If you have problems with your website running on IIS 6.0 and you fail to switch ASP.NET version on your Windows server 2003 you can download free tool “ASP.NET Version Switcher” from here .
This how to is dedicated to Denis Bauer Weblog.
If you think that your active directory can be corrupted you should perform integrity check. To do that you must boot your Windows server 2003 into Directory Services Restore Mode. How to do that you can can check in article named “Windows server 2003 – How to access Active Directory services restore mode remotely”. After login open command line ant type:
Ntdsutil and press Enter
Files and press Enter
Integrity and press Enter
I think all you know that in order to access active directory services restore mode you must press F8 when booting your server and then select Directory Services restore mode from boot options menu. But how to do that if your server is at remote location and you can reach it only via Remote Dektop connection (Start>Run mstsc /console). Nope, no ILO too…
There is a way! Connect to that Windows server 2003 via rdp and open boot.ini file in notepad. Then add following text to the end of the boot.ini file:
/SAFEBOOT:DSREPAIR
Save boot.ini file and reboot server. After reboot connect with RDC (Start>Run mstsc /console) and login using Local Administrators account.
After you will finish your work with server in Directory Services Restore Mode dont forget to delete that extra line you added to boot.ini.
If you ever wandered is there a quick way to find cluster size of volume this shorty how to post is for you. To check volume C: cluster size open command line on your Windows 2003 server or Windows XP and type:
fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo C:
In this article you`ll learn how to export Exchange 2007 mailbox to PST file using power shell on your Windows XP or Windows server 2003 machines.
For that task you must have power shell and Outlook 2003 with SP2 or Outlook 2007 installed.
In this example we need to export mailbox for user TestUser@mydomain.com to local folder D:\PST
Open power shell and type:
Export-Mailbox -Identity TestUser@mydomain.com -PSTFolderPath D:\PST\TestUser.pst
This example will show how to grant full access rights to specific mailbox using power shell on Windows server 2003 with Exchange 2007 installed.
You want user Admin to have full access over mailbox named TestUser.
Open Power Shell extention for exchange and type:
Add-MailboxPermission -Identity TestUser -User Admin -AccessRights FullAccess
To make it work your user (Admin in this example) must be member of Exchange Administrators and Local administrators groups.
I`ll show you how to reset folder language in Outlook Web Access back to English. To do that start Internet Explorer on your Windows server 2003 or Windows XP, navigate to Tools>InternetOptions and make sure that your default language is set to English. After that clear all your Internet Explorer cache and Offline files too. Then restart Internet Explorer and you are done!
Some time ago i got non delivery record (NDR) mail message stating that my mail could not be delivered to recipient X which resides in domain Y. You`ll say it is daily stuff… but the main problem is that i have never send this message by myself. Someone used my mail address to spam others. This is big threat to me and my company because it affects people`s confidence in me and my company`s reliability. What can we do about it you`ll ask ?
We can use help of Sender Policy Framework (SPF) which stands for open standart specifying a technical method to prevent sender address forgery. SPF allows the owner of a domain to specify their mail sending policy, for example which mail servers they use to send mail from their domain. To make it work we need that both sides were configured in right way. Domain owner must publish mail sending servers in SPF record and place this record in DNS server within his DNS zone. Mail receiving server must enforce these policies vis SPF record check function.
Lets leave theory alone and try to generate SPF record for your domain.
For that first of all follow this wizard which will guide you through SPF record creation.
After you have SPF record generated and if your Windows server 2003 hosts yourdomain.com zone open DNS management snap in, navigate to yourdomain.com zone and choose to add “Other new Records…”. Select Text (TXT) record type and press “Create Record…” button. Copy data you generated earlier using wizard and paste it to “Text” textbox. Click OK button and you are done.
Note, if you dont control your domain zone then contact your ISP and ask him to add SPF record for you.
One of my many tasks is to generate CSR requests to third party well known certification authorities. To do that i am using free tool that is supported by Windows server 2003 and Windows Xp - “OpenSSL”.
You can download this tool and VisualC++ 2008 Redistributables needed for OpenSSL to work from here
After tool install we are ready to proceed with CSR generation.
1. Generate a private key protected by password
Open command line, navigate to OpenSSL install directory bin folder (usually it is C:\OpenSSL\bin) and type:
openssl genrsa -des3 -out Prvkey.key 1024
2. Generate CSR file
openssl req -new -key Prvkey.key -out Mycsr.csr
After you`ll press enter you will be asked to supply following information:
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]: Two letter ISO abbreviation for your country.
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]: The state or province where your organization is located.
Locality Name (eg, city) []: The city where your organization is located.
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]: Legal name of your organization.
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: Optional additional organization information, such as department
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: domain name you are issuing certificate for, ex. mail.mydomain.com
Email Address []: your organization contact email, ex. info@mydomain.com
Additional info:
A challenge password []: press Enter
An optional company name []: press Enter
CSR file was created.
You can check Mycsr.csr contents with Notepad or Wordpad it must look like this:
—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST—–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—–END CERTIFICATE REQUEST—–
Ok, now you are ready to send CSR file to third party Certification Authority and request your certificate.
Hello world! I am starting this blog to share all experience i am getting from administering various Windows based operating systems and software runing on top of it. I hope it will guide You and help in tough situations… Have fun!