• Microsoft Exchange Server,  Windows Server

    Defragment and Repair Exchange Information Stores

    An Exchange Information Store is a database. A Standard Exchange Server can host 3 Information Store databases. Each is a Jet database and can exist at its own file path and will have a .edb file extension. You can manually defrag an Exchange database using a tool called eseutil. In this case, you’ll encounter from 5 to 20 minutes of downtime per gig of the Information Store. You can run eseutil, Eseutil can be run to scan a database to determine whether an offline defragmentation is necessary. You can run eseutil to manually determine the space that could be saved with a defrag. To do so, run eseutil with the…

  • public speaking

    My MacSysAdmin Presentations For Today

    The first presentation I’ll be doing at MacSysAdmin today is on Windows Server in Mac OS X and iOS environments, which can be found here: MacSysAdmin_Windows The second presentation I’ll be doing today at MacSysAdmin is on iOS deployment, which can be found here: MacSysAdmin_iOS If you’re not able to attend then I hope you will enjoy. I’ll try and get them to Tycho for uploading to the official site asap.

  • Windows Server

    Installing the DHCP Service in Windows Server

    With the DHCP service no longer in the Server apps provided by Apple (for the most part), it’s important to look at alternative solutions to host the service. The DHCP Service in Windows Server is a Role that a Windows Server can fill that dynamically assigns IP addresses to client computers requesting addresses. The DHCP Role is easily added using the Server Manager application, available in the Administrative Tools menu of the Start Menu. Once opened, click on the Add Roles button. At the Select Server Roles screen, locate DHCP Server and then check the box for it, which will allow you to click on the Next button. At the…

  • Windows Server

    Setting FTP Banners in IIS

    IIS is a pretty straight forward system to manage. One of the more common post-flight tasks for setups of IIS is to configure FTP banners. In Server 2003, this can be done by opening Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager from Start > Administrative Tools. Then, browse to the server name > FTP Sites > Default FTP Site (or the name of the one you would like to configure if you have multiple per server) and then click on the Properties for the site. At the FTP Site Properties pane, click on the Messages tab. Here, you can provide a Banner to be shown to unauthorized users, a Welcome page, to…

  • VMware,  Windows Server

    Windows Server 2008 R2

    Can you say virtualization? How about “better together”? Do you care about Hyper-V or Windows 7 integration right now? If the answer to either question is yes (and in my experience that’s not always actually the case) then you will want to check out R2. One of the biggest new features in R2 is one that VMware has had for about 5 or so years in Live Migration, the ability to move a virtual machine, while it’s running (assuming the application in use supports the ability to do so and that you’re using Clustered Shared Volumes). This includes failover in Cluster Node Connectivity Fault Tolerance. SC VMM, or System Center Virtual Machine…

  • Windows Server

    Setting up DFS in Windows Server 2008

    The first task that you will complete setting up any WIndows Server 2008 is to set up a Server Role. To do so, open Server Manager and click on Add Roles. At the Add Roles Wizard, click on the Next button to show a list of roles to add. Check the box for File Services and click on the Next button. Click on Next again. At the Select Role Services screen, you’ll see that File Server is checked. This will install the SMB/CIFS services. You’ll also see Distributed File System. Check the box for Distributed File System and the then check the boxes for DFS Namespaces if you want to…

  • Windows Server

    Adding a Role in Windows Server 2008

    Installing services in Windows Server has always been a straight forward affair.  In Windows Server 2008, much of the role addition is wizardly and provides administrators with a guided setup.  To get started, open Server Manager from Start -> Administrative Tools.  Then, click on Roles under the appropriate server in the side bar to the left of the screen.  Next, click on Add Roles and then after reading the Before You Begin screen, click on the Next button. At the listing of available roles, click on the role you would like to install and highlight the checkbox for the role, clicking on the Next button once all roles that you…

  • Windows Server,  Windows XP

    Windows Server 2008: Expanding a Volume

    You may find that a disk in Windows Server simply isn’t big enough for your greedy applications.  But never fear, the good folks at Microsoft have given us the ability to expand that volume on the fly, as needed by adding other pools of storage or single disks to it.  However, it’s important to keep in mind that if you have a highly available volume (let’s just say a RAID6) and you add a single disk to it then you have just effectively lost the high availability for the data stored on the extended portion of the volume.  So make sure that the new storage you are adding matches up…

  • Active Directory

    Extend the AD Schema in 2008 Server using ldifde

    To import directory objects, at the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:  ldifde–i-ffilename-sservername:port-m-ausername domain password To export directory objects, at the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:  ldifde-e-ffilename-sservername:port-m-ausername domain password

  • Active Directory,  Mass Deployment,  Windows Server

    Windows Server 2008: Install RIS and WDS

    In Windows Server 2008 you can use the Server Manager application to enable RIS (part of Windows Deployment Services, WDS).  To do so, open Server Manager and click on Roles in the left column.  Then click on Next and read the Introduction to WDS items.  It’s worth noting that you can setup your server as a Transport Server in WDS, which is a bit like Multicast clustering (eg – multicast ASR imaging for the Mac).  It’s also worth noting that a Deployment Server will use parts of the Transport Server to do its job so you’ll need to install both.  Once you’re satisfied with your selection, click Next and then…