• Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Windows Server

    Article in March 2011 MacTech

    This month, for MacTech Magazine, I wrote an article called “Implementing File & Print Services on Windows Servers for Mac OS X Clients.” The article, written with the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, focuses again on replacing Xserve hardware in rack dense environments with services running on Windows. In this article I focused on ExtremeZ-IP and using Centrify to publish shares as automounts. It’s another step in a step-by-step technical approach at deploying Mac OS X clients in Windows environments. Hope you enjoy!

  • Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment,  Network Infrastructure,  Windows Server

    Using the ExtremeZ-IP Command Line

    When you are configuring ExtremeZ-IP as a print server, you will need to set up and configure each printer. However, if you already have setup and configured printer queues for the Windows server, you can import existing queues into ExtremeZ-IP. This can be done programatically via the ExtremeZ-IP EZIPUTIL command line tool. EZIPUTIL has a number of options, whereby the SERVER option is used to configure global settings for ExtremeZ-IP, VOLUME is used to create, edit and delete print queues and PRINT is used to manage shared print queues. Each of the options also has a number of switches for the feature(s) that are being managed. These are structured as…

  • Windows Server,  Xsan

    Installing Windows Clients for Xsan & StorNext

    There are a lot of environments that attach Windows client computers to an Xsan or StorNext filesystem. In the past I’ve looked at using different versions of StorNext to communicate with Xsan, but in this article we’re actually going to take a look at Quantum’s StorNext FX2 client software. Before getting started, you’ll want to have the StorNext media, have the serial number added to the metadata controllers, have the HBA (fibre channel card) installed, have the fibre patched into the HBA, have the IP addresses for the metadata controllers documented and have a copy of the .auth_secret file obtainable from the metadata controllers once they’ve been properly licensed. To…

  • Windows Server

    Exchange 2010 Installation Error

    When installing Microsoft’s Exchange 2010, the installation will force you to correct some errors with the system before it will complete. One of these will indicate the error that “The start mode for the Net. TCP Port Sharing service must be set to Automatic before Setup can continue”. When you encounter this error, there is a quick and easy powershell command that you will need to run. To proceed, click on the powershell icon in the system tray of your server. Then run the following command. Set-Service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType Automatic Once run, the setup check will complete the indicated step as intended.

  • Windows Server

    Exporting Service Settings on Windows Server

    The netsh command can be used to manage network interfaces, control routing and one of the lesser-used features that I’ve seen are to import and export service settings with Windows Servers. This can be especially helpful if you need to normalize data for import into another Windows server or to be normalized for use with another server platform. To export your DHCP information, from a command prompt in Windows you would run the netsh command along with the service you are exporting settings for (WINS, DHCP, etc). After the service identifier you would indicate the action being performed (ie – import or export in this context), followed by a file…

  • Unix,  Windows Server,  Xsan

    Setting up CHAP on LeftHand w/ CLI

    LeftHand Storage uses the cliq command line for configuring their devices. cliq isn’t necessarily interactive and so we end up needing to specify the username, password and IP of the device with each command (although you can setup a key as well if you’re going to be doing automated tasks). One task that I’ve found to be pretty common is to use cliq to enable Chap authentication for volumes. To do so you’ll use the assignVolumeChap verb. Along with the assignVolumeChap verb you will need a number of options, each with an = for the payload of the option and delimited with a space between them. When using the assignVolumeChap…

  • Mac OS X,  Windows Server

    RDP from the Command Line

    Let’s face it, connecting to Windows Servers is a must for many of us. And some of us want to do so programatically. I did look at populating the CoRD database in a previous article. But now, luckily CoRD has recently introduced a command line interface for managing just these types of connections on the fly as well. And, it is very straight forward. There are two ways to call CoRD from the command line. The first is similar to how we handled VNC in an earlier article. Simply leverage the open command and call the URL with a rdp in the beginning. For example, if you want to open…

  • Windows Server,  Windows XP

    Windows 7: Disable USB Storage

    In a number of environments, especially MPAA or DoD environments (in the US we rank nuclear bombs right up there with pilfered copies of unreleased movies, especially ones that cost a lot of $ to make), users should not be able to mount any local removable storage. While Group Policy is typically the best way to keep users from mounting said storage, you can also do so without assigning GPOs. Simply make the permissions on the following files set to Deny (assuming your c:Windows directory = %SystemRoot%): C:WindowsInfUsbstor.pnf C:WindowsInfUsbstor.inf You may also need to add the System account to the Deny list for those files, but in my experience you…

  • Windows Server,  Windows XP

    Show Desktop Icon for Windows & Windows 7

    Ever delete the Show Desktop icon from Quick Launch? One of my favorite features of Windows, it is a big part of my everyday use of the OS. So when I accidentally deleted it I had to figure out how to get it back. And it wasn’t nearly as easy as I would have thought (in my case) as I had deleted the actual scf file. To recreate that file was a bit complicated. So I wanted to document my steps. First, create a new file called Show Desktop.scf. Then open the file in your favorite text editor and paste in these contents: [Shell] Command=2 IconFile=explorer.exe,3 [Taskbar] Command=ToggleDesktop Save the…