Monday, January 25, 2010

The format of the specified network name is invalid IIS 6

if you are un-able to start Websites in the IIS and receiving fallowing errors “The format of the specified network name is invalid” couple quick things you can look into remedy to problem.

image

First on the server drilldown to this Reg key.

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • SYSTEM
  • CurrentControlSet
  • Services
  • HTTP
  • Parameters
  • ListenOnlyList

Make sure, the IP Address listed there is the IP correct IP address configured on the NIC card of the service ( correct interface) if not make the proper changes.

image

After this you need to open CMD type

Net stop http /y

image

net start w3svc

image

now you should be able to start the websites under IIS…

Oz Casey , Dedeal

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog

Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)

Friday, January 22, 2010

Simple Way to Customize OWA Exchange 2010….

I will show you how to make simple changes to modify OWA pages. Changes are shown here very simple and effective. No worries about breaking anything if you pay attention to fallowing simple steps.

Here is first page of OWA ……

image

The file we will modify called “Lgntopl.gif”

Here is second file after you put your name and password and log into OWA…..

image

Second one called “Logoowa.png”

So where these files are located at? both files will be at the fallowing directory on your CAS server.

  • Program files
  • Exchange
  • V14
  • ClientAccess
  • Owa
  • 14.0.639.21
  • themes
  • base
E:\Program files\Exchange\V14\ClientAccess\Owa\14.0.639.21\themes\base

Now lets make a backup of these files, copy these filed from their current location into newly created folder called backup-Base

image

image

Now we are safe (-:

Lets modify these file with our company name and replace the original files in the fallowing directory. Remember both files are in the Base directory.

E:\Program files\Exchange\V14\ClientAccess\Owa\14.0.639.21\themes\base

Download PSD files from SkyDrive, click on the icon below

  • lgntopl.psd
  • Logoowa.psd

image

All you need to do is to use little skill in Photo Shop to change the company name to desired name, I user Telnet25.org in this example.

The result will be like this when you replace these files, in the BASE folder directory if you like you can re-name the old files to something like this

  • Lgntoplop-OLD.gif
  • Logoowa-OLD.png

Renaming these wont hurt anything you don't have to re-start IIS at all , all you need to do is to refresh your page.

image

here is the end result of this simple work.

image

image

You can be more creative I guess , I like simple look

Hope you enjoy above simple steps, if you don't like the end results for any reason, delete the files you made and re-name the old ones back to what it was.

Oz Casey , Dedeal

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog

Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)

Friday, January 15, 2010

windows 7 and XM mode

If you excited about windows 7 yet you cannot move into it perhaps you have one legacy application wont work with windows 7 and holding you up to move on , such as Cisco VPN client and etc.

If this is the case keep reading XP mode will be the rescue….. What is XP mode anyways? IT is virtual PC , XP professional is running on top of. The idea behind it , is clear MS wants you to move on to Windows 7 and run your legacy application on top of Virtual PC and all it is simple to configure and no additional cost (-:, you will love it for sure.

download click on it to see if your PC is compatible if you see NO don't panic yet (-:

image

You will need to go to your BIOS by pressing F2 or any other proper key while your PC/laptop is rebooting. In the BIOS locate to see virtualization is enabled under CPU advance settings ( this must be enabled)

  • After making changes
  • reboot the PC/Laptop
  • Shutdown ( soft shutdown)

Not you are ready to roll.

image

  • download XP mode ( ready to go virtual PC)
  • Install both files

After installing both files you will notice the virtual XP is already been created , login with password you created. I recommend creating your own account, renaming the XP VPC etc, adding into domain if you have too, etc.

I recommend shutting it down and adjusting the memory from 512 to 1024 least to make XP going faster.

And finally I think the best way touse it not to overload with un-necassary stuff just runs the apps wont run within Win07, rest you should be able to do it on Win07.

If you start playing with it you will start liking it and MS has given great option to us to move into Win07.

enjoy your VPC-XP (-:

Oz Casey , Dedeal

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog

Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Windows 2008 and time Sync W32time

After migrating domain controllers on ESX environment (-:, ps: I have tried to convince for hyperV but did not worked out in this one.) we saw time on the domain controllers were off and made some adjustment to make PDC happy. I wanted to share here what we have done to fix the issue.

if you are not familiar with time service on the PDC emulator I recommend start reading it from Ace Fekay’s  blog  ( AD MVP ) excellent & well written article.

My issue started as “outlook is sending e-mails , 6hr behind the current time”

I think in the process of thinking locally, Outlook is a software installed on a workstation OS ( winXP, Vista, Win7 etc) and it reads time from OS itself

Workstation OS ( client PC’s)  is talking to domain controller they authenticated against. The domain controllers gets their time (Sync) from PDC emulator ( domain controller holds the PDC emulator role) and finally PDC gets ( should configured to external time source) its time from external time source.

  • Outlook----sync------> Work Station OS----sync----->DC
  • DC----sync--------> PDC
  • PDC-------sync------>External Time source.

Ok now back to the issue, how to configure PDC to sync its time from external time server? here is everything you need to know or do to make it work, KB816042

After you make this changes the PDC register will like this

W32Time configures the list of time sources through the following key

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
  • Services
  • W32Time
  • Parameters
  • NtpServer

time.windows.com,0x01 time.nist.gov,0x01

image

Click here to download reg file which will do this for you automatically

image

Flag means

windows time service blog

0x01 SpecialInterval
0x02 UseAsFallbackOnly
0x03 SymmatricActive
0x04 Client

For troubleshooting only

Debug log file timelog.txt to be written locally as the Windows Time service interacts with the system

w32tm /debug /enable /file:C:logstimelog.txt /size:100000 /entries:0-300

Stop the debug



w32tm /debug /disable



To see what time server your PDC is talking too (vmdc01 is the name of the PDC in this example change it accordingly







net time \\PDCname /QuerySNMP


image



After making changes to stop and re-start the W32Time








net stop w32time && net start w32time




http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042



if you are getting fallowing your DC’s are not replicating



image



There is a time difference between the Client and Server , The DC time might be off more than 5 min which will make the replication wont work properly.











NET TIME /DOMAIN:DOMAIN /SET /Y




Oz Casey , Dedeal



MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)

MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST


Security+, Project +, Server +



Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog



Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)



Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Assigning SSL Certificate for OWA Exchange 2010 Part 2

If you have not completed part ne you will need to go back and fallow the steps.

I am going to show you guys how to complete some of the work from Go Daddy the cets there are very affordable somewhere $12 bucks per year, the process will be similar to other vendors as well..

We will Complete Certificate Signing Request ( CSR) as shown below

  • Now we go to go daddy log in click on SSL certificate

image

Click on manage certificate

image

Click Request certificate

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

  • At this point you need to wait e-mail will be sent from Go Daddy to domain registrar e-mail address, as soon as you get the e-mail you will see URL link to click on to download the certificate, if your certificate is denied for some reason you need to go back and make the corrections

  • After downloading the certificate place it on somewhere ( hard drive) on the server

image

  • I chose the same location and placed them on my CAS server as shown here now go back to server and complete the ending certificate request

image

I am going to browse to same directory

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

Happy ending , We no longer get the SSL warning as it is shown below.

image

Thanks to Exchange Team for making the Certificate process literally piece of cake , Exchange 2010 is incredibly surrounded with all these smart easy use tools not to mention fastest messaging application “EVER”

Download the PDF version

install an SSL Certificate on a Client Access Server

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb310769.aspx

Oz Casey , Dedeal

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog

Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)

Assigning SSL Certificate for OWA Exchange 2010 Part 1

Goal: Assign SSL certificate for company OWA Exchange 2010 server

Environment:

image

  • Log on to Exchange 2010 via web browser brings up warning as shown below…..

image

Log on to Exchange 2010 Management Console

Server Configuration

  • Right Click on the CAS server
  • New Exchange Certificate

image

  • Enter Friendly name for the certificate ( anything you want this is for you to see and remember what this cert is for)

image

  • In this example we have one domain so wildcard certificate wont apply to here

image

  • Click next

Now Click the arrows to fill out the required information, this part is real nice easy to fallow we will click on Client Access server

image

Let me explain this a little bit so there is no confusion

The internal Domain Name space I use is SMTP25.local and server name is HTS01.SMTP25.Local

image

image

So my users internally can open their browser and type Http://mail.smtp25.local they will get to my exchange server and here how DNS A record internally look like

  • On the local Domain Controller / DNS
  • Open DNS Console
  • New Host A record

image

  • And type the IP address of the CAS server.

image

image

  • Pretty simple internal DNS query will be perform by client Browser will go to Internal DNS server and since we do have A record pointing to CAS server, Client browser will be directed to CAS server.

image

  • go back to Certificate wizard

image

  • I will Click next

image

  • Here is important, I have to pay attention to Common name, The common name is what clients will put into their browser when they are on outside of your network ( Internet) and this record must exist on the Public DNS server.

image

image

image

image

image

  • I created folder on C and give name to Certificate to make me remember what it is in the future

image

image

image

  • Now let’s get the certificate from C drive make right click open, open with notepad

image

image

  • This is end of part one , please read part two to complete the cert process

best,

Oz Casey , Dedeal

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog

Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)