Of course they say; “The server is fine”. So I’m looking for some good tools to prove them wrong when I can’tget to it.

I stumbled on host-tracker.com tonight and it’s pretty sweet.

It’s not fast, but the data they give you for free is pretty cool.

So yeah, currently, as in right now, the server is doing just fine.

Give it a look…

I guess it’s kind of slow if you’re viewing this from Iran or Germany, but that’s not our biggest target audience…

If you know of other good testing tools please post them in the comments.

Generally when you start at a company they issue you this right away. After all they want you to be able to show up for work right?

I’ve dealt with these things in various flavors for years and on the back end they all pretty much suck. They are archaic, crappy applications usually still built using Visual Basic by wanna be programmers who obviously have never taken a class or read a book on computer interfaces. These applications are just terrible.

They don’t have to do much though. They also talk to some pretty unsophisticated equipment over serial interfaces, or serial equipment that has been network enabled.

The applications basically allow you to create access entries, set up time schedules and they log ‘alarms’ to a database. Hell some don’t even use a real database.

So apart from sending some binary or text to set up alarm panels, logging the alarms from said panels, any other functionality is pretty much fluff. Some might allow you to run reports though they are usually pretty poor. Most will sell you ‘optional add-on’ modules to create picture based ID cards, etc, etc. But again, I have still never seen a quality Access Control back-end package.

Now granted, the market here isn’t huge. It’s something you buy once every 10 years and maybe upgrade now and again. But that’s no excuse for publishing crap and charging and arm and a leg for it.

We’re now going to beat up on one of my favorites, KeyScan.

My biggest problem with Keyscan and a lot of companies just like them is that they take your data, yes your access and alarm data, and log it into a SQL database, MSDE to be exact, and hold it hostage.

First that’s not exactly true, you can get to it, if you use their report engine. But heaven forbid you want a report that they can’t deliver. You’re only hope then is to send in a feature request. Since we’ve had the product, they’ve only released a couple 0.x releases so I don’t see our report request as being a high priority.

Oh, and they did tell me that the can ‘Sell’ me yet another add on that will intercept the data from the controllers or alarm panels and I could take that data and put it into my own SQL database or data store.

And lastly I could run a report detailing everything and dump that via CSV and import into something else. (nice)

What they wouldn’t give me was access to the data in the already existing MSDE database, or let me redirect the application to use a SQL server that I already had so that I could (a) absorb the licensing cost of said SQL server and (b) right my own damn reports as I need and want them.

After all it’s MY DATA.

What was their reason for this? They actually didn’t have one other than, “It’s a security application and we can’t share the password that we use” As much as I tried to explain to them I didn’t want their password, only a READ ONLY username/password to the data, they stuck to their guns, “Even that is a security problem, and we’re not going to do that, ever”

Hello? I can already (a) dump it all, so where’s the security risk? What I can’t do is get up-to-date information unless I manually dump it and re-import it every time I want to run my report.

So basically let me translate for you, what they were really saying was; “We don’t know how to do it, and if we did we wouldn’t now how to charge you for it.”

The fine folks at KeyScan can bite me.

You deserve access to your data, and the ability to use far better tools for reporting than what they give you.

Here’s how you can do it.

Take your KeyScan System Off Line So that it’s not communicating with any devices (so it stops logging)

Backup your KeyScan Database using the utility; this should contain all of your latest data.

Then Uninstall MSDE (from add/remove software).

Then kindly reinstall from KeyScan from your CD. At that point KeyScan will see that it’s installed and prompt you to do a repair which will only reinstall MSDE.

When the install finishes it will ask you to reboot but DO NOT REBOOT.

Keyscan puts a registry entry in the system that will create the MSDE SA user and password with their utility so you need to create your user account here and now.

Open a command line and use osql to create another user in the database or MSDE environment for you to connect to using the following commands:

use osql to add a login and make that login a sysadmin, (sysadmin role has superpowers).

osql -U sa
passwd:<blank>
>exec sp_addlogin ‘admin’
>go
>exec sp_password NULL,’password’,'admin’
>go
>exec sp_addsrvrolemember ‘admin’,’sysadmin’
>go

close the command prompt and you’re done.

Finish rebooting and you should still be able to login with your created admin login using SQL 2000 tools or earlier. (basically anything you want. Create an ODBC connection and have fun) The database Schema is very easy to follow.

Everything you want is in the ALARM table.

We networking types, we tend to be a bit anal about some things and documentation is usually at the top of the list.

When we’re asked to come in and fix stuff one of the first things we ask is; “Do you have a network diagram?” or “Is this documented?”

Generally the answer is no. Which is just as good, because most of the time the documentation is wrong anyway.

But when there is documentation, it comes in all forms, and just when you think you’ve seen it all.

I’ve seen:

• Really well done Visio drawing as well as really bad Visio drawings.
• Diagrams done in Raster Paint programs like Photoshop or MS Paint.
• Hand drawn or sketched diagrams that were pretty accurate and very detailed.
• I have even seen them done in ASCII or plain text, which is better than nothing at all.

But this, well, this is new. Someone was recently asked for a network diagram, and without skipping a beat, and proud as a Peacock said, yes, their network was indeed documented, and then turned over the following:

Yes, that’s it, a network diagram in Excel, clearly marking all the networks, routers, switches, etc, in great detail. It’s awesome.

Of all the tools you have available. Heck if you have Excel, you have a draw layer. People will never cease to amaze me.

Tags: network, diagram, wtf, Excel

If your software expires, and actually ceases to function, then you better have a plan to take care of the customer when that happens.

In 2006 the idea or renting software year over year is not a new one. So when your customer reaches the end of a year and their stuff stops and they realize they need it, chances are really good that they need it yesterday.

In 1986, when the web was slow and everyone connected with 9600 baud modems and mostly used AOL, web enabled customer support was mostly manual to no existent. I understand 20 years ago why you might not be able to give a customer a new license or temporary license right away even though email still worked pretty well back then.

Actually back then you could call someone and get them on the phone so chances of solving your problem were actually better than they are today, but that's a different subject entirely.

Let me give you a clear example of how not to do things.

We use a product called MailFrontier for Spam prevention and email Anti-virus. We've used it now for almost 3 years. By all accounts this has been an outstanding product. Support has been pretty good too.

This year however, MailFrontier was purchased by SonicWALL. That in by itself should have been a sign.

Towards the end of May I got a nice marketing SPAM welcoming me to SonicWALL, with instructions for using my; mysonicwall account. The instruction read:

SonicWALL also offers a registration and management tool that gives you the ability to download updates and upgrades, manage subscriptions and track revisions. An account on www.mysonicwall.com has been created for you.

Your serial number, username and password is:

It is a pleasure to welcome you into the SonicWALL customer community. We appreciate your business and look forward to supporting you in the future.

Note how complete this email was:

SonicWALL also offers a registration and management tool that gives you the ability to download updates and upgrades, manage subscriptions and track revisions. An account on www.mysonicwall.com has been created for you.

Your serial number, username and password is:

It is a pleasure to welcome you into the SonicWALL customer community. We appreciate your business and look forward to supporting you in the future.

There was also no mention that our licenses were about to expire. You see Mailfrontier is a pretty much set it and forget it server. It works that well.

Well low and behold about 5 days after the expiration date, on a FRIDAY evening no less, all hell breaks loose. SPAM everywhere, email Viruses everywhere. If we weren't running Trend on our back end Exchange servers "just in case" we'd have been hosed big time.

First we thought, crap, someone setup an open relay. So I spent about an hour looking for that. Then I realized, that no, our licenses had expired.

So, certainly, we share in some blame here for not keeping tabs on this. But I'm going to point some fingers too.

1. SonicWALL/MailFrontier: WTF? Where was my notification? We had the server properly configured to send to the administration group. We get other notices, why not a notice about licensing? Oh but there was a notice, where was it? Written to the NT event log. How nice. Everyone looks there on a daily basis.
2. What about your sales department? Didn't they want us to renew?
3. CDW: My Rep. You let me down man. You guys have this wiz bang software license product that totally stinks. Nothing ever gets in there right. Not even the stuff you say you automatically put in there. So it's basically useless. You'd think you'd want to sell me more software too to support your new Race Car.

So here we are on Saturday night now (the day I actually figured out MailFrontier was screwed up or expired). I figured I'd try out Sonic's world class support.

It is our intention to renew this product, and since we've been a long standing customer, the least they could do is give us a temporary 30-day key to get us going. Right?

So I open a ticket, its 10pm on a Saturday night.

I get an auto-response that says; to talk to someone call the numbers on their website, I figure they have all these global locations, someone in some time zone should be awake, why not?

So I call in and low and behold someone answers.

Sonic: Good evening SonicWALL.
Me: Holly crap, someone's there.
Sonic: Why yes, we're always here.
Me: That's good to know, I need tech support, I have spam and viruses running amuck all over my network.
Sonic: Is this a new case or an existing case.
Me: Existing, case number XXXXXXXXX
Sonic: Thank you I'll transfer you.
Me: Stunned and astonished.
Me: …Waiting…
Me: Jamming to hold Music
Sonic: Still trying to transfer you sir…
Me: OK
Me: …Waiting…
Me: …Waiting…
Me: …Waiting…
Sonic: Sir, did you know our tech support was only 10:am to 6pm ?
Me: Nope, you said you were always there a few minutes ago.
Sonic: Well someone's always here, I can transfer you into voice mail.
Me: Is that 10-6 on weekends too? Can I talk to someone at 10am tomorrow?
Sonic: No sir it will be 10am on Monday, would you like the support voicemail?
Me: I already have a 'network down' ticket, what's the point?
Sonic: A voice mail is better than that, you should leave one.
Me: OK then.
Me: Leaves voice mail explaining problem.

At that point I figure I'm hosed.

Not 10 minutes later my cell rings. It's a Tech from Sonic. He explains he listened to my voice mail but he doesn't have the ability to generate keys. A sales person has to do that. I said; "OK, get a sales person."

Tech: Well, they are all sleeping.
Me: Wake one of them up.
Tech: Let me see if I can get my manager.
Me: Look, you have all of these sites listed on your website. You guys are global, get me a sales guy in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, I don't care.
Tech: Let me see what I can do.
Me: Can I set the clock back on my server to buy me some time?
Tech: No that won't work.
Me: OK

That was the last time I heard from that guy.

About two hours later I decide to try the clock thing. It works by the way, just know that your reports will be screwed up and if your server is part of active directory, AD will reset the clock for you so you need a batch file to keep the clock turned back. Something like this:

Make a simple .vbs script name it something like date.vbs and run it in a command line by typing:

cscript filename.vbs

Script:

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

do while true = true

wscript.sleep 10000

WshShell.Run ("date 05/05/2006")
wscript.echo "date reset to 05052006"
loop

Of course kill this when you get your new licenses.

Fast forward to Monday, because Sunday Sonic support was useless.

Monday we ordered our renewal from CDW, which as it turns out doesn't buy directly from SonicWALL, so getting our keys today still might not be possible.

Again, the yahoo's at Sonic don't seem to get it. I get another email from them asking me to open a case so they can help me.

We've been on the phone now for two hours today (Monday) and still we've accomplished nothing. All we want at the least is a temporary key (or better yet the keys for our renewal) but they are too incompetent to furnish that. This is something MailFrontier would gladly and easily handle before the merger.

I think it's time to find a new solution.

Tags: SonicWALL, MailFrontier, incompetent, support, license_renewal, IT, software, expired, Truth, SPAM, date_time, CDW

You Had Me At EHLO! The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog

and really all things considered, Exchange doesn't completely suck anymore. Just remember it could be aleays worse, you could be running Notes/Domino.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Exchange, Blog

We’ve been hard on Dell before, but they should get Kudo’s when they get something right. Last week I needed to deploy a new laptop fast. We have fleet of latitude d-series laptops, and I often switch hard drives around when one gets a. infected with virii and spyware, or b. goes bad (which laptop drives do often).

Anyway I pulled out a d600 that I had kept back and found that the hard drive carrier and hd was missing. HD’s are no problem, I had a couple of spares and one hd carrier, but it was for a d800 and not a d600, and they don’t mix and match. doh!

I remembered that we had completecare on these. Highly recommended. You can run over the laptop with a truck and they will send you a new one, no questions asked.

So I called them up, told them the situation and asked if they would ship me out a new hd carrier. Well, completecare does not cover loss or stupidity, so they would have been entirely in the right to tell me to go pound sand. But instead, the tech, on his own authority, without clearance from anyone, takes the initiative and ships me out the carrier. The whole phone conversation lasted ten minutes.

That’s how you keep loyal customers. Dell gets it right most of the time. I should also note that I’ve called Dell a couple of other times on questions about poweredge servers and each time got a quick response plus an answer to a question.

If things got a little heated I’d make a list and add the newest to the bottom.

As of late those two methods are not working.  I have a personal goal of 100% follow through meaning no requests got forgotten.  Dumped, re-prioritized, pushed aside, but not forgotten.  This book really helps get that done for system administrators.

I’ve read a lot of time management books and most of them don’t spend a lot of time on the particular issues of the sysadmin.  Prioritizing things is nice, except when your day is punctuated by a continuous stream of requests.  So prioritization has to be constant.  And if you are spending your time prioritizing, when’s the work getting done.

From the Jacket Review:

Time Management for System Administrators understands that an Sys Admin often has competing goals: the concurrent responsibilities of working on large projects and taking care of a user’s needs. That’s why it focuses on strategies that help you work through daily tasks, yet still allow you to handle critical situations that inevitably arise.

Among other skills, you’ll learn how to:

Manage interruptions

Eliminate timewasters

Keep an effective calendar

Develop routines for things that occur regularly

Use your brain only for what you’re currently working on

Prioritize based on customer expectations

Document and automate processes for faster execution

What’s more, the book doesn’t confine itself to just the work environment, either. It also offers tips on how to apply these time management tools toyour social life. It’s the first step to a more productive, happier you.

I haven’t applied the whole book so far, but last week was a particular hectic one with several emergencies and with this system I managed to deal with the emergencies and get a lot of things done as well.

CmdrChalupa Stamp of Approval:

Wow, this would be a sweet thing to have. It would potentialy put a lot of little mail server companies behind the 8 ball.

Google is apparently thinking about (or about to beta) a product to let you provide their service as mail for your server/domain/service.

Nice if done properly and end sites don’t necessarily know it’s Google at fist look and can easily ban your users or prohibit them from registering with your email addresses.

Too many companies now have added gmail to the same list as yahoo, and hotmail accounts to the list of free accounts they won’t accept.

But I welcome the opportunity to shift my mail burdens of end users off to them. Provided of course I can still manage them and drop deadbeat users. The beta page shows a control panel and the same 2 gigs we’re used to. I welcome the spam filtering, etc, etc.

This is huge for some of us, but the general public won’t care.

Technorati Tags: GMail, IT, Free Mail, hosted, tech

While exchange is generally a great product, and is truly bulletproof, the functionality for resource scheduling is a pile of disgusting crap so vile we shall not speak of it in polite company. Since no one’s polite here, I’ll drive on.

Already I can hear the argument, “Oh but it’s way better now with the Auto Accept Agent“. You say that only because you remember how horrible it was before. Remember when you had to have an outlook mapi client logged in all the time to continuously monitor resource mailboxes? God forbid there was a power outage, because then it meant it was time to logon to that box to get outlook started. The current system looks good only in relation. Trust me.

Exchange is tied in to AD as we all know, and in AD Users and Computers there are extra tabs for exchange stuff. For the love of all that is good and holy, why isn’t there a checkbox on one of those tabs that says: Make this mailbox a Resource Account? Then a few other options about how to respond to requests, and wa-la all done, nice and happy.

Oh but no, that would be the Apple way and we live in a microsoft world. What we have is a hokey agent that runs as a dcom component and has a nice installer that gets the service going (ideally) but to configure it you:
1. run some vbscripts with the right arguments
2. manually edit an xml file.

Then, if the Gods are with you, meeting requests will get responded to.

Friday we had a server maintenance night, all servers got an update. The exchange servers autoaccept service barfed on the reboot and never started. Of course I’m not monitoring that particular service with Nagios(note to self: put that on my task list), and I didn’t notice until this morning when a user told me. Since it was a while since the update, I didn’t connect the two events.

So I got the user emails, rdp’d into the server and checked it out. Service not started. tried to start, no good. uninstalled and reinstalled no good. error messages turned up nothing useful in ms knowledgebase (of course). decided to wait til evening when I could restart the server.

Evening. uninstalled service. reboot. reinstall, no good. Went through event logs and figured out that the service hadn’t been running since Friday! Ah-ha! stupid ms updates screwed with the auto accept agent. uninstalled updates and tried again. rebooted, reinstalled. Still no good. Frak!

Uninstall again, notice uninstall didn’t delete registry key (of course) manually deleted registry key, reboot. reinstall. no good, service won’t start. reinstall did not recreate the service. reinstall again. service not created. start cursing. frak, frak, frak, frak, FRAK! google, no help, ms kb, no help.

I went through a couple cycles of this and almost burned a support incident from our msdn account. Ah! remembered that our old exchange server had at one time an auto accept agent. it had been uninstalled but the reinstall worked for this server. By copying registry keys and the com services component exactly I was able to get the new server going. the service has to be created from the component administration panel for all you who wonder what the secret sauce was.

So after all this I updated the server just to see for sure if that’s what broke it in the first place. And after updates, the service isn’t started. but it does start manually. Go figure.

So we have the great conclusion that everything is working again and I have no idea what the problem was. Gotta love MS.

The Poohbah’s Endorse Cacti: The Complete RRDTool-based Graphing Solution

Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool’s data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box. All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with hundreds of devices.

Screenshots | Features

I set this up the other day on our generic network administration Fedora Core 3 box and it took about 30 minutes from downloading to the first graph. Truly an excellent package. No programming necessary, everything can be run through the web gui. Full effectiveness does require a knowledge of what you are measuring and why.

Here is the Main Menu showing that in addition to the ordinary directory options you can search by name, initials or Department.

Searching by name lets you specify a first or last name by text.

Searching by initials mean punch in the first initial and last initial by number. if you want to find the number of John Smith you would punch in 57 and submit. This kind of search is wicked fast with the least number of button pushes and in small organizations gets you to the right person quickly.

Searching by department rips through the Active Directory to find all departments listed, so this is a dynamic list of entries in the users AD department field. Choose one to see the list.

There was an interesting article in this months Adverzine titled “Preparing for the Worst”

Now the image doesn’t show up so well here but in the Adverzine it’s a full friggin page.

This guy, who’ll remain nameless here on DataPoohbah, had is picture taken in front of his patch-panel for this article. (We’ve fuzzed him out so that he’ll remain somewhat protected, but damn dude, if they click through and figure out who you are, you should have known better.)

A patch-panel that is a complete and utter rats nest. If the worst struck his organization I don’t know how he’d ever figure out what’s connected to what. If he had a communications issues, they’d spend precious time tracing cables.

He should be embarrassed.

A properly patched network room/data center should look something like this:

Color coordinated, labeled and tagged patch cords. Velcro’d not wire tied so you can get them apart if need be, and in a hurry too.

Everything has it’s place and a place for everything. If the port isn’t live or need to be connected it’s not. If you need to connect it, you can find it. (what a concept).

Handy work provided by one CmdrChalupa!

It makes troubleshooting oh so much easier when you just do things right from the get go.