IIS Shared Configuration and Offline Files
Continuing on recent posts, another IIS tidbit.
IIS has a great tool for sharing the configuration files across various front end servers, allowing a single configuration to serve an entire farm. It’s a great way to control IIS, but it does introduce a problem, that being a single point of failure.
To get around this, you can use Offline Files and Syncronization or DFS-R. Since I have limited domain privileges in the domain, I chose to use Offline File Sync. It worked great for a while, but during the configuration I changed the main config a few times while adding different applications or features to IIS. At some point, I started using the root drive (d$) instead of the file share (not sure why, must have gotten tired or just dumb) while configuring Shared Configuration in IIS. That would not have been a problem, except the Offline Files were mapped directly to the share and not the root (\\server\iisconfig vs \\server\d$\iisconfig) and naturally thinks started acting all crazy when we brought the server with the file share down for testing.
To remedy this, I had to go back and make sure my Shared Configuration location matched my Offline File config. Woot Woot!
BTW, I found this using Sysinternal Process Monitor (I set filters first for the PIDs of IIS related services and then added a Path filter containing CSC). Great tool that doesn’t take much to learn.
More IIS fun: .net 1.1 on Server 2008 x64 and the missing drop down!
Was having issues getting the dropdown to show up when installing .NET framework v1.1 on a new 08×64 box.
http://www.uhleeka.com/blog/2009/08/how-to-install-asp-net-v1-1-with-iis7-on-windows-2008-x64/
IIS Manager – Details: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send
Recently had an issue with IIS Manager not connecting remotely. Here is how I fixed it:
1. Use ‘netsh http show urlacl’ to see if a listener is prepared for wmsvc on the port desired.
1a. Add a new listener wit:
‘netsh http add urlacl url="https://*:8172/" User="NT SERVICE\wmsvc’
2. Use ‘netsh http show sslcert’ to see if the correct port/cert combo are listed (view your cert has in IIS Manager)
^^^^-Mine was incorrect, causing a client error. Also, mark down your AppID from the list. You will need it in the next step
3. I deleted the incorrect entry using:
‘Netsh http delete sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:8173’
4. Add a new entry:
‘netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:8173 certhash=<!!!!your cert hash here!!!!> appid={} clientcertnegotiation=enable’
Reference – http://forums.iis.net/t/1135298.aspx
Breaking and Fixing Offline Files
Today I was working on conifguring Offline files on a Server 2008 install (DFSR was not supported in the environment) when I messed things up pretty good. I had accidentally added a folder location that I didn’t want to (root C$ of another server) and could not remove it through the sync center. To remove the folders, I went to C:\Windows\CSC and replaced the Owner of the CSC folder with myself and then deleted the files. BAD/WRONG! After I did that, offline folders would no longer work for any file shares. I was stumped.
After some googling, I was able to find the following article which reset the entire CSC folder for me:
http://www.networknet.nl/apps/wp/archives/1093
This is as much as note for myself as anyone else searching the web for the same problem.
Free easy tool for port tracing
Working in new cloud environments can sometimes be a challenge until you get all the firewall and load balancing tool interfaces down. I was recently having some trouble getting the correct access setup for the environment I’m building out and needed a tool that would easily trace ports to see if they were open. Turns out, Microsoft has a tool that works pretty well for this!
Microsoft PortQry UI makes tracing nice and simple:
For a detailed description visit this site
Super Mario Brother’s Shelves
These shelves are awesome. I hope by the time I have children, Mario is still cool enough for me to do this for them!
Letting go of technology
As spring rolls around, it’s that time of year, when I have to start going through and throwing away stuff that I’ve accumulated for the last year. Ok that’s a lie. When it comes to technology, I’m a pack rat. I never throw anything away and always seem to wait just long enough that my junk isn’t even worth listing on EBay. Which brings me to this post. See, I just started a new job and have to get my lab server back in a spot where I can conveniently get at it. It’s been in one of the guest bedrooms for the last year and that worked ok for a while, but I know it had to feel lonely in there. In order to fit in back in my closet in my office, I’m going to have to kick this office reno in to high gear and unfortunately that means getting rid of some technology.
The first pieces I came across were some parallel ATA USB Hard drive enclosures. Back in the day, these were use for all kinds of stuff…from the nefarious to the boring. I had been saving these really thinking I would have a need for them. But in my stack of hard drives, they’re all sata. oh well, someone will like them as hand me downs.
I’m also getting rid of a ton of old cell phones. I’m not sure why I have so many of these. It’s not like any of them work as I am notoriously hard on my cellular devices and each new phone has been out of necessity rather than an upgrade. In my box I have 3 Palm Treo 700WX, 1 Palm Treo 750w, 2 HTC Touch’s, and an old pink flip phone. OK OK, that one is my wife’s, but you get the point. 1 of them actually does work, the Cingular, ah hem, AT&T Treo 750, but I have no desire to use it on AT’&T’s network, it’s worse than the iPhone reception wise.
There are many many other crazy things such as old wireless routers and access points, a
ps2 KVM switch and other crap. But what really drove me to this post was my camera collection. About 5 years ago I bought a Canon SD450 “Elph” camera. It was awesome and capture many many memories. Unfortunately, at that time I was heavy in to the bar scene back in the ‘Nati and the phone only took quality pictures for about 13 months. But once again, I couldn’t throw it away. Figuring one day I would get it serviced. That day could have been today, until I saw how much it would cost to get a camera services…109$
Dramatic Pause….Yes 109$. Just for giggles, I went out to Amazon to see what kind of Canon Camera I could get for 109$. It seems today, you can “upgrade” to a 12.1MP, crazy zoom camera. Needless to say, I won’t be getting it fixed. But this post will last as a never ending reminder of my first digital camera and all the bar hopping memories I had with it.
It even smells like a dirty bar. HA!
Link: Interesting post on NTFS file growth
In doing some research about Exchange storage issues I came across this blog post from a Microsoftie. It is a basic, yet informative dive in to NTFS and file storage. Definitely worth a read.
Here’s an Excerpt
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“The Four Stages of NTFS File Growth In my quest to better understand the interworking of how NTFS stores information on disk, I have been researching what happens to a file as it grows in size and complexity. The reason I’m after this knowledge is so I can better troubleshoot certain storage issues… … Stage one – Completely resident I created a small text file with just one line of text in it. This file was so small that it was able to fit all parts of the file into its base record. We call this being resident, as the data for the file resides in the base record segment. This also means that the entire file exists in the MFT. No need to look elsewhere. Everything we need is in that 1KB record.” http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2009/10/16/the-four-stages-of-ntfs-file-growth.aspx |
Enjoy!
New Blog site
Because of the cancellation of Microsoft Live Blogs, I have migrated TheTP.spaces.live.com to WordPress. More blogs to come!
scy
The Total Package 