I’ve been working on a script to generate an informative message to users when they exceed quota thresholds on our file server. The features of the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) provides a variety of useful variables that can be plugged into an automated email. However, we have found that it’s often very useful to [...]
Since we don’t use DHCP in our server subnets, I frequently have to locate free IP addresses when deploying a server. I remembered reading a TechNet Magazine article by Don Jones that used the PowerShell PROCESS block and the Win32_PingStatus WMI class in a sample script. I took that and rewrote the function a little: [...]
Today’s issues: Backup issues Shared folder quotas Printer configurations Data execution protection I created a Server 2008 x64 guest for managing 64-bit drivers on our shared printers. It works much better than trying to use Printer Management MMC in RSAT on Windows 7. One hiccup I ran into while install the Ricoh PCL6 Driver for [...]
We’ve been working with our backup vendor to address some shortcomings of their product as it relates to Windows 2008 system recover. This was precipitated by a failure of a portion of our virtual infrastructure, which lead to corruption of several hosts’ virtual disk files. We managed to rebuild one failed host from bare (virtual) [...]
Spurred by some recent traffic on the Windows-HiEd list, I have looked into the Windows Update process on some of our Server 2008 Core systems. The thread was specifically with regard to KB article 953631, and that some folks have found that it installs repeatedly on Server Core instances and blocks other updates. In examining [...]
Goal for today: finish moving provisioning. Made some initial progress on separating functionality into different modules. Lots of reading about modules, semantics of use and require. I should probably be creating tests at the same time. Will this ever get done?!
Greg has been hammering on the storage migration, while I have climbed over a provisioning hurdle. Checking IPS Cert expiration issue. Worked more provisioning. For tomorrow, create a function to check all volumes for a home directory before creating one. Starting to look like I need to make a module. Whee. Didn’t get to Fax [...]
Goal for today: get auto_provisioning script working. Feeling cold; AC is blowing strong and winning the HVAC smackdown. Made lots of progress on provisioning scripts, then hit brick wall: Need IO::Socket::SSL and Net::SSLeay in order to do Net::LDAP->starttls, and the perldap package from UWinnipeg for Perl 5.10 doesn’t have these available. Do I try to [...]
Air conditioning and heat are on in my office. AC is winning. <brrrr> Found ShellRunAs forum post, blogged it. Networker troubleshooting; uninstalled 7.4, installed 7.5. Survey says? It works! Provisioning scripts work: reworking scripts to use icacls instead of xcacls.vbs. ETS all-staff forum Work on script adjustments. Made significant headway; no longer using mapped drive, [...]
Service restarts on some hosts. Looked into automating some periodic restarts. One app vendor suggests using SQL Agent. I don’t really like the idea of using SQL Agent for non-database tasks. Found an interesting exercise in CMD batch file writing in a Microsoft script to restart IIS services. Powershell is another possibility. Problems with SharePoint [...]
Geoffrey Duke
Sr. System Administrator,
University of Vermont