SQL SERVER – FIX : ERROR : (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 – Could not open a connection to SQL Server) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: )

Regular readers of my blog are aware of the fact that I have written about this subject umpteen times earlier, and every time I have spoken about a new issue related to it. Few days ago, I had redone my local home network. I have LAN setup with wireless router connected with my four computers, two mobile devices, one printer and one VOIP solution. I had also formatted my primary computer and clean installed SQL Server 2008 into it. Yesterday, incidentally, I was sitting in my yard trying to connect SQL Server located in home office and suddenly I stumbled upon the following error. Finding the solution was the most infuriating part as it consumed my precious 10 minutes.




Let us look at few of the common errors received:



An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server.



(provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 – Could not open a connection to SQL Server) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 5)



An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 – Could not open a connection to SQL Server) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 1326)



I eventually found the resolution to this error on this blog itself; so I was saved from hunting for the solution. I am sure there are a number of developers who had previously fixed this error while installing SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2005 but in due course forgot the right solution to this error. This is just a quick refresher. Make sure to bookmark this as you never know when you would need this solution.



Let us check into the steps to resolve this error.



1) SQL Server should be up and running.



Go to All Programs >> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 >> Configuration Tools >> SQL Server Configuration Manager >> SQL Server Services, and check if SQL Server service status is “Running”.



In addition, ensure that your remote server is in the same network. Run “sqlcmd -L” in your command prompt to ascertain if your server is included in your network list. You can even find tutorial for the same here SQL SERVER – Find All Servers From Local Network – Using sqlcmd – Detect Installed SQL Server on Network.



I have confronted numerous situations when these nerve-wracking errors crop up, and most of the time when I try to troubleshoot I notice that SQL Server services are neither running nor installed. If SQL Server is not installed as default instance SQL Server Browser should be running together with it; we will explore this further in Topic 5.







2) Enable TCP/IP in SQL Server Configuration



When two or more SQL Servers are connected across network they do all communication using TCP/IP. The default port of SQL Server installation is 1433. This port can be changed through SQL Server Configuration Manager. TCP/IP should be enabled for SQL Server to be connected.



Go to All Programs >> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 >> Configuration Tools >> SQL Server Configuration Manager >> Select TCP/IP





Right Click on TCP/IP >> Click on Enable



You must restart SQL Server Services for all the changes to take effect. Right click and go to menu properties to select location where default port of SQL Server can be changed.



3) Open Port in Windows Firewall



Windows Firewall is very efficacious in protecting the Operating system from all sorts of malicious attacks. By default, many of the ports and services are refrained from running by firewall. Time and again, SQL Server ports are not open in firewall as well. All the ports on which SQL Server is running should be added to exception and firewall should filter all the traffic from those ports. As described, by default SQL Server runs on port 1433, but if default port is changed then the new port should be added to exception. If SQL Server has named instance (another instance besides default instance) is installed, SQL Server browser should also be added to the exception, as described in Step 7.



Go to Control Panel >> Windows Firewall >> Change Settings >> Exceptions >> Add Port






Make the following entries in popup “Add a Port” and click OK.

Name : SQL

Port Number: 1433

Protocol: Select TCP













4) Enable Remote Connection



Enabling remote connection is another important, yet oft-neglected step that is frequently missed by database administrators while setting up SQL Server. If this feature is turned off SQL Server will function smoothly on local machine, but it will let another server connect to it remotely. By default this feature is ON in SQL Server 2008.



Right click on the server node and select Properties.







Go to Left Tab of Connections and check “Allow remote connections to this server”







5) Enable SQL Server Browser Service



If SQL Server is not installed as default instance but instead installed as named instance and also if there is no specific TCP/IP port configured, it will give rise to the error that is being discussed in this article. If SQL Server Browser service is enabled, it will allow the server to be connected through dynamic TCP/IP port. Enabling this service is a one-time process, as on enabling it once it will apply to all the instances installed on the same server.



Go to All Programs >> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 >> Configuration Tools >> SQL Server Configuration Manager >> SQL Server Browser







Right Click on SQL Server Browser >> Click on Enable



6) Create exception of sqlbrowser.exe in Firewall



As elucidated in Step 6, sqlbrowser service needs to be enabled for named instance. Windows Firewall may prevent sqlbrowser.exe to execute. So, it is imperative to add exception for the same in windows firewall.



Search for sqlbrowser.exe on your local drive where SQL Server is installed. Copy the path of the sqlbrowser.exe like C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\sqlbrowser.exe and create the exception of the file in Firewall, as delineated in Step 3.



7) Recreate Alias



It is getting quite common to create alias of SQL Server and use it in application. This will ensure that in future if any physical SQL Server has to be moved, it will not be required to change any code or connection string. You can simply create alias with the same name pointing to different SQL Server and it will start working instantaneously. I have observed that a couple of times due to internal error while recreating alias this error was fixed.



Go to All Programs >> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 >> Configuration Tools >> SQL Native Client 10.0 Configuration >> Aliases



Delete the alias that is giving problem and recreate it with identical parameters.







I have tried my best to include all the methods of fixing this error and if I have missed any, please leave a comment and I will be very glad to include them here. I have put in my effort to encompass this issue in one article that needs to be refereed when any connection error comes up.

Ubuntu - Sharing a Printer with Windows

Ubuntu - Sharing a Printer with Windows

It is usually best to use a native printing protocol. For Ubuntu, LPD and CUPS are native. Most versions of Windows support network printing to LPD servers, so sharing with LPD should be enough, but it requires users to configure their printers.

Native Windows environments can share printers using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. This allows Windows users to browse the Network Neighborhood and add any shared printers-very littlemanual configuration is required. For Ubuntu to share a printer with Windows users requires installing SAMBA, an open source SMB server.


On the print server:

1. Install SAMBA on the print server. This providesWindows SMB support:


1 sudo apt-get install samba



2. Create a directory for the print spool:



view sourceprint?

1 sudo mkdir /var/spool/samba/



3. Edit the SAMBA configuration file: /etc/samba/smb.conf.



4. Under the [global] section, change workgroup = to match yourWindows Workgroup. For example, my office workgroup is SLUGGO:



view sourceprint?

1 [global]



2 workgroup = SLUGGO



5. Under the [global] section is an area for printer configuration. Uncomment (remove the leading ;) the load printers = yes andCUPSprinting lines.



view sourceprint?

01 ########## Printing ##########



02 # If you want to automatically load your printer list rather



03 # than setting them up individually then you’ll need this



04 load printers = yes



05 # lpr(ng) printing. You may wish to override the location of the



06 # printcap file



07 ; printing = bsd



08 ; printcap name = /etc/printcap



09 # CUPS printing. See also the cupsaddsmb(8) manpage in the



10 # cupsys-client package.



11 printing = cups



12 printcap name = cups



6. Set the [printers] section to look like this:



01 [printers]



02 comment = All Printers



03 browseable = no



04 security = share



05 use client driver = yes



06 guest ok = yes



07 path = /var/spool/samba/



08 printable = yes



09 public = yes



10 writable = yes



11 create mode = 0700



This setting allows any Windows client to access the printers without a password.



7. (Optional) Under the [printers] section, set browseable = yes. This allows Windows systems to see the printers through the Network Neighborhood.



8. Restart the SAMBA server:



view sourceprint?

1 sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart



On the Windows client, you can add the printer as if it were a Windows printer. For example, if the server’s name is printer.home.com and the printer is Okidata, then the shared printer resource would be \\printer.home.com\Okidata.Windows clients will need to install their own print drivers.

Upgrading Drives in Ubuntu

When you upgrade your hard drive, you’ll want to make sure that you transfer over all of your personal files. This could be as simple as transferring the contents of /home from one system to another. But if you have installed any custom applications (very likely) or tuned any configurations, then you will probably need to transfer system files, too. Here’s an easy way of doing it:




1. Shut down the system, remove the old drive, and install the new drive. Do not leave the old drive in the system, since you do not want to accidentally reformat the wrong drive.



2. Install Ubuntu on the system (see Chapter 1). Be sure to use the same base install. Don’t bother customizing this new install—it is only needed for making the drive bootable.



3. Shut down the system and install the old hard drive as the second drive.

Do not boot from the old hard drive.



4. Start up the computer and boot from the new drive.



5. Log in when the computer has rebooted and open a terminal.



6. Nowfor the hard part—finding thedrive’sdevice handle for the olddrive. This is a two-step process. First, use mount to identify the current drive. It will be the one that is mounted. Second, use sudo lshw -class disk to find the unused drive that needs to be mounted. In this example, the current drive is /dev/sdb and the new drive is /dev/sdc.





view sourceprint?

01 $ mount
grep -e /dev/sd -e /dev/hd



02 /dev/sdb1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)



03 $ sudo lshw -class disk



04 *-disk:0



05 description: ATA Disk



06 product: ST3500320AS



07 vendor: Seagate



08 physical id: 0



09 bus info: scsi@4:0.0.0



10 logical name: /dev/sdb



11 version: SD15



12 serial: 9QM52R9R



13 size: 465GiB (500GB)



14 capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos



15 configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=00070904



16 *-disk:1



17 description: ATA Disk



18 product: ST31500341AS



19 vendor: Seagate



20 physical id: 1



21 bus info: scsi@5:0.0.0



22 logical name: /dev/sdc



23 version: CC1H



24 serial: 9VS2N2QN



25 size: 1397GiB (1500GB)



26 capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos



27 configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=00052eee



7. Mount the old drive partition(s). The partitions will be enumerated. Since drive /dev/sdc is aworking drive, there should be /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdc2, etc. If you know the data partition, then you can mount it. Otherwise, you can blindly mount each of the partitions.



view sourceprint?

1 cd /dev



2 for i in sdc[0-9]* ; do



3 sudo mkdir /media/$i



4 sudo mount /dev/$i /media/$i



5 done



8. As root, copy over all of the old files to the new system. For example, if /dev/sdc1 was the old / partition, then copy the data from /media/sdc1/ to the new /.



view sourceprint?

1 $ cd /media/sdc1



2 $ ls



3 bin dev initrd lib mnt root sys var



4 boot etc initrd.img lost+found opt sbin tmp vmlinuz



5 cdrom home initrd.img.old media proc srv usr vmlinuz.old



6 $ sudo tar -cf - *
( cd / ; tar -xvf - )



9. Repeat Step 8 with each of the data partitions. Be sure to copy data to the correct directory. For example, if /dev/sdc2 was /home, then copy the contents to /home, not /.



10. Since the copy may have brought over a newer kernel, you will want to reset the boot loader:



view sourceprint?

1 sudo update-grub



11. Now that everything is copied, you can reboot the system immediately. You don’t want to use shutdown, since that can save desktop settings over your new settings. To force an immediate reboot, use the -f parameter:



view sourceprint?

1 sudo reboot -f



When the system comes back up, you should have all of your old files right where you left them, and a minimal amount of residue (undesirable files) that you did not originally want. This method is great for switching partition layouts, since it only copies files, but it should not be used to upgrade operating systems.

Fujitsu Introduces Xeon Based Primergy System

Fujitsu Introduces Xeon Based Primergy System


Following the release of Intel's next generation Xeon 5600 server processor, Fujitsu America has joined the ranks of server partners looking towards the cloud. The Japanese based Fujitsu plans to roll out its new Xeon 5600 equipped Primergy systems through its American counterpart specifically targeting cloud computing environments.



The Primergy CX1000 system can hold up to 38 of the 1U CX1000 rack systems which, according to Jon Rodriguez, senior product manager for Primergy at Fujitsu America, allows for a more efficient high-density computing system. In addition, the Primergy systems sport a new cabinet design featuring shared power distribution and new cooling components. The motivation behind this new design was to eliminate traditional "hot aisle - cold aisle" setups seen in many datacenters and to allow the Fujitsu cabinets to be placed back-to-back.



Rather than placing a power supply on each rack, Fujitsu chose to instead implement a central power supply that will feed each individual rack. Also, the backs of the cabinets have been sealed off and large fans and exhaust vents are now located on the top of the server. Like previously mentioned, these racks can be placed back to back allowing for a more efficient use of space in the data center.



According to Fujitsu, these cabinets are up to 20 percent more power efficient than other comparable server systems due to their Cool-Central design which dictates how air flows throughout the cabinet. Essentially this allows the system to separate heat from various components and dictates where fans are placed for optimum air flow. Target markets for the CX1000 are going to primarily revolve around cloud computing providers and hosts, businesses looking to reduce costs by deploying their own cloud servers, Web 2.0 environments, and high-performance computing markets.



The Primergy CX1000 systems will be available from Fujitsu America resellers by the end of march. A fully loaded rack with 38 servers, a single processor per socket, and 16GB of memory will run in the ballpark of $89,000 per rack. Of course, price will increase as more CPUs, hard drives, and memory is added

Windows Server 2008 DFS Share Replication for Redundancy

Windows Server 2008 DFS Share Replication for Redundancy


The DFS (Directory file Service) File Services Role ships on all editions of Windows Server 2008 except for the Web and IA editions. You install the DFS role on Server 2008 using the “Server Manager” and you install the “File Services” role using the “Add Roles Wizard”, be sure to choose DFS Replication under the File Server role. Next install the DFS Management Console this feature can be installed using “Server Manager” by selecting “Add Features” and then choosing “Remote Server Administration Tools” in the list of available features.

The DFS management console is used to configure the DFS replication. This is the tool that will allow us to setup a DFS namespace and configure the replication of files between multiple shares. A DFS namespace is a place where you have a list of all your file shares in DFS and is basically a folder structure of a list of file shares. As far as users are concerned they have no idea they may be navigating across multiple server to access files.
                                                                         
There are two types of namespaces, domain based and stand alone, if you are running Active Directory you should use a domain based namespace. This will store the namespace configuration in Active Directory and will be redundant across all domain controllers. Create the namespace in DFS Management Console. Click on the right to add a namespace and launch the wizard, name the namespace, then choose domain based in 2008 mode click to create, and then close.

After you create the namespace you will need to add folders to it, click “new folder” on the right and enter a name such as “Sales”. Click to add an associated folder (This will be a preconfigured share on a server). You can also add folders with no targets just to help create a hierarchy in the namespace for organization purposes.



Now the whole purpose of this is to have multiple targets, which is multiple copies of the same data stored on multiple servers, (maybe in separate physical locations) in order to have fault tolerance or to speed access to data across slower WAN links. It is very simple to add multiple targets just make sure you provide the multiple targets for the namespace when you are configuring it. So if we are using a domain based Active Directory integrated DFS the clients will be automatically redirected to the location that is physically closest to them.



Now the only thing left is to setup a DFS replication group so that our data is synchronized between all the servers. We are going to use DFS-R or Distributed File System Replication, this will work for both domain based and stand alone DFS. We need to create a replication group, only changes to the files are sent across the LAN/WAN not the entire changed file this helps save bandwidth. Start the “Replicate Folder Wizard” type the name of the replication group and the name of the folder to replicate, in our case “Sales”. Chose the servers you want to replicate between and chose which server will act as the primary member, and then choose the topology, I prefer Full Mesh as I prefer each member to replicate will all other members of the replication group. Next if you wish you can limit the bandwidth and schedule replication times.



The end result is you have multiple servers with “mirrored” shares in multiple locations that update each other in real time as a user changes a file in a single location. This is also very useful for fault tolerance in a single location…



*If your domain is in Server domain functional level, the system uses DFS-R for SYSVOL replication. If your domain is in any other domain mode, there might be non-Server 2008 domain controllers, a server may replicate with a non 2008 server that does not support DFS-R. Therefore, the system uses FRS on all domain controllers

How Fedora Installs Software

In the Windows world, there is usually one way to install software: clicking on an installation application that starts up and runs the whole setup for you from start to finish.




In Fedora, like most Linux distributions, there are three methods of software installation. Admittedly, one way to install sure sounds attractive and less confusing, but the one-size-fits-all installation service comes with a potentially bad price: Windows installation routines can often overwrite important underpinnings in the operating system for the sake of the application that’s currently being installed. This is good for your installed application, but potentially very bad for any pre-existing application on your system that was using that same section of Windows’ code.



In Fedora, all of the three installation methods take great pains to install applications using only what’s already in Fedora. If what the application needs is not installed in Fedora already, it has what is known as a dependency. The installing user (that would be you) will be told about any dependencies and asked how to proceed. A description of the three installation methods is easy to provide:



» Self-Contained Installation Program. This methodology is very much like the method used by Windows. A special installation application is run that automagically handles the application’s setup on your PC. This type of installation is not common on Fedora machines, though some of the larger consumer applications (OpenOffice.org or Firefox) can be installed in this manner. There is one important difference from Windows: no existing software is changed by the installation application. Dependencies are usually handled well, but it’s not foolproof.



» Compiled from Source. Remember how any user can get to the source code of any free software application? Well, once you have that code, you can perform what’s known as a compilation to turn that code (which only humans, at least the smart ones, can read) into something the PC can read and work with. Software compilation isn’t hard, but it is time-consuming at times, and dependencies are not automatically handled.



» Package Management. This method is unique to UNIX-based systems. All of the files and settings needed to install and run an application are included in one package. Fedora uses RPM-based, or .rpm, packages. (Other Linux distributions, such as Debian or Ubuntu, use Debian-based, or .deb, packages.)



As you may have guessed, package management is the preferred method of software installation in Fedora. Package installation is actually performed by an application known as a package manager. It helps keep track of all of the applications that are already installed on your PC and also helps keep track of those dependencies we mentioned. If you install a package that needs some additional software tools to properly operate on your Fedora system, it’s the package manager that will figure out what other packages you need.



In Fedora, there are actually three package managers that will assist you in your installation needs:



» PackageKit. This robust graphical package manager lists every package available for Fedora, which lets you search for software applications from a very big list. Applications are categorized by type, status on your system (installed or not), or origin.



» Software Update. Another graphical tool, this package manager has one job to do: keep your system as up to date as possible. If there’s a new version of any of your installed applications out there, Software Update will know about it and flag it for you to download and install.



» yum. The core package manager for Fedora, this command line application makes getting new packages as easy as typing one line of text and pressing the Enter key.



Each of these three package managers is configured to find all of the packages from Fedora’s package repositories. In the next section, we’ll walk through repositories and how they work.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Shares - Managing Folder Shares

Folders can be shared on FAT, FAT32, and NTFS volumes. When a folder is shared, as stated earlier, share options can be configured, including the share name, description, share permissions, access-based enumeration, limiting the number of simultaneous connections, the default offline file settings, and BranchCache if the service is already installed on the Windows Server 2008 R2 system. There are many ways to create a share, but to provide the most functionality during the share creation task, administrators should use the Share and Storage Management console located in Server Manager. The Share and Storage Management console can be used to create shares and provision storage, including tasks such as creating volumes on existing Windows disks. To create a new share using the Share and Storage Management console, perform the following steps:


1. Log on to the Windows Server 2008 R2 system with an account with administrator privileges.



2. Click Start, click All Programs, click Administrative Tools, and select Server Manager.



3. Double-click on Roles, and then double-click on File Services.



4. Select Share and Storage Management.



5. In the Actions pane, click Provision Share to invoke the Provision a Shared Folder Wizard.



6. For this example, a new folder called HumanResources will be created and shared on the C: drive. Type c:\HumanResources in the location area, and click Next.



7. A pop-up window opens, stating that the folder does not exist; click Yes to create the folder.



8. On the NTFS Permissions page, select the No, Do Not Change NTFS Permissions option button, and click Next to continue. If desired, click to change the permissions and add the Human Resources department members or security groups to limit access to the share.



9. On the Share Protocols page, select the SMB protocol to share the folder to Windows and other compatible SMB clients, type in the name of the share if the default is not desired, and click Next to continue. If the Services for NFS is installed, the administrator can also enable the NFS protocol for this share by checking the NFS check box and entering a share name.



10. On the SMB Settings page, click the Advanced button to configure the advanced share settings.



11. In the Advanced Settings window, select the User Limits tab to configure the maximum number of connections to the share and check the Enable Access-based Enumeration check box.



12. On the Caching tab, select the No Files or Programs from the Share Are Available Offline option button, and click OK. Because we are sharing a folder that will contain Human Resources data, users should only be able to access the folders and files when connected to the company network and that is why we are disabling caching. Also, due to the secure nature of some Human Resources data, we have also enabled access-based enumeration to ensure that the users who do not have access to the data do not even see the folders or files hosted within the share.



13. Back on the SMB Settings page, click Next to continue.



14. On the SMB Permissions page, select the Administrators Have Full Control; All Other Users and Groups Have Only Read Access option button, and click Next. This permission setting is preferred on some networks to allow administrators to upload new data to the share from the network to simplify administration. If tighter security is required, as would be typical with a Human Resources folder, the administrator can select the users and groups that have custom share permissions and configure the permissions to allow only the network administrators and Human Resources department members access to the share.



15. If the File Server Resource Manager is installed, the Quota Policy page is displayed. On the Quota Policy page, configure the Apply Quota check box as necessary, and click Next to continue.



16. If the File Server Resource Manager is installed, the File Screen Policy page is displayed on the next page. On the File Screen Policy page, configure the Apply File Screen check box as necessary, and click Next to continue.



17. On the DFS Namespace Publishing page, clear the check box, and click Next to continue.



18. On the Review Settings and Create Share page, review the chosen settings and if everything appears correct, click Create to continue.



19. The Confirmation page is displayed to show the results of the share creation. Click Close to complete the share creation.



Using the Share and Storage Management console on Windows Server 2008 R2 systems with the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) installed enables administrators to fully configure a share’s properties and security settings. That is why no file server should be deployed without the FSRM and why shares should only be created using the Share and Storage Management console.



As a best practice, always define share permissions for every share regardless of the volume format type. When a share is first created using the Share and Storage Management console, the administrator is provided three standard permissions configuration options as well as the ability to customize the permissions. The three preconfigured permissions options use the local Administrators group and the Everyone group for share permissions.



Using any of the three preconfigured settings and not customizing permissions might not be acceptable for companies that must adhere to strict security requirements as the Everyone group can enable guest and anonymous share access and viewing. Even though the guest account is disabled by default, and anonymous access is disabled by default, using a best-practice recommendation is to always replace the Everyone group with at least the Authenticated Users, local server Users, or Domain Users group to require authentication before accessing a share.

How to Reset Windows Server 2003 Admin Password

How to reset Windows Server 2003 password or administrator password and other user account password turns to be a challenge. Well, do not get worried, for there are always solutions to reset Windows Server 2003 password or administrator password and other user account password.

Here below we will show you one way on how to get Windows Server 2003 password recovery, and then you could get access to the password protected system swiftly, which is that you could try taking use of the Windows Password ResetEnterprise to reset Windows Server 2003 administrator password anytime.

Please follow the following steps to reset Windows Server 2003 admin password:

1

Download and install Windows Password Reset Ultimate

2

Create a password reset CD/DVD or USB drive

Step 1. Put a blank CD/DVD or USB drive into computer, select CD/DVD or USB drive to choose the 

password reset device, click Start to begin the burning.

Step 2. Click Yes to confirm and continue.

Step 3. The password reset disk is burned, click Close and Yes, take out the disk to insert it into your

 locked PC to reset Windows 2003 password.

3

Reset Windows 2003 password with the burned CD/CVD or USB drive

Step 1. Reboot the locked PC from the burned CD/DVD or USB drive, firstly select the target Windows

 system you want to reset password for on the start page, click Next.

Step 2. Select the user account you want to reset password for then, click Next.

Step 3. The Windows 2003 password is reset successfully now, take out the CD/DVD or USB drive, 

click Reboot and Yes to quit the task to log on your Windows 2003 system freely without any password.

You could login your Windows Server 2003 with the password you changed or with no password without 

any data losing or file damaging now. From now on, you no longer need to worry about the Windows 

Server 2003 password recovery any more.

Distribution List Recipients Not Receiving Messages

Distribution List Recipients Not Receiving Messages
Individual users in one distribution list can’t receive messages from outside vendors who e-mail that list. How can I fix this?

Q. I’ve created a distribution list in Exchange Server 2007 for vendors to contact people in our sales department. But when someone from outside sends a message to the list the, individual users don’t receive the message. The postmaster account gets the following delivery error:
Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists: DL_name@company.com Your message wasn’t delivered because of security policies. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator.

At the beginning of the detailed diagnostic message it states, “#550 5.7.1 RESOLVER.RST.AuthRequired; authentication required ##.”

I should point out that the distribution group works fine for users inside the company. How can I fix this error?

A. In your case, you’re using Exchange 2007 and the senders are vendors from outside your organization. By default, when you create a distribution list, the delivery is restricted to users that are authenticated. When you use the distribution list inside your organization, it works fine because the users are authenticated — but the outside vendors aren’t. Here’s what you can do to fix the problem:

Go to the distribution list’s Properties.
Click on the Mail Flow Settings tab.
Double-click Message Delivery Restrictions.
Uncheck the box “Require that all senders are authenticated.”
There’s no need to restart the computer or any of the services. Your users in the distribution list should now be able to receive messages from outside vendors.

Installing Itunes 10 on Windows server 2003

Installing Itunes 10 on Windows server 2003

Well, Apple does not support installing Itunes on a W3k server, but it can be done anyway (I’m using it with my Iphone 3Gs). This is how I done (I got info on how from http://sites.google.com/site/yukichigai/iphonex64):

1. I’ve downloaded the latest .exe installer from apple.com
2. I’ve extracted the .exe using winrar to C:\Temp\iTunesSetup.
3. From here I first ran iTunes.msi, which installed without a hassle (I guess you have to install Quicktime first, I but already had it installed).
4. I then tried to run AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi (but I got an error message that “requires that your computer is running Windows XP SP2 or newer”).
5. I’ve downloaded Orca (from http://sites.google.com/site/yukichigai/Orca.msi?attredirects=0) and opened AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi in it. Here I changed LaunchCondition to: “(VersionNT=501 And ServicePackLevel>=2) Or VersionNT>=500″, saved the file and re-run AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi. This time it installed without any error messages.
6. Then I’ve started Itunes and everything worked ok!

Blackberry enterprise Activation

Blackberry enterprise Activation

The basic EA troubleshooting would involve a couple of check points.

1. Add user to BlackBerry Manager

- Check in the application log (hit F5 or Refresh if required) to see messages like
“User Added to BES” (successfully added user to BlackBerry Enterprise Server and will monitor users mailbox)
“1 user failed to initialize” (you will be unable to activate that user if this message shows up)

- This ensures proper permissions set for EA to complete and the mailbox advise session is established

2. Check user is in sufficient wireless coverage

- Due to different “Themes” developed for BlackBerry devices, reading the number of Bars available is sometimes not accurate, check the “Options – Status” menu for signal strength, anything below

-90dbm (by this I mean -99dbm is worse signal strength as compared to -90dbm) can cause issues during Enterprise Activation

3. Check for the ETP.dat message in users inbox (if it’s arriving there is it being modified by a spam filter/AVirus software)

- If that etp.dat message is not arriving, as recommended above in the thread, try and activating with a hotmail/google mail/yahoo email address to check if the etp.dat email arrives into those email

address
- This step ensures device provisioning from your wireless carrier and sufficient wireless coverage atleast to start the EA (if signal strength fluctuates and constantly drops during EA, the

process will stop at different points)

4. Assuming the above 3 criterion are met, I would recommend right clicking choosing “Reload User”, which forces a mailbox rescan for the user, during which the etp.dat message should be picked up

to kick start the EA process

5. If the etp.dat email message is sitting in the mailbox and not being picked up, it would be BlackBerry Enterprise Server related

6. If this message never ends up in the mailbox, it could be either due to provisioning or being blocked/lost in transition which would have nothing to do with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server

7. One of the other troubleshooting steps performed from an administrators end to verify if the etp.dat email message is actually arriving and being picked up is as follows
- Remove User from BlackBerry Manager
- Ask user to activate from BlackBerry device with their email address and a simple password eg: ‘a’
- Wait for the etp.dat to arrive in their mailbox, since the user does not exist on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server there is no reason this email should not be in the “Inbox”
- Please ensure this email does not end up in a different folder like “Junk Mail” since the email header at this point is already modified by your mail/spam filters for BlackBerry Server to

realize this is the activation email

- If the message arrives, at this point you can go ahead and add the user to the BlackBerry Manager, set their EA password to what they used to start EA from their device, in this case lower case

‘a’ was our example, and the etp.dat message should be picked up (assuming permissions are set properly please refer to step 1 to verify you see a response in the application log after adding user

to BlackBerry Manager)

A quick search in our knowledge base: http://www.blackberry.com/support
Keyword: Enterprise Activation

Will yield some very useful articles for you to comprise your own checklist for smooth and successful Enterprise Activation

Active Directory database corrupted

Active Directory database corrupted

Active Directory database corruption is nasty. If you don’t have your image backup or any system state backup. It’s going to cost you time (and money).

We have faced this recently, here are some of the approaches and links to find the solution.

http://www.mombu.com/microsoft/windows-2000-active-directory/t-event-id-474-inconsistent-ntdsdit-151743.html

If you have a recent backup, we recommend you to perform restore operation right away. However if the backup is not recent, and you’ll loose many objects.

You can try to repair the Database, In some situation, certain configurations will be lost with this procedure.

Before you start the computer in Directory Services Restore Mode, obtain the 
password for the offline administrator account.

For more information about how to change the password in Windows Server 
2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Basehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/322672/

“Directory Services cannot start” error message when you start your 
Windows-based or SBS-based domain controller
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=258062

Next step:

How to Recover the Database and if it fails try How to Repair the Database 
(Be careful.  Read carefully)

http://support.microsoft.com/default…b;en-us;315131

How to complete a semantic database analysis for the Active Directory 
database by using Ntdsutil.exe
http://support.microsoft.com/default…b;en-us;315136

If you fail to repair a corrupted Active Directory, try the following:
You may try the following steps to recover the corrupted Active Directory.

1. Reboot the server and press F8. Choose Directory Services Restore Mode 
from the Menu.
2. Check the physical location of the Winnt\NTDS\ folder.
3. Check the permissions on the \Winnt\NTDS folder.

The default permissions are:

Administrators – Full Control
System – Full Control

4. Check the Winnt\Sysvol\Sysvol folder to make sure it is shared.
5. Check the permissions on the Winnt\Sysvol\Sysvol share.

The default permissions are:

Share Permissions:
Administrators – Full Control
Authenticated Users – Full Control
Everyone – Read

NTFS Permissions:
Administrators – Full Control
Authenticated Users – Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, Read
Creator Owner – none
Server Operators – Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, Read
System – Full Control

Note: You may not be able to change the permissions on these folders if the 
Active Directory database is unavailable because it is damaged, however it 
is best to know if the permissions are set correctly before you start the 
recovery process, as it may not be the database that is the problem.

6. Make sure there is a folder in the Sysvol share labeled with the correct 
name for their domain.
7. Open a command prompt and run NTDSUTIL to verify the paths for the 
NTDS.dit file. These should match the physical structure from Step 2

To check the file paths type the following commands:

NTDSUTIL
Files
Info

The output should look similar to:

Drive Information:

C:\ NTFS (Fixed Drive) free (2.9 Gb) total (3.9 Gb)
D:\ NTFS (Fixed Drive) free (3.6 Gb) total (3.9 Gb)

DS Path Information:

Database : C:\WINNT\NTDS\ntds.dit – 10.1 Mb
Backup dir: C:\WINNT\NTDS\dsadata.bak
Working dir: C:\WINNT\NTDS
Log dir : C:\WINNT\NTDS – 30.0 Mb total
res2.log – 10.0 Mb
res1.log – 10.0 Mb
edb.log – 10.0 Mb

This information is pulled directly from the registry and mismatched paths 
will cause Active Directory not to start. Type Quit to end the NTDSUTIL 
session.

8. Rename the edb.chk file and try to boot to Normal mode. If that fails, 
proceed with the next steps.

9. Reboot into Directory Services Restore mode again. At the command prompt, 
use the ESENTUTL to check the integrity of the database.
NOTE: You can use NTDSUTIL to check the Integrity, however esentutl is 
usually more reliable.

Type the following command:
ESENTUTL /g “\NTDS.dit” /!10240 /8 /v /x /o
(Note: Type the path without the quotes).

Note: The default path would be C:\Winnt\NTDS\ntds.dit; however it may be 
different in some cases.

The output will tell you if the database is inconsistent and may produce a 
jet_error 1206 stating that the database is corrupt. If the database is 
inconsistent or corrupt it will need to be recovered or repaired . To 
recover the database type the following at the command prompt:

NTDSUTIL
Files
Recover

If this fails with an error, type quit until back at the command prompt and 
repair the database using ESENTUTL by typing the following:

ESENTUTL /p “\NTDS.dit” /!10240 /8 /v /x /o
(Note: Type the path without the quotes).

Note: If you do not put the switches at the end of the command you will 
most likely get a Jet_error 1213 “Page size mismatch” error.

10. Delete the log files in the NTDS directory, but do not delete or move 
the ntds.dit file.
11. The NTDSUTIL tool needs to be run again to check the Integrity of the 
database and to perform a Semantic Database analysis.

To check the integrity, at the command prompt type:

NTDSUTIL
Files
Integrity

The output should tell you that the integrity check completed successfully 
and prompt that you should perform a Semantic Database Analysis.

Type quit.

To perform the Semantic Database Analysis type the following at the NTDSUTIL 
Prompt type:

Semantic Database Analysis
Go

The output will tell you that the Analysis completed successfully.
Type quit and closes the command prompt.

NOTE: If you get errors running the Analysis then type the following at the 
semantic checker prompt:

semantic checker: go fix

This puts the checker in Fixup mode, which should fix whatever errors there 
were.

12. Reboot the server to Normal Mode.

If any of these steps fail to recover the database the only alternative is 
to perform an Authoritative System State restore from backup in Directory 
Services Restore mode.

For more information, please refer to the following articles:

315136 HOW TO: Complete a Semantic Database Analysis for the Active 
Directory
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=315136

265706 DCDiag and NetDiag in Windows 2000 Facilitate Domain Join and DC 
Creation
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=265706

258007 Error Message: Lsass.exe – System Error : Security Accounts Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=258007

265089 Event 1168: Windows 2000 DCs Unable to Boot into Active Directory
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=265089

315131 HOW TO: Use Ntdsutil to Manage Active Directory Files from the 
Command
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=315131

Server role details in windows server 2003

Server role means to a computer which perform a certain role in windows server 2003 or server family. After installing Windows Server successfully it is time to configure the server to play a certain role. When you logon in Windows Server for first time a window will open name Manage Your Server. See below picture

From here you may configure your server for what kind of role the server should play. Before you configure about what kind  of role your server should play have a look in server role details below

File Server Provides convenient, centralized access to files and directories for individual users, departments, and entire organizations. Choosing this option allows you to manage user disk space by enabling and configuring disk quota management and to provide improved file system search performance by enabling the Indexing service.

Print Server Provides centralized and managed access to printing devices by serving shared printers and printer drivers to client computers. Choosing this option starts the Add Printer Wizard to install printers and their associated Windows printer drivers. It also installs Internet Information Services (IIS 6.0) and configures Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and installs the Web-based printer administration tools.

Application Server (IIS, ASP.NET) Provides infrastructure components required to support the hosting of Web applications. This role installs and configures IIS 6.0 as well as ASP.NET and COM+.

Mail Server (POP3, SMTP) Installs POP3 and SMTP so that the server can act as an e-mail server for POP3 clients.

Terminal Server Provides applications and server resources, such as printers and storage, to multiple users as if those applications and resources were installed on their own computers. Users connect with the Terminal Services or Remote Desktop clients. Unlike Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 provides Remote Desktop for Administration automatically. Terminal Server roles are required only when hosting applications for users on a terminal server.

Remote Access/VPN Server Provides multiple-protocol routing and remote access services for dial-in, local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). Virtual private network (VPN) connections allow remote sites and users to connect securely to the network using standard Internet connections.

Domain Controller (Active Directory) Provides directory services to clients in the network. This option configures a domain controller for a new or existing domain and installs DNS. Choosing this option runs the Active Directory Installation Wizard.

DNS Server Provides host name resolution by translating host names to IP addresses (forward lookups) and IP addresses to host names (reverse lookups). Choosing this option installs the DNS service, and then starts the Configure A DNS Server Wizard.

DHCP Server Provides automatic IP addressing services to clients configured to use dynamic IP addressing. Choosing this option installs DHCP services and then starts the New Scope Wizard to define one or more IP address scopes in the network.

Streaming Media Server Provides Windows Media Services (WMS). WMS enables the server to stream multimedia content over an intranet or the Internet. Content can be stored and delivered on demand or delivered in real time. Choosing this option installs WMS.

WINS Server Provides computer name resolution by translating NetBIOS names to IP addresses. It is not necessary to install Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) unless you are supporting legacy operating systems, such as Windows 95 or Windows NT. Operating systems such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP do not require WINS, although legacy applications on those platforms may very well require NetBIOS name resolution. Choosing this option installs WINS.