MPECS Inc. Blog

New Blog Post Azure Web App: Display Server Requests Metrics on Dashboard

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Mon, 13 May 2019 14:17:00 +0000

New Blog Post: Azure Web App: Display Server Requests Metrics on Dashboard

We have a new blog site: MPECS Inc. Blog
.
Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc

New Blog Post: Azure Web Apps: Subdomain DNS A Record Error

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Mon, 13 May 2019 14:14:00 +0000

New blog post: Azure Web Apps: Subdomain DNS A Record Error

We have a new blog site: http://blog.mpecsinc.com!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc

New Blog Location: http://blog.mpecsinc.com

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Sat, 11 May 2019 20:00:00 +0000

Good day all!

After close to ~~ten~~ twelve years it's time to start anew.

Blogger made some changes that no longer allow image posting via Open Live Writer. Using the built-in Blogger editor is not a very happy place to be as it's limited and requires an internet connection.

So, we've set up a new location: http://blog.mpecsinc.com (SSL coming soon!).

The new blog feed is here: http://blog.mpecsinc.com/feed/

We will be posting all new content over at the new blog. And, as time permits copying the most popular posts over to keep things in one place as much as possible.

Thank you all for reading and for your support over these last twelve years! :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc
New Blog Location: https://blog.mpecsinc.com

SharePoint Online: Setting up a WebDav File/Windows Explorer Favourite and/or Mapped Drive

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Thu, 02 May 2019 18:20:00 +0000

We’re working on setting up a project collaboration site in Office 365 SharePoint Online.

One of the simplest things to do to streamline document access is to set up a Favourite/Quick Access link in user’s File/Windows Explorer.

To do so:

Open the SharePoint Site in Internet Explorer
In Internet Options –> Trusted Sites set the slider to Low
Add the site to the Trusted Sites list and Apply & OK
Click on the Documents link
Click the Return to classic SharePoint link bottom left of the browser
Click the LIBRARY tab
Click the Open with Explorer button under Connect & Export

A credentials prompt may happen here

Drag the folder in the Address Bar to Favourites/Quick Access
Right click on the new shortcut and click on Properties
On the General tab:

Click and hold at the left of the Location: UNC path
Drag the mouse to the right to highlight the entire path and release the mouse button
Right click on the highlight and Copy
UNC path will look like: \\YOURDOMAINURI.sharepoint.com@SSL\DavWWWRoot\

That UNC path can be used to map a drive via Group Policy Preferences so that all users will have access via File/Windows Explorer.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

IMPORTANT: CRITICAL Firmware Update for Intel SSD DC S4510 and S4610

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 21:41:00 +0000

The Intel SSD DC S4510 and S4610 series SATA SSDs have a critical flaw where after 1,700 hours of idle time, meaning on but not working, they brick.

The following is from the Release Notes for the update:

Intel® Solid State Drive DC S4510 and S4610 Series Revision History

History

Date

Firmware

March 2019

XC311102(MR1)

XCV10110(MR1)

The following changes are included in this firmware update:

Resolved issue related to intermittent drive drop during initial boot.

Resolved 1.92TBand 3.84TB SKUs may become unresponsive at 1700hrs. of cumulative Idle Power On Hours.

Intel direct download can be found here: Intel® SSD Data Center Tool (Intel® SSD DCT)

For OEM provided applications check with the vendor's support site to find out if there is an update available.

This is a _critical data loss scenario_ and should be dealt with ASAP!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

iPhone - Add a Virtual Home Button

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 19:52:00 +0000

While helping out with a new iPhone XR the following was seen:

Tap on it and:

Figuring out just what that was turned out to be a bit of a challenge since it was put there by an Apple employee when the phone was purchased and set up.

Well, after asking around and getting an answer from the ever knowing Merv Porter (he has way better search skills than me) it turns out it is called the Virtual Home Button and is in the AssistiveTouch menu.

To turn it on is quite simple:

Settings
General
Accessibility
AssistiveTouch

Turn that on. The menu above can be customized using Customize Top Level Menu… and the button itself can have several different touch abilities.

The button can be moved and moves about the screen depending on what's being done or read.
It grows opaque when not in use and disappears when trying to get a screenshot of it. The above were taken by my own iPhone's camera.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Custom Intel X299 Workstation: Intel VROC RAID 1 NVMe WinSat Disk Score

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 23:32:00 +0000

We just finished a custom build for a client of ours in the US.

Intel Core i9-7980XE

Intel liquid cooling kit

Gigabyte X299 UD4
128GB Kingston RAM
Intel Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel VROC)

SKU: VROCISSDMOD

(2) 1TB Intel SSD Pro 7600p Series SSDs in RAID 1
ZOTAC RTX 2080 Ti NVIDIA
Intel X540-T2 10GbE
Antec P100 with EVGA 850Wat Gold

The machine is extremely fast but quiet.

After kicking the tires a bit with Windows 10 Pro 64-bit and some software installs post burn-in we get the following performance out of the Intel NVMe RAID 1 pair:

C:\Temp>winsat disk
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 0'
> Run Time 00:00:00.77
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 0'
> Run Time 00:00:02.38
> Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
> Run Time 00:00:01.64
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.45
> Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.38
> Dshow Video Encode Time                      0.00000 s
> Dshow Video Decode Time                      0.00000 s
> Media Foundation Decode Time                 0.00000 s
> Disk Random 16.0 Read                       1020.73 MB/s          8.8
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read                   3203.52 MB/s          9.3
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write                  1456.24 MB/s          8.8
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes     0.090 ms          8.8
> Latency: 95th Percentile                     0.146 ms          8.9
> Latency: Maximum                             0.316 ms          8.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes         0.058 ms          8.9
> Total Run Time 00:00:05.91

The machine is destined for a surveying company that's getting into high end image and video work with drones.

All in all, we are very happy with the build and we're sure they will be too!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Some Thoughts on the S2D Cache and the Upcoming Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 16:13:00 +0000

Intel has a very thorough article that explains what happens when the workload data volume on a Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) cluster starts to "spill over" to the capacity drives in a NVMe/SSD Cache with HDD Capacity for storage.

IOPs performance on NVMe + HDD configuration with Windows Server 2016 and Storage Spaces Direct

Essentially, any workload data that needs to be shuffled over to the hard disk layer will suffer a performance hit and suffer it big time.

In a setup where we would have either NVMe PCIe Add-in Cards (AiCs) or U.2 2.5" drives for cache and SATA SSDs for capacity the performance hit would not be as drastic but it would still be felt depending on workload IOPS demands.

So, what do we do to make sure we don't shortchange ourselves on the cache?

We baseline our intended workloads using Performance Monitor (PerfMon).

Here is a previous post that has an outline of what we do along with links to quite a few other posts we've done on the topic: Hyper-V Virtualization 101: Hardware and Performance

We always try to have the right amount of cache in place for the workloads of today but also with the workloads of tomorrow across the solution's lifetime.

S2D Cache Tip

TIP: When looking to set up a S2D cluster we suggest running with a higher count smaller volume cache drive set versus just two larger capacity drives.

Why?

For one, we get a lot more bandwidth/performance out of three or four cache devices versus two.

Secondly, in a 24 drive 2U chassis if we start off with four cache devices and lose one we still maintain a decent ratio of cache to capacity (1:6 with four versus 1:8 with three).

Here are some starting points based on a 2U S2D node setup we would look at putting into production.

Example 1 - NVMe Cache and HDD Capacity

4x 400GB NVMe PCIe AiC
12x xTB HDD (some 2U platforms can do 16 3.5" drives)

Example 2 - SATA SSD Cache and Capacity

4x 960GB Read/Write Endurance SATA SSD (Intel SSD D3-4610 as of this writing)
20x 960GB Light Endurance SATA SSD (Intel SSD D3-4510 as of this writing)

Example 3 - Intel Optane AiC Cache and SATA SSD Capacity

4x 375GB Intel Optane P4800X AiC

24x 960GB Light Endurance SATA SSD (Intel SSD D3-4510 as of this writing)

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to a 2U server with 12 front facing 3.5" drives along with four or more internally mounted 3.5" drives is their heat and available PCIe slots. Plus, the additional drives could also place a constraint on the processors that are able to be installed also due to thermal restrictions.

Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory

We are gearing up for a lab refresh when Intel releases the "R" code Intel Server Systems R2xxxWF series platforms hopefully sometime this year.

That's the platform Microsoft set an IOPS record with set up with S2D and Intel Optane DC persistent memory:

The new HCI industry record: 13.7 million IOPS with Windows Server 2019 and Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory

We have yet to see to see any type of compatibility matrix as far as the how/what/where Optane DC can be set up but one should be happening soon!

It should be noted that they will probably be frightfully expensive with the value seen in online transaction setups where every microsecond counts.

TIP: Excellent NVMe PCIe AiC for lab setups that are Power Loss Protected: Intel SSD 750 Series

Intel SSD 750 Series Power Loss Protection: YES

These SSDs can be found on most auction sites with some being new and most being used. Always ask for an Intel SSD Toolbox snip of the drive's wear indicators to make sure there is enough life left in the unit for the thrashing it would get in a S2D lab! :D

Acronym Refresher

Yeah, gotta love 'em! Being dyslexic has its challenges with them too. ;)

IOPS: Inputs Outputs per Second
AiC: Add-in Card
PCIe: Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
NVMe: Non-Volatile Memory Express
SSD: Solid-State Drive
HDD: Hard Disk Drive
SATA: Serial ATA
Intel DC: Data Centre (US: Center)

Thanks for reading!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Server Storage: Never Use Solid-State Drives without Power Loss Protection (PLP)

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:29:00 +0000

Here's an article from a little while back with a very good explanation of why one should not use consumer grade SSDs anywhere near a server:

Don’t do it: consumer-grade solid-state drives (SSD) in Storage Spaces Direct

While the article points specifically to Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) it is also applicable to any server setup.

The impetus behind this post is pretty straight forward via a forum we participate in:

IT Tech: I had a power loss on my S2D cluster and now one of my virtual disks is offline
IT Tech: That CSV hosted my lab VMs
Helper 1: Okay, run the following recovery steps that help ReFS get things back together
Us: What is the storage setup in the cluster nodes?
IT Tech: A mix of NVMe, SSD, and HDD
Us: Any consumer grade storage?
IT Tech: Yeah, the SSDs where the offline Cluster Storage Volume (CSV) is
Us: Mentions above article
IT Tech: That's not my problem
Helper 1: What were the results of the above?
IT Tech: It did not work :(
IT Tech: It's ReFS's fault! It's not ready for production!

The reality of the situation was that there was live data sitting in the volatile cache DRAM on those consumer grade SSDs that got lost when the power went out. :(

We're sure that most of us know what happens when even one bit gets flipped. Error Correction on memory is mandatory for servers for this very reason.

To lose an entire cache worth across multiple drives is pretty much certain death for whatever sat on top of them.

Time to break-out the backups and restore.

And, replace those consumer grade SSDs with Enterprise Class SSDs that have PLP!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Security: Direct Internet Connections for KVM over IP devices such as iLO Advanced, iDRAC Enterprise, Intel RMM, and others = BAD

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 21:00:00 +0000

While discussing firmware and updating firmware this situation, experienced a number of years ago vicariously, came to light:

ISP: Excuse me sir, but we have a huge volume of SPAM coming out of [WAN RMM IP]
Admin: Huh?
ISP: We are seeing huge volumes of SMTP traffic outbound from [WAN RMM IP]
Admin: Oh?
* Checks non-existent documentation
Admin: Um, is that IP assigned to us?
ISP: Yes sir, along with [WAN SSL IP for internal services]
Admin: Hmmm …
[PAUSE]
Admin: Oh, wait, I think I know … [unplugs iLO/iDRAC/RMM from switch connected to ISP modem]
Admin: Is it better now?
ISP: Oh yeah, what did you do?
Admin: Oh, I fixed it.

One should never plug a RMM/iLO/iDRAC type device directly into the Internet right?

We probably blogged about this in the past, but it definitely bears repeating as we still encounter situations where the devices are plugged directly in to the Internet!

Happy New Year everyone! :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

VS Code for PowerShell: IntelliSense Code Highlighting Not Working?

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 16:36:00 +0000

This is what VS Code looks like on _all_ machines used in the shop and elsewhere but one:

Note the great colour coding going on. That's IntelliSense working its magic to render the code in colour!

The errant machine looks like this:

Note the distinct lack of colour coding going on. :(

We removed and re-installed VS Code, the Extensions, and anything else we could with no change.

After an ask on a PowerShell list a suggestion was made to check the VS Code theme.

Sure enough, on the problematic one:

VS CODE: Dark (Visual Studio) Colour Theme

While on a functioning setup:

VS CODE: Dark+ (default dark)

For whatever reason, the latter colour theme seems to break things.

Now that we have that figured out, we can move on to coding! :D

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year's to everyone!

Hat Tip: Shawn Melton MVP

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Intel Technology Provider for 2019

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 20:26:00 +0000

We just received word of our renewal for the Intel Technology Provider program:

We've been system builders since the company began in 2003 with my building systems for more than a decade before that!

One of the comments that gets made on a somewhat frequent basis is something along the lines of being a "Dinosaur". ;)

Or, this question gets asked quite a lot, "Why?"

There are many reasons for the "Why". Some that come off the top are:

We design solutions that meet very specific performance needs such as 150K IOPS, 500K IOPS, 1M IOPS and more
Our solutions get tested and thrashed before they ever get sold

We have a parts bin with at least five figures worth of broken vendor's promises

We have a solid understanding of component and firmware interactions
Our systems come with guaranteed longevity and performance

How many folks can say that when "building" a solution in a Vendor's "Solution Tool"?

We avoid the finger pointing that can happen when things don't live up to muster

The following is one of our lab builds. A two node Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) cluster utilizing 24 Intel SSD DC-4600 or D3-4610 SATA series SSDs flat meaning no cache layer. The upper graphs are built in Grafana while the bottom left is Performance Monitor watching the RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet via Mellanox) and the bottom right is the VMFleet WatchCluster PowerShell.

We just augmented the two node setup with 48 more Intel SSD D3-4610 SATA SSDs for the other two nodes and are waiting on a set of Intel SSD 750 series NVMe PCIe AiCs (Add-in-Card) to bring our 750 count up to 3 per node for NVMe cache.

Why the Intel SSD 750 Series? They have Power Loss Protection built-in. Storage Spaces Direct will not allow any cache devices hold any data in the storage's local cache if it is volatile. What becomes readily discoverable is that writing straight through to NAND is a very _slow_ process relative to having that cache power protected!

We're looking to hit 1M IOPS flat SSD and well over that when the NVMe cache setup gets introduced. There's a possibility that we'll be seeing some Intel Optane P4800X PCIe AiCs in the somewhat near future as well. We're geared-up for a 2M+ run there. :D

Here's another test series we were running to saturate the node's CPUs and storage to see what kind of numbers we would get at the guest level:

Again, the graphs in the above shot are Grafana based.

The snip below is our little two node S2D cluster (E3-1270v6, 64GB ECC, Mellanox 10GbE RoCE, 2x Intel DC-4600 SATA SSD Cache, 6x 6TB HGST SATA) pushing 250K IOPS:

We're quite proud of our various accomplishments over the years with our high availability solutions running across North America and elsewhere in the world.

We've not once had a callback asking us to go and pick-up our gear and refund the payment because it did not meet the needs of the customer as promised.

Contrary to the "All in the Cloud" crowd there is indeed a niche for those of us that provide highly available solution sets to on-premises clients. Those solutions allow them to have the uptime they need without the extra costs of running all-in the cloud or hybrid with peak resources in the cloud. Plus, they know where their data is.

Thanks for reading!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

OS Guide: Slipstream Updates Using DISM and OSCDImg *Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 16:34:00 +0000

We have found out that we need to have the May Servicing Stack Update (SSU) KB4132216 _and_ the latest SSU which is currently KB4465659 in the Updates_WinServ folder we drop the Cumulative Update into for the Windows Server 2016 slipstream run.

Article: OS Guide: Slipstream Updates Using DISM and OSCDImg

Note that the current version of the script points to Server 2019. Please use that as a base to tweak and create a set of folders for Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 updates.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Error Fix: Trust Relationship is Broken

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 19:19:00 +0000

Here's a quick post on fixing a broken trust situation when the local administrator username and password is a known commodity.

On Windows 7:

Windows Explorer
Right click My Computer/This PC --> Properties
Change settings for Computer Name
Change button
Domain: Setting Now: DOMAIN.LOCAL

Change to DOMAIN (delete .Local)
Credential

Reboot

That process will fix things for Windows 7 unless PowerShell is up to date then for all others including it:

Log on with local admin user
Reset-ComputerMachinePassword -Credential DOMAIN\DomainAdmin
Log off
Log on with domain user account

That's it.

If you know any other methods, especially for situations where the local admin username and password is an unknown or all local admin accounts are disabled feel free to comment or ping!

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

A word of caution: Verify! Everything!

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 16:52:00 +0000

We get to work with a whole host of clients and their industries but as a contractor we also get to work with a wide variety of IT Pros and IT Companies.

Many times we get involved in a situation that's an outright pickle.

Something has gone sideways and the caller is looking for some guidance, some direction, and a bit of handholding because they are at a loss.

Vendor Blame Game

Some of those times the caller is in the middle of a tongue wagging session between a set of vendors blaming the other for the pickle.

We were in that situation back in the day when a Symantec BackupExec (BUE) solution failed to restore. The client site had two HP DAT tape libraries with BUE firing "All Good" reports.

We found out those reports were bad when the client's main file server went blotto.

We were in between the storage vendor and their products, Symantec, and HP. It was not a pretty scene at all. In the end, it was determined _by us_ that BUE was the source of the problem because it did not do any kind of verify on the backups being written to tape despite the setting being there to do so.

We were fortunate that we had multiple redundant systems in place and managed to get most of the data back except one partner's weeks' worth of work. We had to build out a new domain though.

So, why the blog post?

Because, it's still happening today.

Verify, Verify, and Verify Again

We _highly suggest_ verifying that all backup products and backup services are doing what they say they are doing.

If the service provider charges for a test failover then do it anyway. Charge the fee back to the client because once the process has run successful or not things are in a better place either way.

Never, _ever_ walk into a disaster recovery situation without ever having tested the products that are supposed to save the client's business. Period.

Yeah, there are times where something may happen before that planned failover. That's not what we're talking about here.

What we are after is testing to make sure that the vendor's claims are indeed true and that the solution set is indeed working as planned.

The last place we need to find out that our client's backups are _not_ working is when their servers, virtual machines, cloud services vendors have gone blotto.

Out of the Cloud Backup

We always make sure we have a way to back up any cloud vendor's services to our client's site. It just makes sense.

Our trust is a very fickle thing.

When it comes to our client's data we don't give our full trust to any vendor or solution set.

We _always_ test the backup and recovery processes so that we're not blindsided by things not going as planned or any "hidden fees" for accessing the client's data in a disaster recovery situation.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Some Thoughts on the Starwood/Marriott Reservations Database Breach

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 16:55:00 +0000

Note: This post will _not_ be a happy one.

First: The announcement page: Starwood Guest Reservation Database Security Incident Marriott International

That page is garbage, rubbish, and so much more. It exemplifies today's epidemic of spin instead of truth and responsibility for an error that harms others.

First:

"Marriott values our guests and understands the importance of protecting personal information."

That is a complete crock of male bovine excrement.

Especially when we look to the following:

"After receiving the internal security alert, we immediately engaged leading security experts to help us determine what occurred."

Okay, so just when did that security alert come in?

"On September 8, 2018, Marriott received an alert from an internal security tool regarding an attempt to access the Starwood guest reservation database."

Cool, so things look like they got caught really quick right? That seems to be the way this article is written right?

NOT:

"Marriott learned during the investigation that there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014."

Let's rephrase all of the above shall we:

Marriott: We let unauthorized access to our reservation database happen for FOUR YEARS.

Yeah, "We at Marriott/Starwood really care about your data/PII." Really. All said with a smile.

***

In our case, the CC used for our various stays has expired very recently. So, we should be protected that way. And, to further protect things we use KeePass with unique passwords for any and all online resources with unique e-mail addresses set up for each of them (we're doing this more and more).

Suffice it to say, if the Marriott really cared about risk to our PII (Personally Identifiable Information) the reservations system would have been segmented with designated access and no Internet access. We've been applying our knowledge of network setup to segment our client's networks for years. Especially with PCI scans being somewhat generic and different depending on what org is running the scans.

Oh, and note that credit card information was stored in there too. How in the world did that pass muster with PCI scans?

LMHYWT (Let me help you with that) " … two components needed to decrypt payment card numbers and Marriott not able to rule out both were taken."

Tis a sad day indeed when spin and lawyer speak win out over a true "Mea Culpa" we really *insert expletive here* up.

This Marriott incident is a gross breach of trust and it is time companies be held liable for such.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

New PowerShell Guides and DISM Slipstream Process Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 22:42:00 +0000

We've added two new PowerShell Guides:

We've also updated the page with some tweaks to using DISM to update images in the Install.WIM in Windows Server. The process can also be used to slipstream both Servicing Stack Updates (SSUs) and Cumulative Updates (CUs) for both Windows Server and Windows Desktop.

Thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Apple MacBook Pro: Upgrading OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 to El Capitan 10.11 with 2 Factor Authentication On

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 23:13:00 +0000

Wow, what an adventure.

We have a MacBook Pro 13" early 2009 laptop here in the shop that has been sitting idle for a while.

We installed a new SSD in the unit and bumped the RAM up to 8GB.

Then, on to installing a fresh copy of Snow Leopard 10.6 via the installer DVD.

We needed to use the Disk Utility in the installer to set up a partition prior to being allowed to install the OS.

Once in, we went through the updates process.

Then, on to upgrading OS X to El Capitan 10.11.

What a pain. Because we are on what is essentially an ancient OS version all of the apps were uncooperative due to the 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) that is enabled on our Apple ID.

Safari would not work with Apple's sites for authentication either due to SSL compatibility issues.

Searching meant using buckshot terms to try and figure out exactly what needed to be done to allow the upgrade to proceed in the App Store.

The long and short of it found here is to do the following:

Open Safari and navigate to this Apple Support page: How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan
Scroll down to Step 4 and click on the Get El Capitan link to bring up the App Store
Click the Get button in the store
On a trusted device such as an iPhone

Tap into Settings --> Your Name --> Password & Security
Tap on the Get Verification Code at the bottom of that page

On the MacBook Pro enter the Apple ID and the Password

YourAppleID@YourDomain.Com
YourAppleIDPassword123456

123456 = Verification Code

The verification code gets tagged on to the password at the end as above.

It's a monster weighing in at 6.21GB so a good fast connection should be used to download this one!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Veeam Error: Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: On-host proxy [ServerName] requires upgrade before it can be used.

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 00:07:00 +0000

We rebooted one of our Hyper-V hosts that has a number of VMs hosted on it.

The Veeam setup was just completed with the VMs set up right after.

The host was having some network difficulties as it turned out that one of the two ports in the host LBFO Management team was plugged into the VM's switch instead of our setup network.

Once corrected and a reboot later and Veeam was throwing an error due to "Server Not Found".

We had set up the backup based on the IP address the server had. Low and behold that address had changed after the reboot.

So, we set up a new Managed Server based on the new IP and updated the Backup Job.

We fired the backup but it failed:

11/2/2018 4:22:55 PM :: Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: On-host proxy [ServerName] requires upgrade before it can be used.

After some searching on Veeam's forums this post came up: On-host proxy requires upgrade

After reading through the forum thread it was the very last post that got things going for us:

Restart Veeam Backup Service
Restart Veeam Broker Service
Fire the backup
Success!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Server 2019 and ADDS: FRS Not Supported - Migrate to DFSR

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 22:46:00 +0000

We went to DCPromo a newly stood up Windows Server 2019 VM into an existing domain and it would not let us do so.

Suffice it to say, we needed to migrate File Replication Service (FRS) to Distributed File System Replication (DFSR).

The process is actually quite simple so long as Active Directory and replication are healthy.

Ned Pyle has an article that has three methods in it:

Streamlined Migration of FRS to DFSR SYSVOL

We followed method one as a just-in-case during business hours. No hiccups were experienced and once done:

A simple way to keep an eye on things is to open File Explorer and plug the following in the Address Bar: \\Domain.Com

So long as DNS is healthy and SYSVOL and NETLOGON are there the process is humming along as expected.

NOTE: Make sure a backup is taken of the PDCe and a System State as well!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

WARNING: Edge (Sync) Ate All Favourites - Favourites Gone!

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 17:09:00 +0000

We've been doing _a lot_ of work setting up a Grafana/InfluxDB/Telegraph monitoring and history system lately.

The following is our custom Kepler-64 Storage Spaces Direct 2-node cluster being tracked in a Grafana Dashboard that we've customized:

Grafana graphs, PerfMon RoCE RDMA Monitoring, and VMFleet Watch-AllCluster.PS1 (our mod)

Needless to say, a substantial number of links to various sites about running the above setup on both Windows and Ubuntu were lost after something seemingly went wrong. :(

Edge (Sync ?) Hiccups then Pukes

As we were quite busy throughout the day and Edge was being very uncooperative we started using Firefox for most of the browsing throughout the day.

Edge: Favourites Bar Shortcut Count Drastically Trimmed

The first response once things started misbehaving should have been was to use the Edge Favourites Backup feature and get them out!

When we opened Edge later in the day this is what we were greeted with:

Edge: Favourites Bar Shortcuts Gone!

As a small caveat one of the behaviours with Edge has been for it to either go unresponsive requiring a Task Manager Kill or when another Edge browser session was opened for it to not allow Paste or Right Click in the Address Bar or any Favourites, History, or other buttons to be shown.

So, Task Manager Kill? Nope. They were not there.

Log off and back on again? Nope.

Reboot the machine? Nope.

Both the Favourites Bar content and _all_ of our Favourites were gone.

Back Them Up!

During the above day when things started to misbehave the next step _should have been_ to grab one of the tablets they were syncing to and run a backup process without allowing the tablet to connect to WiFi and sync! Ugh, hindsight is 20/20. :P

And, much like the advice we always start out with when training users on the use of Office products the very first step they need to take is to _save_ their work before doing anything! And, once the work is done, to _save_ their work. Well, that advice is something that we will be taking from now on with regards to Edge and Favourites.

After a big day of Favourites building a backup should be taken.

So, Where Are Those Favourites?

Why, oh why do software vendors move my cheese?

In this case, the original location for those Favourites when using IE back in the day was OneDrive. If there was a hiccup somewhere between the number of different clients OneDrive Sync would append the name of the machine to the conflicting shortcuts and we'd be left with doing a quick Search & Destroy post mortem. No biggie. Not so with Edge.

Thanks to Michael B. Smith via a list we were pointed to:

NirSoft: ESE Database View

The location that Edge stores those favourites is here:

Stored under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\DataStore\Data\nouser1\120712-0049\DBStore
Database Name: Spartan.edb

Change the somewhat hidden dropdown to Favourites and:

Some Edge Favourites Post Backup Import

What Does All This Mean? Edge Bug

It means that there's a serious bug somewhere in the Edge setup with Data Loss being one possible result.

It means that, for now one needs to run the Edge Export process to back those Favourites up after a serious day of adding to that list!

In Edge click the Favourites/History/Downloads button

Click the Favourites Star if they are not shown as above
Click the Gear
Click the Import from another browser button

Click the Export to file button

Choose a location and give the file a name

We drop ours in OneDrive to keep it backed up
Naming convention: DATE-TIME-Location.HTML

The above process will at least help mitigate any choke in the Edge Favourites setup that may happen.

Warning Note

IMPORTANT NOTE: Edge does not have any kind of parsing structure for the import process.

We cannot pick and choose what to import, and, if there are still Favourites _in the database_ they may disappear/be deleted when importing!

If the bulk of the Favourites are still there then an alternative to a wholesale import would be to open the backup .HTML page and click on the needed links and Favourite them again. *sigh*

Conclusion

What does all of this mean?

Considering that we've lost data there's a very serious problem here. In our case, we're talking about a very long and full day's worth of bookmarks/favourites gone. :(

For now, it means back those favourites up _a lot_ when doing critical work that requires knowledge keeping!

Oh, and we need to set aside some time to delve into the NirSoft utility linked to above to see if there are features in there to help mitigate this situation.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Security: RBC Royal Bank: Best laid plans of mice and men

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 17:22:00 +0000

We did some banking work with our bank, RBC Canada. In the process they sent us a few "Secure Document Access" requests that the agent provided the password for via a phone conversation.

When the first one came in, it was a bit of a system shock.

RBC Royal Bank "Secure Message"

The highlight is ours. Huh?!?

Given the nature of today's phishing attacks a phone call was very quick to happen to our contact after receiving the above to verify its legitimacy.

We received a number of subsequent "secure" e-mails using the same method.

The encryption process we use, and our clients use, on the ExchangeDefender (xD) system is a link to an Internet property owned by xD with the appropriate SSL properties in place to assure the recipient that they are in the right place. That's after we indicate to the recipient in a prior e-mail of the upcoming process to obtain the encrypted content.

The RBC Royal Bank method is close to that but why the .HTM attachment requirement? That's just plain weird. :S

Sure enough, this is what was in an Inbox here this morning:

Phishing Message

It's a poorly crafted phish attempt at best.

E-mail Header

The trail is pretty clear as far as where it came from and the "how" looks to be fairly clear as well.

All it would have taken was a bit better in the way of timing on the phisher's part and a bit of distraction on our part and BOOM we could have been hooked. :(

RBC Royal Bank Canada needs to change their secure document transmission methodologies please.

And, Microsoft, please give us built-in DKIM abilities for on-premises Exchange instead of keeping that to online properties only. That's not polite in the least.*See Note Below

Outlook Header How-To

Outlook users, here's how to get the header information shown above:

Double click on the e-mail
Click the Message tab
Click the break-out button on the bottom right of the Tags category

Click anywhere in the small information window

Keyboard: CTRL+A then CTRL+C
Click Close and close the e-mail
Paste the content into the destined app (we use Notepad)

After examining a few headers it gets pretty easy to identify the legit and illegitimate messages hitting our Inbox every day. While the process may be a bit time consuming, figuring out whether something is legit or not could be the difference between DELETE and an encryption event or Inbox/Contacts harvesting.

Happy Monday everyone and thanks for reading! :)

2018-09-10 EDIT: Oops, that Microsoft sentence should have been CUT along with the other sentences that were in a previous paragraph. Suffice it to say, we've been working on DMARC/DKIM requests and discovered that Microsoft seems to be holding DKIM off from on-premises Exchange. Thus, we need to go third party to get to use that business critical security feature. :(

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book phantom touches

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 03:40:00 +0000

A couple of days ago one of our docked Surface Pro 4 (SP4) units started to experience what looked like an ongoing touch in the middle between the two screens near the bottom.

A reach over to the SP4 and a touch to figure out where the phantom touches were happening brought about the discovery that it was near the bottom righthand corner of the touch screen.

Weird.

Okay, so pull it off the dock, give it a good screen cleaning, and for good measure blow it out since it's been sitting there for a while.

It seemed okay but the problem came back.

A reboot would not fix it either.

So, in to the Microsoft Store we went today. The tech took it into the back for a few minutes then came back and said it's good to go.

What was done? They have a calibration tool there at the store to recalibrate the touch screen.

Since that was done the SP4 has been behaving. We'll see, but let's hope it's all good.

Microsoft KB 3165497: Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book experiences "phantom" touch input on the screen

As it turns out, the task run by the Microsoft Tech is in the above KB article.

So, if experiencing phantom touches download and run the calibration tool found in that article.

UPDATE 2018-09-10: They came back. :(

As an FYI, this time around instead of hugging one side of the screen we had a line of touches running across the screen.

So, instead of heading back to the store we ran through the hotfix e-mail process and ran the utility.

The phantom touches disappeared again. We'll see for how long.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

When Software Bugs can Kill: Dodge RAM 1500 Cruise Control Bug

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 20:20:00 +0000

A while back there was a scary moment where the cruise control in our 2016 RAM 1500 refused to release via any of the buttons on the steering wheel.

In that moment, rushing up on a vehicle fairly far ahead of us and going over a bridge, there were only a few options left:

Brakes release the cruise
Try and Power Down & Brake
Ditch @ 100KM/H on a bridge bank

Fortunately, the cruise released when the brakes got hit, we were able to avoid rear ending the person in front of us, and in fact the cruise system crashed right after the brakes were applied.

When addressing the complaint with Dodge and the dealer there's the, "Oh, no we didn't realize there was a problem there" type of response.

Well, obviously there was a problem that needed to be addressed as the bellow letter shows.

So, being that the problem could be life threatening we took the truck in to have it flashed as soon as the above showed up and the dealer had a spot open.

Here we are a few weeks or more from the day the flash was done and the behaviour happened again this morning. :S

Fortunately, at that moment there was less panic and more "Oh, hopefully the brakes work to kick it off this time" happening. ;)

A call into the dealer and the service tech indicated they'd have a conversation with the service manager since the tech was not sure whether there would be a "re-flash" of the module or the problem would need to head further up the Fiat Chrysler Canada food chain.

The Customer Service Wall

It's understandable that companies try and hide their mistakes. Yet, time and time again it's been shown that companies that are up-front about mistakes made and changes made to mitigate or eliminate them happening again tend to do quite well. It seems the lawyers tend to win this argument, and the ridiculous cases that have forced the issue, to keep things relatively hidden.

For the end-user it's very frustrating to face that "Customer Service Wall" with virtually no hope of getting anywhere beyond the person standing in front of that wall. In this case, it's the "Service Technician" that is in front of the Wall.

The reality is that the Customer Service Wall is a very well designed system to keep the person/user who is essentially paying the bills as far away from the manufacturer/vendor as is possible.

The same is true of voice recognition systems that users/customers hit as soon as they call "Customer Service".

There is no lack of irony in the above two sentences.

Conclusion

Sadly, the situation with the Dodge software bug, which can be deadly, will remain a mystery for a little while longer. With a bit of awareness, and a good dose of caution, we will be able to mitigate the bug's release block and not hit anyone including the ditch.

But for now, we wait until the folks that do the programming can figure out where the bug really lies and hopefully fix it … without introducing an even deadlier bug.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Legacy Windows XP for Industrial Machine Access and Management and Accounting Apps

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder Cluster MVP) — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 00:50:00 +0000

There are quite a few systems out there that still use Windows XP or an earlier operating system to run the equipment.

So, what do we do when we need to get access to one of these kinds of machines?

Well for one, we make sure they are completely isolated and not accessible from anywhere except perhaps one secure jump point.

For another, when we do need to access the legacy system here's one method that allows for maintaining the legacy system's isolation:

Enable RDP Inbound on the legacy system (Windows)
Set up a vanilla Windows 7 Service Pack 1 VM that is set to not update

This would be our jump point
The Win7 VM would be left off except when needed
If need be, set this VM up on a laptop that can be plugged in to the legacy system's network

Set up any needed tools on the Win7 VM

RMM, Remote Desktop Shadow/Sharing tools, Firefox (leave the base level IE in place), any needed tools

Log on to the legacy Windows XP via RDP

Make sure Drive Redirection is enabled
Use Drive Redirection to transfer any files that won't go via Copy & Paste (Clipboard)

Use the Win7 VM as the default work-from desktop
When done, shut the Win7VM down

Unplug from the legacy network when done if using a laptop with the Win7VM

For legacy systems require some form of *NIX the above process can be used for a vanilla install of the needed distro and kept offline until needed.

The principle at work here is to keep the legacy systems isolated from everywhere especially the Internet. And, to keep any jump points running an intermediary operating system that is too far back to keep safe and secure offline until needed.

As an FYI, we keep one or two legacy Windows 7 and Windows XP VMs in an offline state with legacy accounting applications installed as a just-in-case. There are times where a firm may need to go way back for a client file.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service