The Network Administrator

SecureCRT is a great full featured SSH Client, to make secure remote access easier. SSH is the industry standard as telnet, and other methods create security concerns. SecureCRT provides SSH functionality with graphical configuration options.

SecureCRT offers both global and per-session configuration options. The global option set establishes general parameters, such as the default public keypair to use for connections and the shades of colors the terminal will use when providing ANSI emulation.

The port forwarding options make use of SecureCRT for things other than remote shell access a real pleasure!

I will not cover steps to create or restore database to new DB server.

1. Update the ODBC system DSN information on the vCenter server.

2. Run command prompt as administrator on vcenter server, issue C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter Server>vpxd –p

3. Update registry on vcenter server, value 1 is DSN name, value 2 is database username ex. VMWarevCenter

4. Start virtual center service on vcenter server.

The most conclusive way to get the version of your exchange server, rollup and all, is to check the file version of ExSetup.exe in the BIN folder.

Another way of getting this information is to run the following PowerShell one-liner:

GCM exsetup |%{$_.Fileversioninfo}

1. Check Database Availability Group Replication Status
In some cases you may have many copies of Exchange 2010 databases and you want to view the status of them all. This command will perform that task for you but also show you a very important characteristic such as the content index state.
Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus

2. Fix a Failed Content Index
In rare cases you may notice the content index has failed. Activating a database copy with a failed content index requires additional guidance but to fix the problem beforehand, run the following.
Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity [id] –CatalogOnly

3. Move a Mailbox in a Batch
There may be cases where you need to keep track of mailbox moves both those which are in progress and to clear them afterward.
New-MoveRequest -Identity [id] –BatchName

4. Check Move Progress
The following command simply gets all the move requests and their statistics.
Get-MoveRequest | Get-MoveRequestStatistics

4. Clear a Move Request
In order to move a mailbox after a move request has completed or failed, you need to remove the request which can be done in bulk, individually, or by a batch name.
Get-MoveRequest | Remove-MoveRequest
or to remove a batch of requests already labeled…
Get-MoveRequest -BatchName [name] | Remove-MoveRequest

5. Determine Unified Messaging Enablement of a User
To check if a user is enabled for Unified Messaging, run the following.
Get-Mailbox | fl UME*

6. View Queues of all Hub Transport Servers
In some cases you may want to quickly view the queue status of all HT servers to determine if you have significant blockage along the transport pipeline.
Get-TransportServer | Get-Queue

7. Determine Active Calls on a UM Server
I find this one helpful as you can quickly see if a server is in use before performing a UM service reset or else use it for troubleshooting to see the status of a test call.
Get-UmServer | Get-UMActiveCalls

8. Determine Exchange Server 2010 Service Status
This command is helpful in quickly seeing which services are running particularly after a reboot.
Get-Service | Where {$_.DisplayName -Like "Microsoft Exchange*"}

9. Get Mailbox Sizes and Sort by Size
Get-Mailbox | Get-MailboxStatistics | where {$_.ObjectClass –eq “Mailbox”} | Sort-Object TotalItemSize –Descending | ft @{label=”User”;expression={$_.DisplayName}},@{label=”Total Size (MB)”;expression={$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}},@{label=”Items”;expression={$_.ItemCount}},@{label=”Storage Limit”;expression={$_.StorageLimitStatus}} –auto

10. Check Autodiscover Settings
Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory | fl InternalUrl,ExternalUrl
Get-EcpVirtualDirectory | fl InternalUrl,ExternalUrl
Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | fl InternalUrl,ExternalUrl
Get-OabVirtualDirectory | fl InternalUrl,ExternalUrl
Get-ClientAccessServer | fl AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri

11. Get Exchange Server version

get-exchangeserver | ft name,admindisplayversion,exchangeversion

If you wish to change the dns nameserver information in ubuntu 12.04, you have to use the file/etc/network/interfaces instead of /etc/resolv.conf.
Edit /etc/network/interfaces and append or replace the following line to set your dns server :

dns-nameservers 1.2.3.4 4.3.2.1

And optionally this one to specify the domain to be append when you request a non fully qualify name :

dns-search thenetworkadministrator.org thenetworkadministrator.com

Get-ExchangeServer | select name, admindisplayversion | ft -AutoSize

I wrote an article on deploying an IIS 6 Reverse Proxy several months ago using managed Fusion. This article will discuss using the built in IIS 7.5 rewrite functions to deploy a reverse proxy.

Prerequisites

From the IIS 7.5 web server, download the following.

1. IIS 7 with ASP.NET role service enabled.
2. URL Rewrite Module installed (version 2.0 is required if you want to complete the part about response rewriting)
3. Application Request Routing version 1.0 or version 2.0 installed

Enabling Reverse Proxy functionality

Reverse Proxy functionality is disabled by default, so you must begin by enabling it.

1. Open IIS Manager
2. Select a server node in the tree view on the left hand side and then click on the "Application Request Routing" feature:
   
3. Check the "Enable Proxy" check box. Leave the default values for all the other settings on this page:
   

The Rules (web.config from the root of the rewrite site)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webserver>
    <rewrite>
      <rules>
                <clear />
                <rule name="rule1" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="abc/123/qsc" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny" trackAllCaptures="false">
                        <add input="{HTTP_REFERER}" pattern="^http://www.thenetworkadministrator.net.*$" />
                        <add input="{HTTP_REFERER}" pattern=http://a.thenetworkadministrator.net/1 />
                        <add input="{HTTP_REFERER}" pattern=http://b.thenetworkadministrator.net/2 />
                        <add input="{HTTP_REFERER}" pattern=http://c.thenetworkadministrator.net/3 />
                        <add input="{HTTP_REFERER}" pattern=http://d.thenetworkadministrator.net/4 />
                     </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url=http://backendserver/urlname />
                </rule>
                <rule name="RequestBlockingRule1" enabled="true" patternSyntax="Wildcard" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="*" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
                        <add input="{URL}" pattern="*/abc/123/qsc*" />
           
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="CustomResponse" statusCode="403" statusReason="Forbidden: Access is denied." statusDescription="You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied." />
                </rule>
                <rule name="rule2">
                    <match url="(.*)" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
                        <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="a.thenetworkadministrator.net" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url=http://backendserver/urlname/{R:1} />
                </rule>
      </rules>
    </rewrite>

    <defaultDocument>
      <files>
        <clear />
        <add value="default.aspx" />
        <add value="Default.htm" />
        <add value="Default.asp" />
        <add value="index.htm" />
        <add value="index.html" />
        <add value="iisstart.htm" />
      </files>
    </defaultDocument>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

One other suggestion is to make extensive use of Fiddler 2, this will help you out with troubleshooting various issues.

New-ManagementRole -name "Mail Recipients Custom" -Parent "Mail Recipients"

Get-managementRoleEntry "Mail Recipients Custom\*" | where { $_.Name –ne "Set-User"} | Remove-ManagementRoleEntry

Set-ManagementRoleEntry "Mail Recipients Custom\Set-User" -Parameters Identity,Title,Department

Get-managementRoleEntry "Mail Recipients\Get-*" | Add-ManagementRoleEntry -Role "Mail Recipients Custom"

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -name "test" -Role "Mail Recipients Custom" –user UserName

new-managementroleassignment -role "View-Only Recipients" –user UserName

https://ServerName.DomainName.com/ecp ,  Manage My Organization, My Organization, Mailboxes, search mailboxes.

Patching SharePoint is a two-step process. The updated binaries are first installed and then psconfig must be run to update the SharePoint databases. PSconfig no longer runs automatically after an update is installed. The SharePoint binary files are updated with the patch but the databases are not automatically upgraded. SharePoint runs in a compatibility mode that still allows the sites to function with the older version databases.

You can also run the following commands to determine if you need to complete the update process with PSCONFIG:

• Launch an elevated (Run as Administrator) SharePoint 2010 Management shell from start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
• Once the shell opens, type the following command followed by enter:
  (get-spserver $env:computername).NeedsUpgrade

If the result of this command is True, then you need to complete the steps below. If the result is False then no further action is needed, if you are encountering similar events the cause will most likely not be resolved by the following steps.

In order to update the SharePoint databases, you must manually run the PSconfig utility. To run the utility:

1. Open an Administrative command prompt.
2. Change directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
3. Run PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

Note: The Companyweb site will be inaccessible while the command is running. It is best to run the command after business hours. The amount of time the command takes to run will vary on the size of the database and the speed of the machine. On a reference machine with 8 logical processors, 32GB of RAM and a 2GB content database, the command took approximately 5 minutes to execute.

Don’t forget the apply the Cumulative update packages for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 after installing service pack 1.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2536599

First configure DB Mail, http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2008/08/23/sql-server-2008-configure-database-mail-send-email-from-sql-database/

Run this query

EXEC master.dbo.xp_instance_regwrite N'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', N'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\SQLServerAgent', N'UseDatabaseMail', N'REG_DWORD', 1