Sam McGeown

I logged onto a production domain controller this morning and checked the event logs to be confronted with this:

Event ID 1030 and 1058 every 5 minutes, looking into the detail for these events I can see its a replication issue for one of the GPOs.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go from there? In the next few series of posts I’ll hopefully point out the basics, and some not so basics!

In this post, I’m covering Installing the IIS web server (and a few useful bits) and managing it from the IIS Management Snap-in.

So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go from there? In the next few series of posts I’ll hopefully point out the basics, and some not so basics!

I’m going to look at some management tasks – the bread and butter of being a Windows admin.

So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go from there? In the next few series of posts I’ll hopefully point out the basics, and some not so basics!

Using the Server Configuration Tool

The server configuration tool (sconfig.cmd) is provided in R2 for some of the basic setup tasks, so you can run that by issuing the “sconfig” command. Out of the box, it looks something like this:

I’m pleased to say that yesterday I took and passed two Microsoft Certified IT Professional exams, the Server Administrator (70-646) and the Enterprise Administrator (70-647). Hopefully I can take a bit of a break from study and write a few more technical posts here now!

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve passed the 70-649, which gives me the following MCTS certifications:

Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration

Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuration

Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration

Next I’ll be looking at the 70-647 to get the full MCITP: Enterprise Administrator (I already took the 70-620 exam for my MCSE).

No matter how good your network diagrams are, sometimes you need to verify the port your server/desktop is in. Cisco Discovery Protocol is a great tool for network admins when you need to quickly map routers and switches, and if you’ve got an ESX server connected you’ll see that it picks up CDP info too – but the vast majority of my managed systems are Windows.

Here’s how to use TCPDUMP by Micro Olap to extend that functionality to your Windows boxes.

So you’ve upgraded your ESX 3.x servers to 4.0 and you’ve upgraded your vCenter server, now you want to access the shiny new hot-add feature to upgrade some running server’s memory. Except you can’t, the feature is no-where to be seen. Something to bear in mind though, your OS needs to support hot-add, so you’ll need a Windows Enterprise or Datacenter edition.

Here’s how to enable it:

Upgrade the VM’s tools, if you haven’t already. This requires a re-boot, but don’t reboot, shut the server down down, otherwise you’ll require another reboot to add the feature. The tools can be upgraded from the system tray icon.

If you read the Microsoft blurb for R2, the first thing you notice is that Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only(!). It seems Microsoft are forcibly removing 32-bit server hardware from the data centre. I’ve not seen a decent upgrade guide online so far, so here’s my process.

I’m going to be upgrading a Server 2008 R2 x64 SP2 Standard Edition virtual server to R2. To see what editions can and can’t be upgraded, check out this Technet Article, but it’s safe to say that you can’t upgrade across architectures (32-bit to 64-bit) and you can’t downgrade SKUs (Enterprise to Standard).

After some pretty heavy investment in terms of time and money, I’ve passed my ICND2 exam and am now qualified as a Cisco Certified Network Associate (anyone else find it odd that you’re not even considered a professional by Cisco at this level?!)

I do consider the Cisco qualifications as significantly more valuable than the others that I hold, simply because of the difficulty of the exams. I do find them “honest” in that they’re not trick questions, and you don’t need a technique to pass – just in depth knowledge.