Info on it is here: http://blog.firecore.com/6434

The process is fairly automated so it’s pretty easy.  I had a problem with it when it tried to upload the new custom jailbroken firmware to my Apple TV.  It’s supposed to automate the process within iTunes (by the Seas0npass program controlling iTunes) but it didn’t work for me.  It also left my Apple 2 in a non-bootable state.  I had to download a program called “iReb” and use this to put my Apple TV into DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode then go into iTunes, select the Apple TV, hold shift and click the Restore button then select the custom firmware created by Seas0npass and it worked.

Hosts (x2)
HP Compaq Business Desktop dc7700
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (Dual Core 2Ghz)
6GB RAM
Onboard Gigabit NIC
Intel Dual Port Gigabit NIC
250GB SATA Local Storage
One host on ESX, the other on ESXi (got to know both!)

SAN1
Netgear ReadyNAS 1100
2 x NFS Shares

SAN2
HP Proliant ML110 running OpenFiler
No targets configured yet!

Connecting all this stuff together is a Cisco “Small Business” SG 200-08 switch.  I bought this having seen the previous version was being used by others in their home labs.  I’m impressed with it so far, especially considering it cost less than £100 delivered!  It’s an 8 port managed Gigabit switch.  It supports Link Aggregation, VLANs (including trunking), Jumbo Frames and a lot more!

After some Googling, we found that Avaya call it “Content-based forward to next hop” and it was a fairly recent addition to the our switch.  Thankfully, was introduced in the firmware released just because we installed them (v6.2, released November 2010) so it was already available on our switch.  However, the options for it just didn’t seem to be available on the Enterprise Device Manager GUI so we couldn’t even put the tick in the ForwardingNextHopAdminEnabled box as required as the box wasn’t even there.

It works from the CLI though…  You have to enable it on the switch, create a policy (like Cisco’s access lists I suppose) and then apply that policy to a VLAN.  Blatant plagerism from the documentation follows…

1. To globally enable the IP forwarding next-hop feature, enter the following from Global Configuration mode:

ip fwd-nh enable

2. To create an IP forwarding next-hop policy, enter the following from Global Configuration mode:

ip fwd-nh <policy-name> match <source-ip/mask> set next-hop <next-hop>

3. To apply an IP forwarding next-hop policy to a VLAN, enter the following from Interface Configuration mode:

ip fwd-nh policy <policy-name> [mode {drop | normal-routing}]

4. To delete a policy, enter the following from Global Configuration mode:

no ip fwd-nh <policy-name>

I checked the disk in System Manager (the GUI tool) and it appears that the so-called failed disk had been converted to a Spare and was quite happy.  The disk got swapped out anyway as I didn’t feel comfortable keeping as seeing as it had misbehaved last night.  Once the disk was swapped it disappeared from the GUI all together so it needed to be assigned manually to the correct system (it’s a two system active/active cluster).

A couple of things that I found useful so I thought I’d make a note:

Identifying The Disk

A failed disk should have an orange LED lit.  Sometimes it doesn’t though but you can manually switch the LED on.

1.  SSH onto the NetApp box and logon
2.  Switch to advanced mode:

CONTROLLER-A> priv set advanced

3.  Switch the LED on for disk 0c.00.7:

CONTROLLER-A> blink_on 0c.007

4.  To switch the LED off for disk 0c.00.7:

CONTROLLER-A> blink_off 0c.007

5.  Come out of advanced mode:

CONTROLLER-A> priv set

Assigning the replacement disk

When you physically swap the disk it will fire off some Autosupport messages and will hopefully pick up the new disk.  In my case, it didn’t do anything with the disk and nothing showed up in the NetApp System Manager.  I had to go to the CLI and assign it manually.
1.  Display unassigned disks:

CONTROLLER-A> disk show -n
DISK       OWNER                  POOL   SERIAL NUMBER
---------- -------------          -----  -------------
0c.00.7    Not Owned              NONE   JMY4YGLC

2.  Assign the disk to the correct controller:

CONTROLLER-A> disk assign 0c.00.7
Fri Mar 18 11:57:37 GMT [NSH-A: diskown.changingOwner:info]: changing ownership for disk 0c.00.7 (S/N JMY4YGLC) from unowned (ID -1) to CONTROLLER-A (ID 135109646)
NSH-A*> Fri Mar 18 11:57:37 GMT [NSH-A: diskown.RescanMessageFailed:warning]: Could not send rescan message to CONTROLLER-A. Please type disk show on the console of NSH-A for it to scan the newly inserted disks.

3.  If it won’t accept the command in step 2, it might have been auto assigned to the wrong controller/system.  You can you can clear the assignment from the disk using the following command then retry step 2:

CONTROLLER-A> disk assign 0c.00.7 -s unowned -f
Note: Disks may be automatically assigned to this node, since option disk.auto_assign is on.

Checking back in System Manager shows that the disk is back in action but it’s still showing as a spare.  It seems that NetApp systems aren’t bothered about going back to the original hot spare, which seems like a very sensible idea.  Why bother reconstructing the new disk when it’s already been done once when it originally failed over to the spare?

It’s probably best to temporarily disable AutoSupport while doing this.  That way the FAS is prevented from “phoning home” and possibly generating unrequired support cases.  I overlooked this and got an additional drive delivered 4 hours after replacing the failed one.  The FAS seems to have triggered a new AutoSupport case when I pulled the drive to replace it.

1. Download the latest Global VPN Client from mysonicwall.com
2. Extract the MSI from the installer by running:
   SetupFile.exe /c /t:C:\tempfolder
3. The installer can now be run silently using:
   msiexec.exe /i GVCInstall64.msi /qn /norestart

Although it can be installed silently, the problem comes with distributing the configuration.  If you put your RCF file into the folder the installer runs from, it seems to pick up on it and copies it into the destination folder on the computer.  This doesn’t seem to be picked up for all users that log into the computer though.  It seems that the RCF file needs to be inside the Application Data in each users profile.  For instance, on Windows 7, it needs to be put into here:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SonicWALL\SonicWALL Global VPN Client

To do this, I put together a VBScript that kicks off the installer silently, finds the user profile folder (as it differs between Windows XP and Windows 7 machines) and puts the RCF file into the relevant folder within every user profile that exists on the computer and it’s the Default user profile so it’s there for any new users that logon.

The install files, the RCF and the script were then uploaded to the SCCM server and a package and program created for distribution.

SonicwallInstallScript.vbs

' start quiet installation of Sonicwall VPN Client
Set wshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
wshShell.Run("msiexec.exe /i GVCInstall64.msi /qn /norestart", 1, True)
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")                 
If objFSO.FolderExists("C:\Documents and Settings") Then
 UserProfileFolder = "C:\Documents and Settings"
 AppDataFolder = "\Application Data\"
End if
If objFSO.FolderExists("C:\Users") Then
 UserProfileFolder = "C:\Users"
 AppDataFolder = "\AppData\Roaming\"
End if
Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(UserProfileFolder)
Set colSubfolders = objFolder.Subfolders
For Each objSubfolder in colSubfolders
 ' Check if there is a folder for Application Data (there isn't for Public and All Users so these should be skipped)
 IF objFSO.FolderExists(UserProfileFolder & "\" & objSubfolder.name & AppDataFolder) THEN

   ' Check if there is a SonicWALL\SonicWALL Global VPN Client folder in the user profile
   If NOT objFSO.FolderExists(UserProfileFolder & "\" & objSubfolder.name & AppDataFolder & "SonicWALL\SonicWALL Global VPN Client") Then

    ' Check if there is a SonicWALL folder, if not create it
    If NOT objFSO.FolderExists(UserProfileFolder & "\" & objSubfolder.name & AppDataFolder & "SonicWALL") then
     set newFolder = objFSO.CreateFolder(UserProfileFolder & "\" & objSubfolder.name & AppDataFolder & "SonicWALL")
    End If

    ' Create the folder SonicWALL Global VPN Client within the SonicWALL folder
    set newFolder = objFSO.CreateFolder(UserProfileFolder & "\" & objSubfolder.name & AppDataFolder & "SonicWALL\SonicWALL Global VPN Client")

   End If 

   ' Now that we're sure there is a SonicWALL\SonicWALL Global VPN Client folder for each
   ' user, copy the RCF file to all user profiles
   Set objFileCopy = objFSO.GetFile("default.rcf")
   objFileCopy.Copy (UserProfileFolder & "\" & objSubfolder.name & AppDataFolder & "SonicWALL\SonicWALL Global VPN Client\SonicWALL Global VPN Client.rcf")

 End If

Next

Note:  This is just how I set things up and not necessarily the right way!  I’m using Oracle’s RMAN tool which seems to have all the features you really need for backup and recovery.  Here’s the steps I took to get it running.

Put the database into Archive Log Mode

Oracle uses it’s “redo logs” (like SQL Server’s transaction logs) in rotation and begins overwriting the oldest log file when it fills the log file currently in use.  Running in “archive log mode” causes Oracle to copy the log file out to another folder when it switches to the next file.  These can be backed up and used in conjunction with a database backup to provide consistent restores and point in time recovery.

1. Create a folder on the server for the Flash Recovery Area which will store the archived logs.  For instance, I created e:\flash_recovery_area\databasename.
    
2. Run the following statements on the database to set the path created in step 1 and the max size Oracle should allow the folder to grow to (I picked 30G):Alter system db_recovery_file_dest=E:\flash_recovery_area
Alter system db_recovery_file_dest_size = 30G
    
3. Enable archive log mode on the database (note: this will take the database offline!):Shutdown immediate
Startup mount
Alter database archivelog
Alter database open
    
4. Force a logfile switch (this should cause the current redo log to be archived):Alter system switch logfile
    
5. Go to the flash recovery area and check for the existence of an archived log file.

Configure RMAN Options for the Database

Before running backups with RMAN, you can configure a number of options in the database to be used by RMAN every time it makes a backup.  These options can be entered at a SQLPlus command prompt or put into a text file to be used as a script.  These are the options I used (the red text:

# ensures that we have the last 3 backups
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO REDUNDANCY 3; 

# causes unchanged files to be skipped
CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION ON;

# tells it we’re backing up to disk not tape
CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE TO DISK;

 # backup the controlfile – not done by default
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;

 # %F generates a random filename
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO ‘E:\flash_recovery_area\dbname\rman\controlfile_autobackup_%F’;

 # use one file at a time (only running backup to one set of disks)
CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK PARALLELISM 1;

 # keep one copy of each file backed up
CONFIGURE DATAFILE BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; 

# default – keep one backup copy of archivelog files
CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1;

CONFIGURE CHANNEL 1 DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT   ‘E:\flash_recovery_area\dbname\rman\backup_%U’;

CONFIGURE MAXSETSIZE TO UNLIMITED;

CONFIGURE SNAPSHOT CONTROLFILE NAME TO ‘E:\flash_recovery_area\dbname\rman\snapshot_controlfile.ORA’;

Configure Backup Job Script

Once the CONFIGURE statements have been run against the database, create a script with the following commands in it to kick off the RMAN backup job:

BACKUP DATABASE PLUS ARCHIVELOG;
RESTORE DATABASE VALIDATE;
DELETE NOPROMPT OBSOLETE;
EXIT;

Put the following into a batch file and schedule it to run whenever you want the backups to run (obviously replacing the username, password, instance and script name!):

SQLPLUS username/password@instancename @c:\scriptname.sql

It’s probably a good time to run the script now to test things out and get a good backup.

Script Database Information to File

I was advised by an Oracle DBA that it is useful to have up to date information about a databases files, tablespaces, backup history, etc, available if you need to do a restore.  I found a script to output database information written by a chap called Jeff Hunter on the idevelopment.info website.  When you run it, it generates an HTML file containing loads of information about the database.  I downloaded his script and put it at the end of the batch file created to kick off backups.

Copy backup data somewhere safe! 

Robocopy is part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit tools and is a great (and free!) tool for replicating data from one location to another.  I setup an hourly job to replicate everything from my Flash Recovery Area to a file server we use for archived and backup information.

robocopy e:\flash_recovery_area \\backupserver\oraclebackups /R:3 /MIR /V /LOG:”e:\replication.log” /TEE

Much thanks to Oracle’s RMAN documentation and the following Tek Tips post!
 <http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1394177&page=39>

The edit profile stuff in MOSS 2007 would edit the information in Sharepoint and there are tools available to do a nightly sync back into AD but this would overwrite any changes anyone had made directory in AD (i.e. changes made by IT).  It also didn’t allow specific users to edit everyone’s profiles.  We also didn’t want to give people access to the “Active Directory Users & Computers” tool.  I thought I was going to have to write my own tool so I went looking for examples of code for LDAP queries within ASP.  Whilst doing so, I stumbled across a couple of tools that seemed to do exactly what I was after!

Directory Update (available from Ithicos Solutions) is an ASP.NET web application that uses Windows Authentication to determine who the user is and dumps them at a page to edit their own information.  It is really configurable, allowing the administrator to pick which fields are visible, which fields can be updated, which fields are pre-populated drop box lists (great for ensuring consistency!) and address lists can be populated based on the selection of an office in another drop down field.  You can expose any attribute in AD so you can use it to allow updates to pretty much anything stored against a user in AD.

Directory Update

Another application, Directory Manager, can be used to search Active Directory and edit details for almost any user.  We’ve provided this to a small group of users in the HR and Facilities teams.

The only problem we’ve come up against is that, although we can upload pictures to Active Directory, Sharepoint cannot import the photos.  Sharepoint can only store a URL to a photo against a user profile.  If you try to sync the jpegPhoto or thumbnailPhoto octetstream fields from AD into the picture field in Sharepoint user profiles, it falls over.  We’ve not yet found a solution to this so, if a users needs a new photo uploading, we ask them to email it to us and we upload it manually.

I am by no means a programmer but I managed to knock something up in vbscript that did the job.  It’s not pretty and it’s probably missing out a whole load of useful things but I’ll probably build on it as and when I need it to do something else.  For the moment, it does what I need it to.

So, a summary of what it does:

1. Reads the first line of the config that doesn’t start with # (i.e. not a comment)
2. Get the 3 items of data on the first line of the config (path, file extension, rentention time)
3. Check each file under the path given.  If a file has the same extension as listed on the line in the config and is older (in days) than the rentention time set, the file is deleted.
4. The script then reads the next line in the config and does the same for the next directory.

Errors and written out to screen and stored in a log file (more useful as it’s likely to be run as a scheduled task).

Download the script with config and readme: LogCleaner.zip

The script itself (although not that readable when copied into here!)

'Check that there is a config file
If not objFSO.FileExists(ScriptDir & "logcleaner.cfg") Then
wscript.echo ("No logcleaner.cfg file found... cannot continue...")
objScriptLogFile.WriteLine (Now() & ": logcleaner.cfg not found")
objScriptLogFile.WriteLine (Now() & ": LogCleaner exited due to error")
wscript.quit
end if

Mixed the extract up with 3.5 litres of boiling water then topped up to 23 litres, as per the kit instructions.  The temperature of the resultant wort was 26c, too warm to pitch the yeast I think.  Need to make sure that the additional water is a little cooler next time.  Had to leave the wort a few hours before adding the yeast.

I used a 50w aquarium heater, sanitised and hung into the wort, set at 20c to regulate the temperature.  Wort temp was not taken during fermentation in case I contaminated the brew.  Perhaps I’ll santise the probe from my digital thermometer and leave it in there for next time.  I left the standard thermometer by the fermentation bucket to take the room temperature during fermentation.

01-Jan-11 2330
Pitched the yeast.  Original Gravity taken was 1043.  Wort temp at 22c.

04-Jan-11 2300
Gravity taken was 1020.  Room temp at 18c.

The keys that users need access to change are:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\GlobalPowerPolicy
and
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies

To allow domain\Domain Users to change the power settings on their computers, do the following for each of the reg keys above in the GPO linked to the OU containing your computers:

1. Go to Computer Config -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Registry
2. Right click then do Add Key
3. Find the key to add.
4. Right click on it, select Properties
5. Select Edit Security
6. Add the domain\Domain Users group (or another if you want to be more granular about it)