Fragged!
Archive for May, 2009
Installing and running XenServer on a USB device
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 31, 2009
Applies to:
Citrix XenServer 4.1, 5.0, 5.5 beta, possibly newer builds as well
Problem:
Installing and running Citrix XenServer directly from a USB- or flash-drive.
This article was posted by Chris Wolf on VirtualizationReview.com.
I thought I’d keep a copy here, and supplement it with my own discoveries. The article was written for XenServer 4.1, but I find it works just as well on 5.0 and even 5.5 beta.
Remember that the USB device must be 16GB or more. 16GB flash drives work fine, just don’t try and run VM’s from them (performance).
By Chris Wolf - 05/09/2008
With a few tweaks, you can run XenServer from an external USB drive.I often get asked about running hypervisors from portable storage devices and in this column, I’d like to talk about a method for installing and running XenServer 4.1 from a portable USB hard drive. This is useful if you are testing multiple hypervisor solutions and do not want to multi-boot the hypervisors on local server storage. Since XenServer Express Edition is free, you can evaluate the product for as long as you like and eventually upgrade the license if you want to unlock the product’s enterprise-class features.
Of course, the physical host server is going to need to meet XenServer 4.1′s system requirements. Servers with support for hardware-assisted virtualization (one of XenServer’s hardware requirements) should also support USB device boot. Many USB flash drives offer enough storage space for a XenServer installation (16GB is required per the official requirements). Note that the actual software installation will only consume about 2GB. However, keep in mind that USB flash drives perform considerably slower than traditional hard disks. So if performance is a consideration, I highly recommend using a 2.5″ external USB drive. In preparation for this article, I used a Seagate external USB 2.0 40 GB hard disk.
While not required, I disabled all internal hard disks in the test server’s BIOS so that the XenServer installation would only see the external USB drive. This prevents accidentally installing XenServer on an internal server hard disk. Read the rest of this entry »
Alfa Romeo 33 gearbox overhaul
Posted by Simon Larsen in Cars on May 31, 2009
If you are looking to replace worn parts on your Alfa Romeo 33 gearbox, and need some pictures for reference, look no further!
The gearbox is the same on the Alfasud.
*mhmm* Don’t you love the smell of gearbox oil in the afternoon? 
Warhammer galleries uploaded
Posted by Simon Larsen in Warhammer 40.000 on May 30, 2009
I have uploaded some of my older Warhammer 40.000 pictures, they can be found using the nav-bar on the top.
Here are some samples:
More will be added when I can get my stupid camera working.
Making a tape drive available to a guest via iSCSI
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 30, 2009
Applies to:
Citrix XenServer 4.1, 5.0, 5.5 (beta)
Problem:
Making a tape-device located in the XenServer host available to a guest Virtual Machine.
This article has been taken from WLUG.org.nz/XenNotes, I just want to keep a copy here for my own convenience. A BIG thanks to the guys at WLUG for figuring this out and making it easy to understand for mere mortals like me.
This is specifically for Citrix XenServer, although the principles will of course work in other Xen implementations.
I recently had a scenario where I was replacing two Windows servers with XenServer guests. This was fine, but we needed a way to backup to the existing SCSI DDS4 DAT drive. After failing to make PCI passthrough work, I settled on the much nicer method of providing the tape drive via an iSCSI target on the XenServer Host (Dom0). Here is how I achieved this.
Note 1: This is totally unsupported by Citrix.
Note 2: I’ve used the XenServer terminology “host” instead of Dom0, as this applies to the Citrix commercial implementation of Xen. It will probably work fine on OSS Xen, but you can just install the normal kernel dev packages and ignore the DDK stuff.
Note 3: This is for XenServer 4.1.0, but the principles are the same for previous versions. Just ensure you understand each step rather than following blindly.
Note 4: You’ll need to enable yum repositories. Do this by editing /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo, and set “enabled=1” for the Base, Updates and Addons repositories. You should also do this on the DDK VM.
- Download the Xen 4.1 DDK (Driver Development Kit) from citrix.com
- The DDK is an ISO containing a VM with a development environment. Import it to your Xen host, and start it. Read the rest of this entry »
Outlook: Automatic signatures w. multiple accounts
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 30, 2009
Applies to:
Microsoft Outlook, verified on Outlook 2003.
Problem:
A user has multiple mail-accounts, with different addresses configured. Each of these accounts have their own email-signature. The user wants Outlook to use the correct signature when switching between accounts.
Solution:
Very simple actually… Just set Outlook to send emails in HTML format by default.
Took me quite some time to find this ‘feature’.
Outlook 2003: Danish holidays until 2012
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 30, 2009
Applies to:
Microsoft Outlook 2003
Problem:
Outlook 2003 is only shipped with Danish holidays until the end of 2007.
Solution:
Download and run this file on the target machine; Outlook2012dk.
Link to Microsoft KB: 924423
OWA with simple url
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 30, 2009
Applies to:
Exchange Server 2003
Problem:
Users wanting to connect to the OWA (Outlook Web Access) Website have to enter https://mail.domain.com/exchange exactly! Quite annoying if you ask me.
Wouldn’t it be better if users could simply type in mail.domain.com ? (The browser will insert http:// on it’s own accord)
Solution:
Go to the wwwroot of the default website (usually C:\inetpub\wwwroot\) and create a new text-file called “OwaHTTPS.asp”. Put in the following:
<%
If Request.ServerVariables("HTTPS") = "off" Then
Response.Redirect "https://" & Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST") & "/Exchange"
End If
%>
Then, give the local IIS user (Default name= IUSR_) Read + Execute permissions on the file.
Now start Internet Information Services Manager and locate the Default Website. Right-Click, Properties. Go to the Documents tab. Click Add, and type in: OwaHTTPS.asp
Move this new document to the top of the list.
Click OK untill you’re out of the menus. When you get a prompt for the sub-sites, click “Select all” and OK.
Link to Microsoft KB: 839357
Increase database size limit with Exch 2003 & SP2
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 29, 2009
Applies to:
ONLY Exchange Server 2003 with SP 2.
Problem:
With MS Exchange Server 2003, and NO service pack, the maximum database size is 18 GB. With the release of Service Pack 2 for Exch 2003, this value is now DEFAULT 18 GB, but can be increased up to 75 GB for Standard versions.
Solution:
Modify the registry settings:
1) Open REGEDIT.
2) Navigate to the following key:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\
\Private-013e2e46-2cd7-4a8e-bfec-0e4652b94b00″
3) Create a new DWORD, with the name (remember caps! – no quotes):
“Database Size Limit in GB”
4) Give your new DWORD the value of the desired size, in GB. So for a 25 GB database, simply enter 25.
5) Restart the Microsoft Information Store from Services.
Thats it.
Restore deleted Public Folders
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 29, 2009
Applies to:
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 (verified on 2003, might work on older Exchange servers)
Problem:
A user has deleted one or more public folders by accident, and they cannot seem to undelete them from their email-client, such as Outlook.
Note:
This also works for Contacts stored in Public Folders.
There are two possible solutions to this;
Solution 1: Outlook Web Access.
Go to the OWA website for your Exchange Server, such as:
“https://mailserver/Public/?cmd=showdeleted&btnClose=1″
Then select the folder(s) you want to restore in the main window, and then click the Restore button on the top. Sometimes this method will fail, in that case, move on to the second solution below…
Solution 2: PFDAVAdmin.
PFDAVAdmin is a free tool from Microsoft, get it from Microsoft, or here: PFDAVadmin.exe.
The tool is a self-extracting archive. Once you have it started, right-click Public Folders, select Show Deleted Subfolders. From here, you just select the folder(s) you want to recover, right-click and hit Recover Folder. Presto! Done!
BESNMP.TRC file growth
Posted by Simon Larsen in IT on May 29, 2009
Problem:
The file BESNMP.TRC (located in %windir%) is constantly growing, for no apparent reason.
Solution:
To ensure that the BESNMP.TRC does not grow to a large size, causing space constraints on the hard disk, it is required for Backup Exec to be unregistered from SNMP.
To unregister Backup Exec entries with SNMP, perform the following registry changes:
1) Run REGEDIT.
2) Under the following registry key:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Currentcontrolset\Services
\SNMP\Parameters\Extensionagents”
3) From the right-hand panel, delete the following keys:
“Software\VERITAS\Backup Exec\Snmp Events”
“Software\VERITAS\Backup Exec\TapeAlerts”
Oh, and don’t forget to delete the BESNMP.TRC file, in order to do this, stop ALL Backup-Exec related services, including the Communications service, AND the (Microsoft) SNMP Service.
Then delete the file.