Redirect command line output to the Windows clipboard!

example: tasklist | clip

This redirects command line output to the clipboard, then paste away!

Verify if a backup is currently in progress on an Exchange server

Open a windows powershell session to your exchange server;

get-MailboxDatabase –Status | format-table Name,StorageGroup,Mounted,BackupInProgress

After installing SharePoint 2010 or 2013 server hangs on "Applying User Settings" or "Applying Computer Settings".

Problem: SharePoint server hangs on reboot, appears to hang at "Applying User Settings" or "Applying Computer Settings" stage of the startup process. Disconnecting the NIC, restarting, then reconnecting the NIC will get the server back online but it's a hassle and not a real solution.

Solution: Stumbled upon this article by Ed Williams. It appears Microsoft has a hotfix for this, but it seemed easier to apply the suggested registry fix. This creates a service dependency on the HTTP service so it waits for the CRYPTOSVC to start. This has resolved all our SharePoint hanging issues.

To work around the issue without installing the hotfix, create a DependOnService registry key to modify the behavior of HTTP.sys. This makes HTTP.sys depend on crytosvc service to be started first. To do this, follow these steps:


1. Click StartStart button, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password, or provide confirmation.

2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP

3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Multi-string Value.

4. Type DependOnService, and then press ENTER.

5. Right-click DependOnService, and then click Modify.

6. In the Value data box, type CRYPTSVC, and then click OK. 

7. Exit Registry Editor.

8. Restart the computer.

Thanks to Ed and to Colorado Springs SharePoint!

Scheduled backup fails with ANS1909E, ANS1512E rc=1 and ANR2579E rc 1

Problem: Scheduled backup fails with ANS1909E, ANS1512E rc=1 and ANR2579E rc 1

Solution: After a quick google you might find this page instructing you to run the schedule in the foreground. This is great unless the schedule is full of other nodes and you can't run it any time during the day. Instead, I checked the schedule details on the TSM server console;

q sched domainname schedulename f=d

The schedule was referencing an object on the node to be backed up. When I verified the path and filename discovered a typo.

Using the update schedule command I fixed the path;

update sched domainname schedulename objects='"c:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\Backup.cmd'"

Note: In order to get quotes around the path you need to enclose the quotes on the front/end with a single quote. ie. singlequote doublequote string doublequote singlequote

Deploy EPOPS agent to all Windows servers using PSEXEC

Problem: VMware doesn't really give you an easy way to deploy out it's EPOPS agents. Not for free anyways.

Solution: Here's a method that worked really well for me. Grab pstools and extract to a folder, c:\temp sounds good. Right-click your CMD prompt and Run As, choose an account that has access to remotely connect to your servers.

Command:
psexec @serverlist.txt -c vRealize-Endpoint-Operations-Management-Agent-x86-64-win-6.2.1-3720494.exe -serverAddress vrops.domain.local -securePort 443 -username admin -password yourpass -serverCertificateThumbprint 03:51:F2:... /verysilent /dir="c:\ep-agent"

The serverlist.txt is a list of your servers you want to deploy to.

Modify this with your environment info. The Cert Thumbprint is copied from the admin web gui. It's pretty long so make sure copy the entire Thumbprint and include it in the command.

Psexec will copy the exe to the c:\windows\system folder on the remote system, execute the command then remove the exe file when it's done. Slick!

Microsoft Cluster Aware Updating failures and fixes

1. Create Prestaged CAU computer object in your Active Directory cluster folder. As an example, use the ClusterName-CAU (ie. Cluster01-CAU). If you don’t do this the CAU wizard will create a randomly named object.

2. Add this new CAU object to the local admins group on all related cluster nodes.

3. Grant cluster object (ie. Cluster01) "full access" to the new CAU object in AD. Open the CAU object, security, add cluster object and check Full Access. Without this access the CAU wizard will fail to complete.

4. Modify the cluster group policy object or local policy on your nodes to grant the cluster object “Force shutdown from a remote system” rights on both nodes. Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment\Force shutdown from a remote system. Without this option the cluster will update the node but can’t force a restart therefore cluster updating will fail.

Note:
If configuration of the CAU failed… You may see Kerberos errors in the Server Manager console on either node or “failed” objects in the cluster resources list. Check the cluster resources using powershell to verify the prestaged cluster object is properly listed. “get-clusterresource” will list all the cluster resources and states.

If CAU object is listed in a failed state or the incorrect object is listed (perhaps you didn’t properly enter a prestaged computer account) rerun the CAU wizard and remove the role. Re-run the powershell command to verify the objects were properly removed by the wizard. If they weren't removed you can remove them manually with the “remove-clusterresource resourcename” command. If the cluster is in a good state, re-run the wizard and configure it again.

I noticed what might be a glitch in the way the wizard creates the resources. The first time you run the wizard you'll notice one of the resources has a somewhat randomized name slightly resembling the prestaged computer account you created. If you run the wizard, remove the settings, then re-run the wizard to add the settings back a second time they'll be named more closely to your prestaged computer account. Bizarre!

VROPS EP OPS Agent not communicating with server after agent upgrade

Problem: VROPS EP OPS Agent not communicating with server after agent upgrade. No amount of uninstalling/installing seems to fix this. I also cleared the agent data directory and restarted the service with no success. In the agent log you'll see errors "Unable to send autoinventory platform data to server, waiting..."

Solution: I'm making an assumption that your agent config file is accurate and you're not having underlying network issues that would otherwise prevent the agent from communicating to the VROPS node.

On the affected windows guest, open a command prompt (always right click and Run as Administrator!). Change to the ep-agent directory, example c:\ep-agent\bin and type the command "ep-agent setup". This will force the setup to run through your configuration file and reconnect to the server.

TSM Backup Error: An error occurred while saving the snapshot: Failed to quiesce the virtual machine

Problem: TSM backup error; An error occurred while saving the snapshot: Failed to quiesce the virtual machine.
ANS4066W Snapshot operation attempt 1 of 2 for the guest virtual machine 'vmname' failed using "VMware Tools" snapshot.

VMWare Info

Solution: Disable VSS application quiescing using VMware Tools:

1. Open the C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\Tools.conf file in a text editor, such as Notepad. If the file does not exist, create it.
2. Add these lines to the file:

[vmbackup]
vss.disableAppQuiescing = true

3. Save and close the file.
4. Restart the VMware Tools Service for the changes to take effect.
5. Click Start > Run, type services.msc, and click OK.
6. Right-click the VMware Tools Service and click Restart.

TSM Backup Error: ANS1715E A filespace already exists for virtual machine (vmname), but with a different virtual machine UUID

Problem: You've restored a virtual server using TSM and notice your backup is failing with error 4379. Examining the dsmerror. log you find this error; ANS1715E A filespace already exists for virtual machine (vmname), but with a different virtual machine UUID.

IBM info.

VMWare info.

Solution: Modify the UUID of the virtual server to match the previous UUID, thus reconnecting the new VM to the TSM Filenode that already exists.

Specifying a UUID for a Virtual Machine
Note: VMware Tools may need to be removed from the virtual machine prior changing the UUID to prevent the UUID from reverting.
In some circumstances you may want to assign a specific UUID to the virtual machine. To do this, you need to override the automatically generated UUID value. Power off the virtual machine and edit its configuration (.vmx) file to set the value of the UUID parameter. Use a text editor to edit the configuration file. The format for the line is:
uuid.bios = ""

The UUID value must be surrounded by quotation marks. A sample configuration line looks like:

uuid.bios = "00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77-88 99 aa bb cc dd ee ff"

After you add this line to the configuration file, power on the virtual machine. The new UUID is used when the virtual machine boots.