Boring Life Of a Geek
So one of my servers started giving these Perflib errors after windoze updating it last night:
"Windows cannot load extensible counter DLL PerfDisk, the first DWORD in data section is the Windows error code."
Every minute. Quite irritating.
After doing the usual searches of Google and Microsoft and finding *nothing*, I begged James for help. His suggestion: run exctrlst.exe, untick the PerfDisk one. Wait. Retick.
So far nothing new in the event logs.... *crossed fingers*
Well it seems that yes, you can in fact run windows firewall on boxes running NLB. This is presuming that your NLB is setup correctly. After logging a call to Microsoft (and talking to someone who had never setup NLB before - grrr) I eventually rebuilt my test boxes from scratch and setup NLB in the prescribed way, as opposed to copying what we have in production. Turns out our production servers are incorrectly setup too. Which is surprising because they *work*, and have done for years, and Luc set them up based on the way servers are setup for the entire organisation (!)
So anyways.
Next week we'll be reconfiguring the production servers, and then will try enabling the firewall on them again...
I've spent a good couple of months now on and off looking for an answer to a very simple question:
Can you use windows firewall on servers running NLB?
Well it seems that only one other person on the internet has asked this question, and they didn't get a very satisfactory answer. Certainly nothing I can really work with.
The problem *seems* to be something to do with gateways. With the firewall disabled, everything works fine. However with the firewall enabled, only the non-NLB ips respond.. the NLB ip address doesn't respond (blocked by the firewall) - however it *does* work from machines on the same vlan.
I think I'll be logging a call to Microsoft on this one...
So someone in their wisdom thought it might be a good idea to extend daylight savings by a week, all because it was going to end during the Commonwealth Games.
This person should be shot.
When all of this first surfaced, there was a patch available that added a new time zone to windows computers, and you could select that time zone during the games. You then would have to change back afterwards. However it meant applying a patch to all the computers in your organisation and then changing the time zone. Painful.
Then came another patch which actually just modified the existing Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney time zone. This was available to computers that ran windows update manually, but not for SUS.
So today the patch was released for WSUS. But not SUS (because it's not a critical patch as such). So I've been trying to get our server upgraded from SUS to WSUS. And today the patch appeared. All well and good, but I still haven't gotten the server working, and don't want to just go blithley passing out patches without testing them properly first. So I ran windows update on my old w2k desktop and installed the patch.
Well.
Appointments created in notes on a computer without the patch show up an hour in the future on computers that have the patch applied. That is, any appointments already created for the week 27 March to 2 April will be an hour out when the patch is applied to users' computers. And vice versa - appointments created on patched computers show up an hour earlier on unpatched computers.
I haven't even tested what will happen when appointments are created during that week and then the timezone is reversed (which will take another patch). Although I haven't tested it yet on two computers using notes 7.
Exchange/outlook systems would be even more fun. There is a separate patch for those systems, however it won't be available to WSUS. Presumably this patch will actually *work*, although I wouldn't enjoy having to go touch every system to apply it.
The official word from Microsoft is "put the time of your appointments in the subject line, and don't create any appointments during that week".
Well that's just great.
Did you know that you can't see the "Power Options" control panel on a windows 2000 server via terminal services or remote desktops? You have to actually be at the console to see it. Not terribly helpful if you're trying to configure the UPS settings remotely.
You know you're stretching the limits of fate when you run windows update on three different domain controllers on three different domains and reboot them simultaneously.
Which is what I did tonight. heh.
Haven't done much work this week. For some reason I haven't felt like it. I wonder why that would be? Been doing some manual labour actually, moving servers and upses between buildings. At least it gives me something tangible to do :)
I was going to post a picture, but something just happened that made me so furious I actually don't feel so good.
As seen at Dave's, then Karla's: (editor's note: just saw it on Neil's too, but I'm a bit behind on his blog cause he posts so frequently heh. Second editor's note: it was on Kevin's site too, but I'm a bit behind there too heh)
Seven things I plan to do before I die...
Although I just noticed there were only six groups of seven.. odd..
(editor's note: the seventh group of seven is for tagging seven people, but I don't *do* tagging heh)
As Karla said recently, Dave is my ranting hero. Unfortunately I'm not nearly so eloquent as he is, so this is nothing like as good as any of his rants.
I've just had quite a good weekend, but my server patching has been put off accordingly and I've only just sat down to have a go at it.
And I'm completely pissed. Well I'm slightly drunk too, but I'm completely *pissed off* at Microsoft and it's *CRAP* new windows update software.
IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!!
On one of my servers, the new windows update wouldn't even install.
On three of my other servers (yes, THREE), the windows update has hung in the middle of installing a particular patch it's just downloaded. Now if it were just one server, then perhaps I could write it off as a glitch. But THREE??!?!?!?
There is something seriously wrong with windows update that I haven't been told about and I am *NOT HAPPY JAN*
Sad really, cause I've had such a good weekend otherwise...
So this afternoon I was bemoaning the fact I had to notes programming, and would rather be doing sysadmin.
Well one of my servers must have heard me, because it decided to get hacked. We're pretty certain it was from a vulnerability in the Backup Exec remote client. A patch had been released fairly recently, but we hadn't installed it yet (I mean who patches Backup Exec within two weeks of patches being released??). I noticed a couple of weird processes running - door.exe and door1.exe. And a bunch of other crap as well. I noted the time of the intrusion, and we caught it withing about half an hour. Stopped all the backup exec services on all the other machines until they could be patched, and so far so good.
But my poor little server was full of extra services, dodgy files and who knows what else, so we decided to go back to an earlier version of the system (fortunately recorded just a couple of hours before the intrusion). Ghosting the system back to a clean one to begin with was a disaster. For reasons unknown it just chugged through loading the image. So I gave up on that and just reinstalled windows clean, and then restored the backup over the top. Followed by upgrading to service pack 1, and windows update, and a ghost image of the final product for good measure.
Then of course came the fun of making sure everything else was patched, that backups were going to work, system account passwords were changed, etc.
Then I get home and the mail server has spacked as well and needed to be rebooted.
*sigh*
First time I've ever had a compromised machine in a seven year career. Not pleasant.
To reiterate, why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane? Well that's what I was thinking for about a second and a half on the edge of the plane, and then we were in the air and it was all too late :)
So I called up Sydney Skydivers a couple of days ago to see if they had availability for today, which they did, at 8am. All good. Then last night they called me to see if we could be there at 7am. wtf? It takes an hour to get there, and we'd been planning on leaving at 7am already. Checked with Ric, he decided we could manage, so I was up at 5:15am.. blerk!!
We arrived at 7am and filled out all the necessary paperwork - "skydiving is inherintly dangerous" and "we don't take any responsibility for your death" and all that :) Then sit around for a few minutes wondering how long we'll have to wait, and then it's suddenly time to suit up. Mike was to be my jumping instructor dude. A very quick rundown on the landing (keep your feet right up) and the takeoff (bend ze knees, arms crossed, head up, then arch back, keeps arms crossed til a tap on the shoulder, then relax and enjoy the ride), and a test run of holding your legs up for landing. I asked Mike what would happen if he had a heart attack on the way down and couldn't pull the chute - he said there was an automatic release of the reserve chute at 2000' if all else failed.
Five minutes later we're in the plane and strapped to the floor. Being on the floor we couldn't see out the tiny windows, but after we'd reached 2000' Mike said I could get up and have a look out the windows, which I did. We could see the Hume Highway and Lake Cordeaux and Lake Cataract, as well as the airfield and Picton. Then we hit clouds and lost visibility somewhat.
At about 12000' we got ourselves all attached and goggles on, and the door opened. A few people went before me and it was kinda bizarre to see them just plumetting to earth. Then we were up. We were there for a mere second or so before falling out. Gosh it was loud. Next time I'm taking earplugs!! I almost put my arms out too early, but remembered and pulled them back in again. Once we were stably horizontal I guessed I'd be able to put them out again, and sure enough, tap on the shoulder. The freefall was very fast (yeah duh), and I found that I could spin us around by moving my hands the right way. Mike was doing this too. Very cool. We were heading right for a small cloud when suddenly there was this jerk. Didn't hit the cloud. And all the noise went away! :) Got to enjoy the rest of the ride down at a much more sedate pace, and could actually appreciate the scenery. Mike spun us around in the chute a few times, although the G-forces on the straps squeezed out the circulation in my legs! heh. We saw the plane we went up in come back into land, and saw a small plane take off from a backyard airstrip across the road.
The airfield is right next to the Hume Highway, so for the longest time it looked like we were heading straight for it. Some of the people in front of me got *very* close before sidestepping to land near reception. Mike landed us right next to Ric, who'd jumped before us.
So it was like, totally awesome dude..! :) A great rush after the initial "what the hell am I doing?" thoughts. Ric had problems with his ears not equalising, but I was ok. Then we wandered back to the office and de-suited and picked up our certificates. If I go back within three months I can get $100 off a jump.. does anyone want to come with me? :)
Then we did a quick detour to visit Yvonne and David before coming home again.
And now I have to go back to boring reality stuff, including work which I'm really not that interested in doing at the moment cause the boss couldn't be stuffed returning my calls and emails. Maybe I'll take Monday off or something. Also need more sleep. Five hours really isn't enough for me :)