Kevin Garner's Technology Blog

Using Papercut to test SCOM subscriptions

2012-05-02T08:50:00.001-05:00

Have you ever needed to test a subscription in SCOM using the email channel, but don't access to a SMTP server and/or don't want the emails being sent out to the subscriber? I’ve run into this when testing out subscription criteria to ensure I've made the right selections. Since my SCOM development environment runs on Hyper-V and doesn't have access to the Internet my only option is to install an SMTP server, right? Not necessarily, a much easier solution is Papercut.

Papercut is a free simplified SMTP server. Here’s how to use it.

1. First, download the Papercut zip file from Codeplex.
2. Then, unzip the download to a location on your SCOM server. Quick tip, this will be your Root Management Server in SCOM 2007.
3. Inside the unzipped folder you'll see 3 files. Launch Papercut.exe and click options.
4. In the options dialog, you can select the IP and Port that you want the SMTP server to listen on. I'll leave it on "Any", so that it will listen for SMTP traffic on the designated port for any of the IP's in the list. Check "Minimize automatically" if you want the application to always minimize when launched.

5. In SCOM you need to setup an SMTP channel. Launch the SCOM console and navigate to the Administration pane, then Notification -> Channels. Right-click channels, then click New--> E-Mail (SMTP).
6. Enter a channel name and description.

7. Click Add and enter "localhost". Set the port number to whatever port you chose when you setup Papercut and click OK.

8. Enter a return address and click Next.

9. Setup your format as you like and click Finish.
10. All that's left is setting up a subscription that uses the new channel you just created. After that you can generate an alert in SCOM that matches your subscription criteria and it will appear in the Papercut window. Here's an example.

Another cool features is that Papercut retains all of the emails as .eml files in the folder that Papercut.exe runs from. So there you go, a very simple way to test SCOM subscriptions using the SMTP channel without all the work of setting up your own SMTP server.

Discovery and the Dell Windows Server MP for SCOM

2011-04-12T08:45:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I imported the Dell Server MP for SCOM (v4.1). My best practice is to first test the MP in a development environment. Once I have some run time on the MP and feel comfortable importing the MP into production, I create an override to disable the MP’s object discovery and I store the override in an overrides MP specific to the parent MP (ex. “Dell Windows Server (Scalable Edition)_OVERRIDES”). This ensures that when I import the Dell MP and the overrides MP into our production environment discovery will not automatically be run on all of our production Windows servers. This method allows me to more casually deploy the MP into our production environment, by creating additional overrides targets at a group of Windows servers or specific Windows servers. Much safer than the spray and pray approach.

If you want to do the same, you need to create an override to disable the object discovery named “Dell Server Discovery”. This object discovery is targeted at Windows Computer. Make sure you import the Dell MP and the MP containing your overrides into your production environment at the same time. Ifyou don’t, you may not get the override created quickly enough to prevent the discovery from running on all of your Windows servers.

Example:

Once I am confident the Dell MP is not generating numerous false positives, script errors, etc., I will remove the override above to enable the discovery to run against all of our Windows servers.

I’ll follow-up at a later date with my impressions of the Dell MP (v4.1).

SCCM Advertised Programs Don’t Appear on Windows 2008 Server RDP Sessions

2010-08-26T15:38:00.002-05:00

Earlier today, I came across a strange issue that arises when advertising a program to Windows Server 2008 using SCCM. The program advertisement appeared correctly on my Windows 2003 servers remote desktop console/admin session, but the same could not said when logging on to my Windows 2008 servers. Instead, all I saw was as a message stating “No programs are available to run from a Terminal Services session”.

I logged off, launched the remote desktop admin session with “mstsc.exe /admin”, but still the problem existed. Finally, after a small amount of troubleshooting I discovered why this issue was occurring. In Windows 2008, unlike Windows 2003, there is no longer a session id 0. Instead, for SCCM at least, the first user that logs on will be the only user able to see what is available via Run Advertised Programs or the “Install a program from the network” section in Add/Remove programs. On both servers that I was logging in to, there were already Remote Desktop sessions as seen below:

In the screencap above, I’m the 2nd user with ID 3. Notice there is no ID 0 as you would see when logging on to a Windows 2003 Server with “mstsc.exe /admin”. As soon as I had the user with Session ID 1 log off, here’s what I saw.

Notice that I still have the same session ID, but now the advertised program that I expected appears.

For a better understanding of why Session 0 is no longer needed in Windows 2008 take a look at KB947723.

Windows Live Essentials 2011 beta refresh

2010-08-19T13:15:00.001-05:00

Read more about it here. Here’s to hoping they fixed the account lockout issue present with Live Sync.

UPDATE: I haven’t confirmed this myself, but comments on the Windows Team Blog indicate that the account lock-out issue still exists for Live Sync users on domain PCs. Guess, I’ll refrain from installing Sync for now.

Automating SQL 2005/2008 Express Backup in 5 Easy Steps

2010-08-18T16:50:00.002-05:00

I was recently asked to backup all system and user databases on a SQL 2005 Express installation. Unfortunately, SQL 2005 Express native backup capabilities are not on par with SQL 2005 Standard/Enterprise. SQL Express includes functionality for backing up a single DB using SQL Server Management Studio Express, but this is only ideal for backing up a single database and it cannot be scheduled. So here are the steps for automating this process. If you’d like more detailed information, check out this much more thorough article at http://www.sqldbatips.com/showarticle.asp?ID=27.

Step 1:

Save the lines here in a file called expressmaint.sql to C:\SQLScripts.

Step 2:

Open an administrator command prompt to “c:\SQLScripts\” and run “sqlcmd -S .\SQLExpress -i c:\sqlscripts\expressmaint.sql”.

Step 3:

Save the lines below in a file called sqlbackup.sql and save it in C:\SQLScripts. Be sure to change the variable contents for @reportfldr to whatever is appropriate for your environment.

exec expressmaint
   @database      = '$(DB)',
   @optype        = 'DB',
   @backupfldr    = '$(BACKUPFOLDER)',
   @reportfldr    = 'c:\SQLScripts',
   @verify        = 1,
   @dbretainunit = '$(DBRETAINUNIT)',
   @dbretainval   = '$(DBRETAINVAL)',
   @rptretainunit = 'copies',
   @rptretainval = 2,
   @report        = 1

Step 4:

Save the lines below in a file called sqlbackup.cmd and save it in C:\SQLScripts. Be sure to change “.\SQLExpress” to the name of your SQL Express server and instance” and don’t forget to change the BACKUPFOLDER location to whatever is relevant in your environment. NOTE: Each “sqlcmd” begins a new line.

sqlcmd -S .\SQLExpress -i"c:\SQLScripts\sqlbackup.sql" -v DB="ALL_USER" -v BACKUPFOLDER="e:\SQLBackups" -v DBRETAINUNIT="days" -v DBRETAINVAL="1"

sqlcmd -S .\SQLExpress -i"c:\SQLScripts\sqlbackup.sql" -v DB="ALL_SYSTEM" -v BACKUPFOLDER="e:\SQLBackups" -v DBRETAINUNIT="days" -v DBRETAINVAL="1"

If you were to run the 2nd sqlcmd above your output would be similar to this:

Step 5:

Create a scheduled task to run “C:\SQLScripts\sqlbackup.cmd” at your desired backup frequency.

Windows System State Analyzer

2010-08-06T15:43:00.001-05:00

“The basic functionality of the System State Analyzer tool is to allow you to compare two snapshots taken at different points in time. This allows you to compare the state of a machine both before and after an application install for instance.” Read more here.

Killing a hung service

2010-08-06T11:04:00.001-05:00

Today I came across a system that was failing to heartbeat . Opening services.msc on the box revealed that the System Center Management service status was “Starting”. Stopping the service from services.msc didn’t work, so I had to resort to a more forceful option.

Here’s how I did it.

Open a command prompt
Query for the state and PID by entering “sc queryex healthservice”
Now that we have the PID, we can use the Taskkill command by running “Taskkill /PID /1168 /F. The /F switch will forcefully terminate our process.

Now you can start the HealthService.

Adding SCOM R2 Report Models

2009-11-23T16:27:00.002-06:00

SCOM R2 includes 2 new report models for Events and Performance. For direction on how to add these models have a look at http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/attachment/3222196.ashx

Technorati Tags: SCOM

New Tool: MDT 2010 Build-out/Hydration Evaluation

2009-11-15T08:59:00.001-06:00

If you’re interested in checking out MDT 2010 you should take a look at the New Tool: MDT 2010 Build-out/Hydration Evaluation from Xtreme Consulting Group. This awesome tool was builds you out a complete test environment in Hyper-V with almost no effort at all.

Ask the Performance Team : Memory Management - Understanding Pool Resources

2007-04-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

Memory Management - Understanding Pool Resources is a great blog post for understanding Pool Resources and Pool Resource Depletion in Windows 2000 and 2003 32-bit Operating Systems.

Error message after you install the Systems Management Server 2003 site database on Microsoft SQL Server 2005: "Message ID : 619"

2007-03-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

As some of your may recall, there was a discussion on myitforum in August of last year regarding a Message ID 619 for SMS 2003 installs running on SQL Server 2005. I posted about this at the time and the fix that PSS offered, but forgot to update my one or two readers when the KB was updated in November. So here it is... KB923116 updated.

TechNet Magazine Active Directory Component Jigsaw Poster

2007-03-28T12:57:00.000-05:00

This cool poster was featured in March-April 2006 edition of TechNet Magazine. Check the TechNet Magazine Active Directory Component Jigsaw Poster out for yourself.

ACL Permission Error from IIS when installing SUS 1.0 on Windows 2003 SP1 server

2006-08-31T15:38:00.000-05:00

After installing Software Update Services (SUS) 1.0 w/SP1 on my Windows 2003 Standard Server w/SP1 I was unable to view the SUSadmin webpage. The error message

"You are not authorized to view this pageYou do not have permission to view this directory or page due to the access control list (ACL) that is configured for this resource on the Web server. "

To fix this, navigate to Default Web Site-->SUSAdmin via IIS Manager and change the authentication methods for the SUSAdmin site to use Integrated Windows authentication. Refesh the SUSadmin page and you should now see the admin site.

Error message after you install the Systems Management Server 2003 site database on Microsoft SQL Server 2005: "Message ID : 619"

2006-08-29T06:17:00.000-05:00

For those of you that have been experiencing a backlog of .sql files in Inboxes\Statmgr.box\Retry and seeing the error below, take a look at KB923116. You will need to call Microsoft Support to get the necessary changes (or take a look at this thread). Microsoft has told me that a hotfix should follow shortly.

*** [42000][102][Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Incorrect syntax near 'd'. : sp_InsStatusMessageAttribute SMS_STATUS_MANAGER date time 4144 (0x1030) ERROR: Could not add a SQL command to the transaction. Most likely, there is a problem with the SQL server or our connection to it. The transaction will be rolled back. SMS_STATUS_MANAGER date time 4144 (0x1030)

Changes to the WSUSScan.cab file

2006-08-29T06:10:00.000-05:00

For better or worse the WSUSScan.cab is changing. In an attempt to reduce size, all superseded patches will now be removed because the maximum cab file size has been reached. The reduction in size should come as a welcomed relief to all those that have been seeing CPU levels holding steady at 100% during SMS ITMU or Windows/Microsoft Update scanning.

The question right now becomes how customers that require the superseded patches (because the current version breaks LOB apps) will be able to scan for the superseded patches.

For more info, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924513.

TechNet Magazine for FREE

2006-08-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

Technet magazine is a great resource for MOM, SMS, and Windows System Administrators and best of all it's free.

Subscribe to TechNet Magazine

Customize SMS 2003 with Local Policies

2006-08-23T10:19:00.000-05:00

There was a recent thread on Myitforum.com regarding the use of local policies. For more information, take a look at the SMS 2003 SDK or have a look at this recent article in Techet Magazine, Customize SMS Using Local Policies -- TechNet Magazine, September 2006.

Microsoft Virtual Server support policy

2006-08-23T10:08:00.000-05:00

If you are wondering whether or not yoru Microsoft Server app is supported on MS Virtual Server, take a look at the Microsoft Virtual Server support policy.

ITMU Updates Fail when Scan Tool fails to Run

2006-08-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

Brian Tucker : ITMU Updates Fail when Scan Tool fails to Run

Take a look at Brian's blog if you are having issues with the SMS 2003 ITMU scan tool failing on clients.

How MS does patch management

2006-08-02T00:51:00.000-05:00

Taken from Rod Trent's Blog...

Thanks to Paul Thomsen at Microsoft for posting these to the SMS email discussion list!
Main presentation – you have to sign in but that then leads to the live presentation, or the PowerPoint slides (or it should – it’s busted now), or the offline viewing download
WMA – voice-over only (podcast, I suppose you could say)
MP3 – same thing but for devices that don’t support WMA
PowerPoint slidedeck direct download - you don’t have to sign in

Webcast: ADMP for MOM2005

2006-08-02T00:48:00.000-05:00

TechNet Webcast: Active Directory Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (Level 200)

If you have questions on the configuration of the AD Management Pack for MOM 2005, this webcast is worth viewing.

Logging Security Events in MOM 2005

2006-07-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

If you are looking to monitor security events in MOM 2005, you'll need to know the security event IDs. Below are two valuable links:
Windows 2000 Security Event Descriptions (Part 1 of 2)
Windows 2000 Security Event Descriptions (Part 2 of 2)

How to Use the Site Reset Functionality in Systems Management Server 2003

2006-07-25T22:35:00.000-05:00

How to Use the Site Reset Functionality in Systems Management Server 2003

A list of log files that are created in Systems Management Server 2003

2006-07-25T19:04:00.000-05:00

A list of log files that are created in Systems Management Server 2003

Comprehensive list of SMS 2003 log files for both legacy and advanced clients, as well as site servers.

Dell 1600N Network Scan issue

2006-07-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

I've been having an issue on my Dell 1600N All-In-One printer where the network scan would initially work and then it would stop working. Opening the network scan manager and trying to find the scanner fails every time. After a searching the Dell forums it turns out that the problem is that I had an additional network adaptor configured as an MS Loopback Adaptor. As soon as I disabled this, the scanner is found. In my mind this is only a temporary workaround, but at least I know the issue and am able to resume scanning.