worked in some amazing environments.

I hope my posts help someone


Charlie