BackupExec on Linux : /opt/VRTSralus/bin/beremote daemon stops unexpectedly

When making backups of my linux server, I can have errors on open files generating errors... but the issue is that the backupexec remote agent stops running and then is unavailable for the next job.
A workaround consists in checking every hour (in this example) if the agent daemon (/opt/VRTSralus/bin/beremote) is still running, and if stopped, restart it.

Create the following script file (/root/restartRalus.sh) :

if [ -f /bin/grep ]
then
  PID=`/bin/ps -e | /bin/grep beremote | /bin/sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/ .*//'`
else
  PID=`/usr/bin/ps -e | /usr/bin/grep beremote | /usr/bin/sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/ .*//'`
fi

if [ "${PID}" = "" ]
then
  /etc/init.d/VRTSralus.init start
fi


And execute it every hour for example :
> crontab -e
> 0 * * * * sh /root/restartRalus.sh

VB Script to get folder and subfolders sizes with treedepth...

In order to have an automated overview of space amount used in my backup job, I made this vbs script.
Create a FolderList.txt file with pathes to folders you want to scan (don't leave blank lines)
Set the values you want for :
isProcessFiles : Get files size too
treeDepth : tree depth when scanning folders
computeAllFoldersSize : compute full size of all folders


Const isProcessFiles = 1
Const treeDepth = 3
Const computeAllFoldersSize = 1

Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2
Const ForAppending = 8


Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objLogFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(".\FolderSizes.log")

if computeAllFoldersSize = 1 then
  fullSize = 0
  Set objTextFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(".\FolderList.txt", ForReading)
  Do Until objTextFile.AtEndOfStream
    strFolderPath = objTextFile.Readline
    Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(strFolderPath)
    fullSize = fullSize + objFolder.size
  Loop
  objLogFile.Writeline "Size of all folders in list file : " & FormatNumber(fullSize/(1024*1024*1024),3) & " GB"
  objLogFile.Writeline ""
  objTextFile.Close
End If


if treeDepth < 1 then wscript.quit


'For all folders specified in the text file
Set objTextFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(".\FolderList.txt", ForReading)

Do Until objTextFile.AtEndOfStream
  strFolderPath = objTextFile.Readline
  Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(strFolderPath)
  ProcessFolder (objFolder)
Loop



Sub ProcessFolder(objCurrentFolder)
  objLogFile.Writeline FormatNumber(objCurrentFolder.Size/(1024*1024),0) & " MB " & objCurrentFolder.path
  if treeDepth > 1 then Call ProcessSubFolders (objCurrentFolder, 1)
End Sub



Sub ProcessSubFolders(ByRef objCurrentFolder, ByVal currentRecurseLevel)

  if currentRecurseLevel >= treeDepth then exit Sub

  recurseTabs = ""
  For value = 0 To currentRecurseLevel - 1
    recurseTabs = recurseTabs & " "
  Next

  if objCurrentFolder.SubFolders.count = 0 then
    if isProcessFiles = 1 then
      Call ProcessFiles (objCurrentFolder, currentRecurseLevel)
    end if
  else
    Call ProcessFiles (objCurrentFolder, currentRecurseLevel)
    For Each objCurrentSubFolder In objCurrentFolder.SubFolders
      objLogFile.Writeline recurseTabs & FormatNumber(objCurrentSubFolder.Size/(1024*1024),0) & " MB " & objCurrentSubFolder.path
      Call ProcessSubFolders (objCurrentSubFolder, currentRecurseLevel + 1)
    Next
  end if
End Sub



Sub ProcessFiles (ByRef objCurrentFolder, ByVal currentRecurseLevel)

   if currentRecurseLevel >= treeDepth then exit Sub

   recurseTabs = ""
   For value = 0 To currentRecurseLevel - 1
     recurseTabs = recurseTabs & " "
   Next

   For Each objCurrentFile In objCurrentFolder.Files
     objLogFile.Writeline recurseTabs & FormatNumber(objCurrentFile.Size/(1024*1024),0) & " MB " & objCurrentFile.path
   Next
End Sub

Windows Explorer very slow when browsing SharePoint Libraries

This problem has been popping up sporadically over the past number of months and I was unable to pin it to a particular client or server version. I’ve seen it in Vista and Windows 7 clients and also on MOSS 2007 with SP1 and with SP2.

When opening a SharePoint library using the Windows Explorer, the user had to wait anything between 5 and 30 seconds for a reaction – opening documents caused the same delay. It was impossible to use effectively.

I still haven’t worked out exactly how this setting is related, but changing it seems to have done the trick. Under “Internet Options”-“Connections”-“LAN settings” I disabled the checkbox “Automatically detect settings” (see below). Even though this was not effecting all users, I pushed this setting out in a GPO – so far so good.

 

 

Windows Explorer must have been looking for configuration settings every time the user clicked on a folder

Resizing Samsung hard drives to fit controller size limits

If your hard drives are too large to be managed by your controller (in my case 1.5TB HDD with an adaptec SATA RAID SA2420 card, with 1GB per HDD max.) you can resize them using using the Samsung EsTool available here. All details on the same page.
To resize your disk use the SET MAX ADDRESS feature. After resizing, you will be able to use them with size limited controllers (of course you can restore the initial size if needed).

Delay SAN shutdown on power outage, avoid corrupt databases...

In my case the SAN I have will shutdown immediatly if a power outage is detected : and this cannot be changed.
My hardware : Dell EMC AX150 + APC Smart UPS 750
You cannot delay this shutdown through the NaviSphere software.
This is really annoying since the SAN hosts the Exchange databases (could have been SQL databases too).
When there is a power outage, the Exchange server doesn't have time to shutdown before the SAN turns off.... and this can cause database or logs corrupt...
In order to avoid this and since there is nothing I can parameter, I have added an intermediate UPS as shown below :

SPA and SPB are the 2 power supplies of the SAN

So my servers (connected to another UPS) can shutdown on a power outage (please read the shutdown scripts article) and then once the intermediate UPS battery is low (or you can parameter a delay too) it behaves like a power outage for the SAN+UPS and this one turns off too.

Forefront : enable FCS client to change settings

When setting up Forefront policies you may want to let some users/computers paremeter their Forefront client on their own.
I thought that enabling the "Only administrators can change Client Security agent settings" would work as each user is in the administrator group of his machine.



This doesn't work unless you change the protection settings (virus/spyware protection) and set them to User controlled :


This will allow users to set their own schedule.
If you want to set the default scheduled scan (everyday 2AM) to another value, change it while Virus protection is set to on and before changing it to User controlled.

UPS Scripts/Procedure : Shutdown a Linux server from Windows.

When running APC PowerChute on a windows server and executing a command script on some events like we saw previously, it can be necessary to shudown a linux server too.

1. On your Windows server running PowerChute, create a folder (eg. C:\ShutdownScripts) and copy in it plink and puttygen that you can download here
   
   Puttygen will create ssh keys, and plink will execute a command on a remote machine using an ssh connection.
   
   
2. Run puttygen and create a pair of ssh keys (public/private) using SSH-2 DSA / 1024 in the same folder. You will generate two files, sshkey.pub and sshkey.ppk.
   
   
3. Create a batch file locally (shutdownLinuxServers.bat) and add commands like :
   cd C:\ShutdownScripts
   @plink -T powerchute@mylinuxserver1 -i sshkey.ppk sudo /sbin/shutdown -h -P now
   @plink -T powerchute@mylinuxserver2 -i sshkey.ppk sudo /sbin/shutdown -h -P now
   ....
   
   This will ssh to your linux servers with the powerchute account to halt and shut them down .
   
   
4. On the linux server(s) side, you will need to create a user account able to shutdown the server.
   
   
5. Create the powerchute account :
   useradd -m -d /home/powerchute -g users -s /bin/bash powerchute
   
   
6. In the home folder of the user powerchute (/home/powerchute), create a subfolder .ssh (rights 700), and add it a blank file called authorized_keys (touch authorized_keys) (rights 644)
   
   
7. Copy the content of your sshkey.pub in the file authorized_keys
   
   
8. Append this command at the end of authorized_key, after the public key :
   from=myWindowsServer,command=sudo /sbin/shutdown -h -P now ssh-dss
   Where myWindowsServer is the DNS name or IP of your server running APC PowerChute.
   
   Your file authorized_key should look like this :
   ssh-dss AAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAOEIj5Hm0ByaNObfUPhpboS0fONW9WqATYXjGi/wlmJipxBNo+//WooNdfeMN9bCqlbT7Z0eXfL+r4Xdmqp........svjduAB2mbQ== dsa-key-20091009 from=192.168.192.50,command=sudo /sbin/shutdown -h -P now ssh-dss
   
   
9. Edit the sudoers file :
   > visudo
   
   
10. Search for this block and comment the last line :
    # Defaults specification
    #
    # Disable "ssh hostname sudo ", because it will show the password in clear.
    # You have to run "ssh -t hostname sudo ".
    #
    # Defaults requiretty <-- commented
    
    
11. Search for this block and add the last line :
    # User privilege specification
    root ALL=(ALL) ALL
    powerchute ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown
    
    
12. On your Windows server, add C:\ShutdownScripts\shutdownLinuxServers.bat to your APC PowerChute script (C:\Program Files\APC\PowerChute Business Edition\agent\cmdfiles\default.cmd)

APC PowerChute script for Windows servers

When using the APC PowerChute software you can (must) run a script to shutdown your servers before battery is too low.
On the PowerChute web page, select the events you want to run a script from.
Add the default.cmd (C:\Program Files\APC\PowerChute Business Edition\agent\cmdfiles\default.cmd) command file.



The default.cmd contains after a fresh install :

@echo off
rem
rem Maximize for best viewing
rem This command file provides examples of proper command file syntax
rem
rem Command Files run by PowerChute Business Edition must be placed in this directory.
rem
rem Use the full path name of executable programs and external command files.
rem
rem The @START command must be used to run executable programs (see example below).
rem For the @START command, path names that include spaces must be enclosed in quotes;
rem arguments for the executable must be outside the quotes. A double quote must
rem precede the quoted path name. For example, to execute a command file in
rem c:\Program Files\APC\PowerChute Business Edition\agent\cmdfiles called myShut.exe,
rem the following line should be entered in the command file:
rem
rem @START "" "c:\Program Files\APC\PowerChute Business Edition\agent\cmdfiles\myShut.exe"
rem
@echo on


Add some new commands at the end like :
@START "" "C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe" /s /f /m \\myserver.mydomain.intra /c "APC Shutdown" /d 6:12

This will shutdown your server remotely, closing all open applications and with a warning message.
You can add other commands or batch too.

IMPORTANT : the powerchute agent service may not run with sufficiant privilieges, so it cannot execute a shutdown on a remote server. Usually it uses a local account.
You need to change it to use an AD admin account :

Prevent domain users to add computers to domain

By default, Active Directory allows domain users to add up to 10 machines to the domain.
If you want to prevent domain users to add machines to the domain, you cannot do it by GPO, since the only policy existing "Add workstation to domain" applies to Computers Configuration and not User Configuration.
You have to run ADSI edit from the administrative tools, roll down Default Naming Context, right click on your DC=mydomain, then properties :
Find the value MS-DS-Machine-Account-Quota and change it to 0 (10 is the default value).

“Access is denied” error when crawling content with SharePoint or browsing local server

When crawling your local SharePoint site you may receive the following error message:

Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content. (The item was deleted because it was either not found or the crawler was denied access to it.)

This can happen even if the account has the necessary permissions to crawl the site. This error is caused by what is know as the “loopback check”. The loopback check is basically a security “feature” which won’t allow a local IIS website to be accessed using a FQDN. This prevents an attack from pretending to be local thus bypassing certain restrictions.

Unfortunately, it also prevents your crawler from accessing local sites if they are using a FQDN.

Microsoft offers two workarounds here. You can either turn off this behaviour completely (not recommended) or you can exclude your site from this check. Here is method 2 from the above link:

1. Set the DisableStrictNameChecking registry entry to 1.
• Locate and click the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters

• On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:

  Value name: DisableStrictNameChecking
  Data type: REG_DWORD
  Radix: Decimal
  Value: 1

2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0

3. Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.
4. Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type the host name or the host names for the sites that are on the local computer, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service.