Virtual machine addins for Server Core

So you're eager to get your hands dirty on Microsoft latest OS, maybe you already have. As techies we always intend to be on virtual PC's to test the latest stuff and learn new settings and tweaks. Windows server 2008 has more to offer in this area. Windows core is pretty interesting method of using the windows server OS.

One problem I came across with server Core is how to install the virtual machine addins to it. I'm using Microsoft virtual PC 2007 and after the initial OS setup I ran the virtual PC addins from the actions menu. Well it suppose to star the installation automatically right... well too bad it didn't happen. I hope you folks are well aware why we need the virtual addins to the virtual PC. Basically they are emulated drivers which enhance the response in the virtual machine and communication between the guest and the host PC.

So in order to install the addins you need to mount the cd / iso image to virtual PC. Under action menu when you click install the virtual PC addins it automatically mounts the iso image to the cd-rom in the virtual PC. To verify that you can click the CD icon in the menu and see if you have the option Release "VMaddtions.iso" So rest we carry out in the command prompt.

In my case the cd rom drive letter is D. If you have more than one virtual HDD installed then the drive letter can be different. Never the less you can browse the virtual CD and then get into the windows folder and then run the Setup.exe Once that start you'll able the see the GUI installation of the virtual machine addition setup.

In the above picture I have been prompted to remove the addins since I have already installed them earlier. But I hope you guys get the point.

Network shares not accessible in Windows 2008

I have recently installed Windows server 2008. After that upgraded it as a Domain controller. (more information will come in future about this) Since after that our internal users have
experienced network /connection problems to the server.
At least once a day I must reboot the server so that users can access the shared folders in the server. Since I host a database in this machine this problem has become a real headache and a panic to me.

Users with offline files get notice that they are no longer connected to the server. They can't sync etc.
When this happens you can still ping the server. Remote desktop to the server works 100% and the server seems to be working without any error.Tested the cabling and all the links passed the tests.

So finally found out the problem relates to Symantec EndPoint protection anti virus software. I've been using ver 11 MR2. Further digging into this matter came up with the below mention article released by Symantec

http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/docid/2008061812370848?Open&seg=ent

Apart from that Microsoft has acknowledged this problem can occur if you're having outdated NIC driver.

After removing the AV software users back to business. I guess I'll have to test out the latest version of the Symantec (MR3) and then see if that solved the problem. Will update you all once I get my hands into SEP MR3 version.

Installing Ubuntu 8.10 To A USB Flash Drive

ONE of the features of Ubuntu 8.10 I have overlooked in my recent review was the utility included for creating a bootable version of Linux OS on a USB Flash memory stick.
Personally I love the idea of having a whole operating system on a memory stick - it appeals to the geek in me and I love the look on a non-geek's face when you boot up their machine and your operating system comes up instead of theirs!
But one of the issues I have frequently come across with such pocket-sized OSes is, how to make them persistent ie. getting any changes you make in the live environment to remain for your next boot.
With the latest version of Ubuntu, however, everything you need is included in the GNOME menu - just look in System>Administration>Create a USB startup disk (this was also available in Ubuntu 8.04).
The procedure to get Ubuntu installed, working and persistent is really very simple indeed.

1. Download the Ubuntu 8.10 ISO and burn it to a CD
2. Restart your computer, booting from the Live CD
3. Insert a 1GB or larger USB flash drive
4. Navigate to System>Administration>Create a USB startup disk
5. Next, select the USB disk to use, select the option 'Stored in reserved extra space' and adjust the sider to set the capacity you wish to use (I set mine at 2GB on an 8GB stick), then click the 'Make Startup Disk' button. It is not a fast process, so go and make a coffee
6. Once the installation is complete, simply remove the CD, restart your computer and set your boot menu or BIOS to boot from the USB device.

This last step will vary according to how you BIOS is set up, but on my machine it was a case of holding down the F2 button during the boot process, then editing the Boot Devices section to make sure USB came first, followed by CD then HDD.
And that, basically, is it. Thanks to Ubuntu's inclusion of the application Casper, any subsequent changes you make or data you create will be saved in the slice of the flash drive you created during step 5.
So as you can see this feature will become very handy if you want to help someone to recover files in his/her computer when things go wrong.

Windows XP and Vista also can be customized like this but not for the USB level but as bootable cd/DVD. BartPE is a good place to look into how to part.

End of Microsoft OneCare and new kid in the block

Microsoft has recently announced their plan to stop selling the Live OneCare security suite by June 30 2009 and the intention to replace it with a free security kit called Morro.
Morro will be a PC security solution but will be also have a smaller footprint tailored for “smaller PC form factors” such as netbooks, and will be “ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less powerful PCs”. It will offer protection against viruses, spyware, trojans and rootkits. Morro will use the same engine as Live OneCare does.
Morro is announced for the second half of 2009 just in time for Windows 7 and Vista SP2. Morro won’t be integrated into Windows, but it will be offered as a separate download, perhaps in order to avoid another antitrust suit. It will offer basic malware protection for Windows XP SP3, Vista and future Windows 7. Morro will be free.
Microsoft has also announced that it will discontinue the Live OneCare subscription by June 30 2009. Beside security protection, Live OneCare currently offers printer sharing, data backup and PC tune-up, features that will not be made available in Morro. Live OneCare costs $50 for 3 PCs for one year and counts for 2% of the market, while Live OneCare for Server is a dead product which might explain the move.

Server migration made easy with Symantec

This is a another successful job I complete recently which I wanted to share with you all. The scenario is to move an production application service from a desktop PC to a new server with minimal impact to the production environment. 
The desktop has been running Latest Anti virus Management service in it with windows 2003 server OS and serving nearly 1000 clients PC's. Everything running smoothly until we hit the idea of this was running in a standard desktop PC.

So we brought a new IDM server with a Xeon processor and a Raid 0 build. Our main task has been moving the AV server database and the roles from the production PC to the server but not doing any installation at the client PC's. Client PC's' has been distributed around the country and hence doing any modification to all of them would take months time which we dare even to dream. So we came up the idea of testing this with one of the software offered by Symantec called as Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery.

First we install the software the production server and ran the Liveupdate to make sure it get the latest software updates to the particular software. After that we had to register the product. Registration is necessary if you're doing a migration for dissimilar hardware which is true in our case. Ran the disk cleanup and in house cleaning for prior to the image creation. After that using the BESR we created and image of the C partion in a network drive.

Now the part of moving the image to the new server. Before that according to the Symantec information we created a custom bootable recovery CD. This CD has a database of most hardware device drivers you can find in the market. Boot the new server with the BESR recovery CD and once boot we are been welcome to a VISTA PE environment and asking the question to star the network services. Since we have our image created in a network share we wanted to start the network service in the new server. Assign a static IP to the new server and then we map the network which contains the image. Once that completed in the main page we had the option to select to recover my computer and then give the path to the image file. Once the image has been identified we have to go through several screen requesting how we want to restore the image, one important option is to select we're doing a restore to a different hardware. Apart from that you get the chance of changing the partion size, verify the image after restoration, restore the MBR...etc. Once those options has been adjusted it matter about the time it take to restore the image from the network to the target machine. Restoration time will be entirely depend on the network or the hardware equipment. If you have copied the image to a external removable media and trying to restore it from there this process will be much more quicker. For the above process it took 25 minutes to restore 30GB image over the network. Assuming if you had gigabit network or less traffic in that network the time will be reduced dramatically.

Once the restoration is completed target server restarted and went through the process of detecting the new HAL components. The only time it stops is for requesting the raid controller driver which we provided from the network location path itself which we have copied earlier. Once the process is completed we had to add the server to the domain. Entire process took around 1.5 hours and the new serer is up and running to server the clients!!

As you can imagine this is real time save to move old servers to new servers without a sweat. We've been using this tool to convert our live servers to virtual environment then virtualizes all the servers as well. If you have specific questions you can PM me or alternatively you can meet me via
MSN susanthasilva@hotmail.com

I've provide few links below which describe about the above mention software,

http://www.symantec.com/business/products/family.jsp?familyid=backupexec

http://techcenter.symantec.com/ecampus/enterprise?siteName=sena&courseNo=DP6000

New era in Anti virus software

This is silent war topic going on the AV vendors. As a person who's work related to this industry I thought of sharing my 2 cents opinion on this.

Few years back working with AV with the signature file updates has been pretty adequate. But the landscape changed dramatically with the rise of the various vulnerabilities coming from web as well than any one expected. So here we are now talking about spyware, malware, browser hijacking, man in the middle attacks, bots, phishing...etc (more to come in da future) So now all the AV vendors has identified protecting Pc's from virus signature files is no longer a reliable solution. So now we've been offered with a new solution called EndPoint Protection. So this time the explanton is we not only need to protect the individal pc's but as well as the endpoints like network ends. In a certain way this makes a pretty sense. Most of the employees are now working mobile and heavily depend on mobile devices like laptops, palmtops..so when they roam around the country, world they can bring pretty nasty vulnerabilities to your network. So this is the place where your first defense should work. In firewall we talk about this as layered security. So we protect the network from the endpoint level so Pc's will be check against the company security polices even before they are allowed to connect to the co-operate network. So the last defense would be the antivirus with various other components integrated.

So my understanding is network administrators and security mangers would give more attention to this and identify why endpoint security is more reliable. So the main quote is "AV is not enough for your company" Many AV vendors has already adopted this technology and come up with various solutions. Symantec, Mcafee, Kaspersky has already entered to this race. So give it a consideration how should you protect your network and doing so save your neck....!!!

VMware ESX Server 3i

It's been a while away from the blog. Been busy with new products related to Symantec. Well as you may all know Symantec is company famous for anti virus software right?? well not at all, it is selling antivirals for home users and enterprise market but the company is armored with more than 35 products itself and continue t grow everyday by technology accusation's. Anyway I went too far with Symantec products because now I'm working on those products.

So VMware back into my life with their latest edition for the enterprise market. VMWare ESX server. Now we all ma have used VMware workstation for and VMware server in our home pc's for testing applications and operating systems. But VMware ESX is the big daddy of all of them and actually involve in server virtualization, resource management and cost savings...etc. This product is not depend n windows or Linux as a host OS but starting with it's own OS! By doing so it make sure it'll take minimum hardware resources from your actual serer and let the raw power to be distributed to the virtual PCs. Most of the enterprise data centers move to VMware ESX for numerous reasons and few are as follows,

1 Decreases power, cooling, floor space and infrastructure.
2 Simplifies disaster recovery and business continuity requirements.
3 Increases server utilization from the typical averages of 5-15% to 60-80%.
4 Faster deployment of information technology resources reduces time to market.
5 Lower operational costs associated with reduced resource management and administration.
6 Improves application performance by dynamically adapting storage and server resources to meet peek usage cycles. and much much more.
So I thought of sharing some VMware guru's articles into this blog to make it more useful for everyone.

http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-esx-server-3i.htm

http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-infrastructure-esx.htm

http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-consolidated-backup-utilities.htm

Happy Virtualization to all.

Happy New Year 2008!!!

It's a another fresh start and lots of things to cover. So how it's going to be for us in IT side? Well let's ride and see...