DRAC / ERA internal address registered in DNS on Domain Controller

DRACs installed on Domain Controllers were registering their RAC PPP connection in DNS with the hostname of the computer the DRAC is installed in. This creates a problem for clients looking in DNS for a domain controller - they get an address that is either non-routable (192.168.234.235) or doesn’t respond at all. For most systems, you can simply uncheck “Register this connection’s address in DNS” in the DNS tab under Advanced options for the connection. Windows Server 2003 SP1 installed as a domain controller however ignores this setting and continues to register the address in DNS. There is a hotfix (included in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2) that addresses this issue, but you have to call Microsoft to get it (I think I’ll just install the service pack).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832478

Thanks to Neal’s Admin Notes:

Dual NIC Problems with NetLogon and DNS

DRAC / ERA Console Redirection Fails with Warning – Reintstall PPP Connection

The other issue was that the graphical console redirection on some of my ERA (Embedded Remote Access) devices (basically an embedded DRAC III) was not working. The console window would launch, but I would get no video and the message: “Warning: Remote Console is not available” The first step is to wait a few minutes (sometimes it takes awhile to initialize). Check. If it’s still a no-go, check the RAC services (Remote Access Connection Service and RAC VNC Service) and restart them if necessary. Check. Still no-go. Then I found this gem (note command is run from C:\Program Files\Dell\SysMgt\RAC in default Windows installs):

Root Cause: 

During RAC3 installation, the modem is disabled and enabled for the default name of the modem to be changed to RAC PPP connection Using RACPORT after modem driver installation. The OS fails to recognize the modem name change and the installer code is not able to find modem device to establish the connection.

Solution: 

From the command prompt run the command installppp createRacConnection. The following message will be displayed confirming that the installation was successful: 

Installing PPP connection
Successfully Installed the RAC connection

Here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/stor-sys/spv745N/en/RN/RelNotes.htm (it’s an obscure Release Notes for a Dell NAS device). The instructions fixed the issue immediately – no reboot required. Kinda bizarre, but as long as it’s working, right?

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/06/07/426475.aspx

The key is [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WaitToKillService] . The time is in milliseconds.

On another note, here is an article detailing the steps to enable shut down or save state of a virtual machine when the Virtual Server Service shuts down.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/46057/46057.html

Tips for setting up a Windows XP Pro computer to perform administrative tasks on a MS windows network. Links to downloads of the tools you’ll need.

I love it when I come across another great blog. Thanks Rob Durkin!

read more | digg story

How to boot the Microsoft Windows Preinstall Environment from an RIS server by using PXE-enabled clients

looks promising.

The first adventure was successfully capturing a build with the Image Capture CD. I created the CD per the instructions in the included guide. Windows PE got all the way to attempting to connect to the Image Share, then crapped out with an error code 8000704fc.
My initial attempt did not include any additional network drivers, and as a result, Windows PE was unable to connect to the share I setup for capturing images to. After a few botched attempts at including the drivers, I realized that all the .inf and other related driver files had to be in the same folder – Windows PE does not search through subfolder structures. After lumping all the drivers together, I was able to capture an image (4.6 Gigs) and move on to the next step: deployment.

I created the OS Package and Program, then created an Image Installation CD, with the same driver setup. I popped it into a bare metal system and booted to the CD. This time, it began restoring the image, then failed at the State Restore phase with “exit code 3″ – it turns out that there is a hotfix that addresses this issue. I called Microsoft PSS, got the hotfix and applied it. I re-created the Image Capture CD, grabbed the image, and the created the package, program and installation CD. I started the Image Installation process just before leaving this afternoon. We’ll see tomorrow if it was successful.

• Very high CPU utilization
• Vitrually unresponsive systems
• Violent end-users
• Vicious finger pointing (not really, but it was a good V-word!)

While doing research, we’ve noted that the 2 things common on systems with these symptoms was that SVCHOST.EXE (Automatic Updates in this case) or CCMEXEC.EXE were the main CPU hogs. Killing CCMEXEC, running ccmclean.exe, or sometimes killing the Automatic Updates service would bring the system back from the brink.

Googling for “ccmexec cpu” and similar phrases came up with a few places to start looking:

SMS Admin newsgroup
MyITForum Discussion

Hopefully we’ll get this nailed down and have:

• Responsive systems
• Readiness for update deployments (we’re temporarily suspending them until we get this worked out)
• Really happy customers
• Raises (maybe not).

Needless to say, users were somewhat confused by this.

To get rid of the message, we either had to:

1. Run around to every Dell PC in the organization
2. Uninstall Dell OMCI
3. Remotely disable chassis intrusion detection and clear any current detections

Obviously we chose option three. With Dell’s OpenManage IT Assistant software, I was able to build a remote CIM command line to execute on a set of systems (in our case any system that was reporting a status of degraded). Here’s the command we ran:

system cim action=setcim ipaddress=$IP username=$USERNAME password=$PASSWORD authenticationlevel=packet classpropertyvalue=Dell_SMBIOSsettings::ChassisIntrusion:4

To execute the command, I setup a new command line task in ITA, targeted at a query of computers whose status was not “OK.” I set this to run once an hour, since clients were still being discovered and inventoried as this was happening. By setting the query to only hit degraded clents, we avoided running this needlessly on clients already configured properly.

Dell OpneManage Client Instrumentation User’s Guide

Client Instrumentation Documentation

Dell OpenManage Server Administrator User’s Guide

Server Administrator Documentation

Dell OpenManage Client Connector User’s Guide

Client Connector Documentation

Dell OpenManage IT Assistant 7.2 User’s Guide

ITAssistant Documentation

Here’s the platform in a nutshell: The Client Instrumentation (or Server Administrator for servers) is installed on the managed system and interfaces with the system’s data providers (BIOS, Disks, Chassis, etc), and makes this data accessible through the standard WMI interface. On the Management Station (usually a server set aside for Systems Management), the IT Assistant and Client Connector allow administrators to access and manage the systems and their configurations through the WMI Interface. IT Assistant is the main management application (one to many) that provides an overall view of system health and status and Client Connector (one to one) can be launched from IT Assistant to manage an individual client. Server Administrator can also be launched from within IT Assistant for individual Server Management, though it runs on the managed server rather than on the management station.

Some nutshell eh?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to get a deeper understanding of SMS 2003. Unfortunately, the more I learn about SMS, the more I realize that it’s going to continue to broaden it’s scope of management. From the enhanced post-SP1 patch and update management features to the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack and beyond. Luckily, MyITForum.com has got more information than I could possibly ever read, tons of tools, downloads and an active forum of knowledgable experts. Expect to see plenty of links to these folks as I discover more of their content.