Control your data on a 2003 file server

I came across this article at Tech Republic and am impressed.  I will be implementing this shortly in a network and follow-up with my findings.

 

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=201&tag=nl.e102

 

The ability to restrict not just mp3s, but perhaps make it so only certain types of file can be saved in certain locations is what I am really after.

Run Internet Explorer on *nix

Hmm this could be an interesting way to mitigate MS saturation in to a network.  The downside is that the legal use of it still requires an MS OS license.

 

http://techrepublic.com.com/2415-7343_11-169540.html?tag=nl.e102

IIS 6.0 Nuances

Today while rearranging some IIS websites I came across a particularly frustrating challenge.

 

The work that was carried out involved adding an additional IP (and NIC) to our web server.  Host headers were not an option because the sites use SSL.  After applying all the necessary NIC and firewall settings, the pre-existing website, when assigned to this new IP address, would not start.  It came back with the message stating that there was a potential conflict using the same ports.

 

Interestingly, I was able to create a new site which would start.  I created this site with the ip from the setup wizard.  So what seems to have happened here is the metabase did not get updated appropriately for the pre-existing site.  rather than utilise a tool such as httpconfig in this situation, it was far quicker to simply create the new site.  If the websites were many, or were part of a cluster, then using the httpconfig windows support tool would have almost been needed.

Firefox and NTLM Authentication

A network I support has a number of Firefox users.  Recently after strengthening their GP settings to enhance security, Firefox users started to experience issues logging in to IIS servers that use intregrated authentication.  This is because by default Digest Authentication is used by FireFox.  In order to enable NTLM authentication in Firefox, I used the information in this link:  http://www.cauldwell.net/patrick/blog/PermaLink,guid,c7f1e799-c4ae-4758-9de7-5c3e7a16f3da.aspx

 

Basically, network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris setting in FireFox needs to have the servers listed for which NTLM authentication will be required.

 

If Proxies are required, this setting will be of use:  network.automatic-ntlm-auth.allow-proxies

 

For those wanting a more original source of information, please see the mozilla knowledge base:  http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris

The Powershell

On of the nice things I have found useful with the powershell, is the resiliency it provides over a command prompt.

 

A while ago I was copying some directory structures that have some archaic deny permissions set here and there.  In a scramble (You can tell this environment is organized, can't you?) to copy the folder structure and files, I did something like:

 

xcopy c:\FolderParent\* e:\NewFolder\ /E

 

Unfortuneately, at the first access-denied problem, the copy process gets aborted.  Nor does any information get displayed about where the copy stopped.

 

The Powershell allows you to do something like:

 

copy-item c:\FolderParent\ e:\NewFolder\ -recurse

 

This will output any errors in red (by default) but continue on copying the rest of the data (which is listed by default).  You can also tack on the -exclude command to leave out files AND folders that have the specified string (like *.txt).

 

Now if I take the time, I should be able to doctor up a nice master script that will output a complete log, and an estimated time to copy x GBs !

The Glory of a UPS

Since I have last posted I have passed my 70-290 exam.

I am now working on the 70-291 and CCNA 60-801 exams. The 70-291 seems to be mostly about technical knowledge and the use of Network Monitor.

Back when I passed the 70-290 I had registered for the CCNA-INTRO exam. I missed a PASS by about 2 questions (12 points or something) which was a bit of a bummer. So, now I am going to take the CCNA full-on in the next few weeks, as the exam completely changes in early November 2007 and I REALLY do not want to lose any study hours I have put in thus far!

So last week I migrated a box that had the role of file server. This basically meant that most of the company's important stuff was there, and everything else scattered about where there is space. In the throws of a last-minute rushed migration, I hooked up one of our nice new APC UPS's. Coincidentally the following week (This Monday morning!) the local power company decides to yo-yo the grid for the entire morning. The bonus? Our UPS works wonderfully. The drawback, everybody still experienced down-time at their workstations.

It has been a late night of studying for the CCNA. Now I am off to bed and ready to take on tomorrows onslaught of machinistic demands :-) Now if I could just learn how to master a PIX in a couple hours... That would bode well for my network overhaul project!