Jacob's Insidious Ramblings

Original configuration
Originally I had a desktop computer running Windows 2003 Server as a DC. I ran it in ’2000-Mixed mode’ for Samba’s sake as I was told it was important to do so. I eventually used the VMware Converter to make the DC a VM to run on my IBM as a guest. Samba ran underneath it authenticating off of the guest DC. That was not the most ideal solution but it worked mostly well. Due to some recent drive troubles on the IBM I had to come up with another solution. It was the SATA drives, not the SCSI, starting to have problems.

Dell Server status at the time
I was trying to get everything working on the Dell as a VMware ESXi Server. Most of the things were working right but a storage solution for the data was not coming up properly due to the limited driver support of SATA controllers and of course my budget. I still needed to have a workable solution so I could try to keep my data safe.

New configuration for the Dell
Finally I got tired of the whole BS since, at the same time, I was trying to make sure my backups were good that I had pulled often enough from the IBM. I backed up the VMs and then installed Windows 2008.

Once I had it installed and updated I tried the SATA controllers that I had and had to use the Vista drivers as I could not find official 2008 drivers. When the controller would get saturated it would cause a weird memory error and that would make Windows do a blue screen. As soon as I removed the controller everything else worked fine.

Once I got the machine updated and removed the offending hardware things started to calm down. I attached it to my domain and then created the shares and all that. I copied the data to the server in the specific shares and altered my VB login script to point to the new server. Once I made sure things worked properly it was then time to make it a DC.

As I said earlier, it was running in ’2000 Mixed mode’ so there was more work to do. I changed it to native and let things calm down. I then updated it to 2003 on both the forest and domain. Once I did that I ran the deploy script, from the 2008 Server DVD, on the schema master and that updated the schema. It took a good ten minutes or so since it was running as a guest and not doing too well due to the hard drive problems. Once it was updated I set the 2008 machine up as a DC. Once I made sure any possible errors were ironed out I then removed the old DC after a day of running. Once the old DC was removed I made sure no errors were popping up and then changed the Forest and Domain to 2008 mode.

After ironing out any lingering issues on the DC I went ahead and installed VMware 2.x Server and put two of my backed up VMs on the server. Once is a Linux Shell server with 512M of RAM. The other is a Windows XP Professional SP3 running 512M of RAM. They both seem to run fine as guests on the server and do not load it up too much.

The other day at work I needed to upgrade the functional level of the AD Forest from Windows 2000 to 2003 R2. I was going to add another server and make it the main AD server. It is running 2003 R2 but the rest in the domain controllers are running 2003 RTM with service pack 2 of course. Anyway, from what I remembered, upgrading the level would not be a rebootable procedure but I could not find absolute proof even on Microsoft’s technet site. I proceeded to do every check in the book that I could to make sure that AD was working great. Everything checked out and so I went and upgraded it to plain ol’ 2003 first. On a side note, the domain level was already 2003. After that I had to use the second CD that came with 2003 R2 and run the ‘adprep /forestprep’ on the schema master. It made me a little nervous but it worked fine and still no reboots were required which I was thankful for and expected but with Microsoft you don’t always know. Just make sure you run the adprep command from the Schema Master. That part is important to the success of the upgrade. After that I was able to install AD on the new server. With Windows 2003 R2 the adprep command is located on the second CD in the path of ‘CMPNENTS\R2\ADPREP’.

I have been using Windows 7 RC1 for a little while on my laptop, as it’s only OS, and for the most part I think it is ready. There were a few issues I noticed but hopefully they got them ironed out before they put the code to RTM(Release to Manufacturing). Honestly, if you held off getting Vista but want to upgrade one day, wait until 7 comes out. It does take care of some of the nagging issues of Vista and overall seems faster. If I can afford to drop the coin necessary to get it, I will soon after it is released.

Not too long ago I went to a Microsoft Event to learn more about Windows 2008 and of course get a copy of it so I will be able to set it up and learn about it even more than I already knew. The reason I said ‘already knew’ is because not too long before I came to the event I was able to work on Windows 2008 Standard up at work. I got it running on a new server and it will be our Terminal Server.

It has a few new features that I find very useful. One is the TS Gateway. It allows you to use the Remote Desktop Connection to burrow through a TS from the Internet using only port 443(https) and either connect to the TS itself or to other servers(and workstations). Of course you can lock it down and it actually works rather well. It works the same way that Outlook 2003 and 2007 fully connect to an Exchange 2003 or 2007 server safely over the Internet. It uses what is called RPC over HTTP(s). Let me just say that the TS Gateway makes things easier on the remote connection front. No need to mess with VPN bs or anything like that. Of course you would want to always make sure the TS Gateway is up to date. The TS Gateway requires at least RDC version 6.0. Windows XP SP2 with the RDC update or Vista come with it. Part of the settings are under the advanced tab on the configuration portion of RDC.

Anyway, another neat trick is something they seemed to have swiped(at least the idea) from Citrix. You can have a Web page, authenticated and encrypted of course, set up to share programs. This works well and allows you to run the program from the TS like it is running on your workstation. It even natively supports Dual Monitors. It is actually called RemoteApp. It is a bit more limited than it’s Citrix counterpart but it works just fine for regular usage. It does not support sharing applications per user. When you share an application, all users that are allowed to bring up the RemoteApp can run those apps. One glaring irritation is that the RDC version required is 6.1(partially due to the ActiveX plugin that comes with that version only). It currently is not being released as a separate product or update. It is part of Vista SP1 or XP SP3. SP1 for Vista has been released and seems to work well but XP3 has not been released but is scheduled to this month. We will see how well XP SP3 works…

I had the chipset fan on my motherboard go out a few weeks ago which started to cause rebooting issues every few days on my main desktop. I found a replacement the day before Thanksgiving. It is a huge heatsink without a fan which seems to be doing the job. I think that the job was done to Windows before I got a chance to fix the problem. Before, the reboots were so sudden Windows could not do a BSOD and now Windows seemed to be doing BSOD’s on me. After debugging the dump file it looked like it was the network driver(I hope). So far things seem to be stable after updating all the chipset drivers and network drivers. While I was at it I went ahead and updated my video drivers. I will be hoping that things are stable this coming week. If not then I may have to reinstall Windows. If that does not fix it then I think my MB may be crap and I will have to rip hardware from my secondary workstation. That is something I really do not want to do. Anyway, later…

I got a copy of the newest beta of Microsoft’s most recent offering of Windows. The install is beyond simple from what I have seen so far. I am installing it on my Dell Latitude C640. All the specs are fine for it except for the video card so I will find out how bad the new GUI runs on it. I may post a few more items with it as the topic with my thoughts and comments soon.

It has been a little while since I have done any posting to the blog. When I have not been busy I have been tired of doing too much with computers. I know that sounds scary if you know me, but I am doing better now. I updated some of the software running houstonjuggalos.com. It is a site that I am just the ‘code monkey’ for so don’t get any ideas. heh… I am enjoying things mostly. I am also slimming down my pile of computer junk slowly. I may have trouble not accepting old computer hardware but once I mess with it and make something useful I am finding it easier to get rid of it. The same can be said for hardware that does not work or is flaky. I am tired to dealing with that crap. Anyway, while I am typing this I am putting the finishing touches on my laptop image that I am creating. When I am done I will never have to reinstall Windows on my laptop again because I will have it set to just need a restore DVD put in the drive to get it back working in case I hose the OS.

I finally got my Win2k Server running again. I got a storage repository again. w00t… I still have it sitting on the bench though making sure it works fine before I hold the heavy-assed thing in the air with one arm and screw it back into the rack(yes, the case is rack-mountable). Once this one is done and put in the closet I am hoping to get to the FreeBSD box and this time get it the exact way I want to right after an install.

Time has not been kind to me. I have to soon find time to get my Windows 2000 server going again and I plan to rebuild my Unix server that is running FreeBSD. I might wait until the 5.x series goes to stable if it has not already. It really depends on my mood of course. Once I get the Win2k Server back going it will be my primary file server for my wife and I. I plan to figure out a way to do monthly backups of the data on it just in case. The FreeBSD box is still running www.lackofpants.com on my home connection. Currently it is using 4.9 Release. While I may trust FreeBSD more than Windows I do know that no OS is perfect security wise so I have the BSD box behind a DMZ with only the necessary port(s) forwarded to that machine. It is totally seperated from the rest of my network as it should be.

Kramer was revived and is working again. I do not, as of yet, have Active Directory enabled on it but it is working fine as a local file server again. Now, my main system can back itself up to somewhere again. I am working on a computer right now that I am thinking of calling “Beast”. It might end up storing all the extra hard drives that are of any decent size, become the file server, and Active Directory Controller. Kramer I think will become a mail server for lackofpants.com. I plan to leave the two 20gig hard drives in it. Well, I gotta get back to what I was working on. Later…