December – 2011 – www.gavinwill.me.uk

Disable User Registration in Mantis

Mantis bug tracker by default has an option to allow signups with the user obtaining reporter access. We needed to disable the registration so that only Administrator’s of Mantis could add accounts. Initially I thought of commenting out the registration link by modifying the php but this would most likely appear again when we updated Mantis next.

Turns out it is really simple in mantis to disable registration, you simply need to add the following in the config_inc.php file.

#Disable user registration. Only Admins can create accounts.
$g_allow_signup = OFF;

No Availible Server Running the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication Service

I needed to export and delete a few mailboxes from an Exchange 2010 server. I normally export these mailboxes using the command:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox auser -FilePath "\\server\share\auser.pst"

However today I was presented with the error – There are no availible servers running the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication Service.

Mailbox move requests are handled by the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication service which is part of the Client Access role. In order for a move request to be successfully created at least one Client Access server within the Active Directory site must have a running Mailbox Replication service. With this specific site there was only the 1 Exchange server that held all the roles, Therefore I had to confirm the service “Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication” was running. In this case it was not so I simply started it and retried the command to export the mailbox which worked after this service had started.

Get Time From Remote Windows PC

I noticed some drift on our server from the correct time from NTP. After resyncing I wanted to ensure the clients were updated also. I didnt want to interrupt the users so I used a VBScript to remotely get the time from a specific computer. Just specify the computer name and run the VBS:

strComputer = "computername"
 
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
 
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * From Win32_LocalTime")
 
For Each objItem in colItems
    strTime = objItem.Hour & ":" & objItem.Minute & ":" & objItem.Second
    dtmTime = CDate(strTime)
    Wscript.Echo FormatDateTime(dtmTime, vbFormatLongTime)
Next

VI Cheat Sheet

Found this handy VI cheat sheet over at Smashing Magazine. You know if it is on Smashing Magazine that it will be good. Here is a direct link to the PDF.

Force AD replication across all Domain Controllers

Using repadmin.exe it is really easy to quickly force a replication across all Domain Controllers.

Simply use the command:

Repadmin /syncall DCName /APed

An explanation of the switches – /syncall obviously syncs all DCs. APed is the parameters A(ll partitions) P(ush) e(nterprise, cross sites) d(istinguished names)

Repadmin is a very handy tool you can even see the queue of items waiting to be synced by running

Repadmin /queue *

Old DHCP servers still listed in Active Directory

With having completed a migration from SBS 2003 to seperate Domain Controllers and Exchange 2010 I noticed that when starting DHCP administrative tool from my workstation that when selecting the authorized DHCP server it still listed the old server along with the new server where DHCP was now running. Whilst this did not cause any real problems I wanted to clean it up and reduce confusion by only showing valid authorised DHCP server.

The command

Netsh DHCP show server

shows the authorised servers.

The command

Netsh DHCP delete server ServerFQDN ServerIP address

should remove the server from the list however I recieved the error:

“There is no such object on the server”

To get around this I had to use the very handy (but potentially dangerous) tool ADSI Edit. To remove the old dhcp server reference you need to :

1. Start Adsiedit.msc.
2. Open the configuration Container.
3. Expand Services.
4. Expand Net Services.

In here I saw a reference to the server that was the old DHCP server and was now decomissioned and removed from the network. Therefore I selected the old server and deleted. A quick check again running

Netsh DHCP show server

showed the correct servers. Using the DHCP administrative tool it also showed the correct authorised server. A small point but keeping Active Directory clean is an important task.

Exchange 2010 Service Pack 2 Released today

Exchange 2010 service pack 2 has been released today. It doesnt seem as big a jump as SP1 but still good to see this release.

Major changes just now appear to be

Outlook Web App (OWA) Mini: A browse-only version of OWA designed for low bandwidth and resolution devices. Based on the existing Exchange 2010 SP1 OWA infrastructure, this feature provides a simple text based interface to navigate the user’s mailbox and access to the global address list from a plurality of mobile devices.
Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App: With Service Pack 2, you will have the ability to enable silent redirection when CAS must redirect an OWA request to CAS infrastructure located in another Active Directory site. Silent redirection can also provide a single sign-on experience when Forms-Based Authentication is used.
Hybrid Configuration Wizard: Organizations can choose to deploy a hybrid scenario where some mailboxes are on-premises and some are in Exchange Online with Microsoft Office 365. Hybrid deployments may be needed for migrations taking place over weeks, months or indefinite timeframes. This wizard helps simplify the configuration of Exchange sharing features, like: calendar and free/busy sharing, secure mailflow, mailbox moves, as well as online archive.
Address Book Policies: Allows organizations to segment their address books into smaller scoped subsets of users providing a more refined user experience than the previous manual configuration approach. We also blogged about this new feature recently in GAL Segmentation, Exchange Server 2010 and Address Book Policies.
Customer Requested Fixes: All fixes contained within update rollups released prior to Service Pack 2 will also be contained within SP2. Details of our regular Exchange 2010 release rhythm can be found in Exchange 2010 Servicing.

Outlook Web App Mini could be intersting. Please note that Installing Exchange 2010 SP2 requires updating the schema in Active Directory.

Query String .htacess Redirects

With changing the permalink structure of this site I wanted to ensure people could get to old published links to the correct page. .htaccess redirects I thought would cover this but the previous blog used querystrings for pages.

Example: www.gavinwill.me.uk/?page_id=26

I thought that you could simply use .htaccess file to redirect such as :

Redirect /?page_id=26  http://www.gavinwill.me.uk/?portfolio_category=general

However this did not work. It turns out that you need to use rewrites and not redirects so I ended up having to use:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^page_id=26$
RewriteRule ^$ http://www.gavinwill.me.uk/?portfolio_category=general [R=301,L]

This works well. I just need to change the regex on the initial request a little and it should cover almost all the old published links

Problem Steps Recorder in Windows 7 / Server 2008

I cant believe in all my time in IT and supporting Windows machines I have not hear of PSR before. PSR is a tool availible to Windows 7 and 2008 that records the steps a user takes and presents each step as a screen grab with information on the application that is being used along with detailed information on the programs that are bing used. I can see this being a really handy tool for supporting remote users since sometimes it can be difficult and timeconsuming to find out exaclty what the user is doing and what steps they are taking when describing a problem.

The text description for the above step is:

Problem Step 2: User left click on "All Programs (menu item)" in "Start menu" Program: Windows Explorer, 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255), Microsoft Corporation, EXPLORER.EXE, EXPLORER.EXE UI Elements: All Programs, All Programs, Button, Desktop More Programs Pane, Start menu, DV2ControlHost

When the recording is stopped the user is then asked to save a Zipped mht file. Simply ask the user to forward this on to you and you can then easily review the recorded steps.

A sample output from PSR can be found here.

Asterisk O’Reilly Ebook

Anyone who uses Asterisk should download the O’Reilly book which is released under creative commons and is availible here from the O’Reilly Site. I am a big fan of O’Reilly books. In my experience they seem to be able to convey the technical information a lot better than other publishers.

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Monthly: December 2011