I decided to join the future and encrypt the communications to/from this server. Not that it’s a big deal, but I do like privacy.
If you notice any problems please let me know.
Also, it’s a certificate through Letsencrypt!
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
Anything and Everything
OpenManage and iDrac
We migrated systems from one colocation to another and re-thought our entire VLAN structure. All IPMI/iDrac/iLO/out of band management was segmented off into another VLAN for easier support and DHCP enabled. Unfortunately our e-mail servers didn’t get the memo about the IP change; sure, their network cables were moved to the new VLAN, but the IP address was not changed to either that network or a DHCP enabled state.
We didn’t find out until this morning when we attempted to revive an email server that had fallen flat on its face. Lesson learned.
That being said, I had always changed iDrac settings on these servers via the BIOS or lifecycle controller. I didn’t want to reboot the box again just to set an out of band management interface, so what was I to do?
Google!
Anyway, here’s the brief list of commands you can run if you have Dell Open Manage installed on your computer (with a simple ADMIN cmd.exe window)
Get current configuration
racadm getniccfg
Set Static IPv4
racadm setniccfg -s IPADDRESS NETMASK GATEWAY
Set Static IPv6
racadm setniccfg -s6 IPV6ADDRESS PREFIXLENGTH GATEWAY
Set DHCP
racadm setniccfg -d
Turn off or turn on the port
racadm setniccfg -o
Whole bunch of stuff here http://www.dell.com/support/Manuals/us/en/19/Topic/idrac8-with-lc-v2.05.05.05/RACADM_iDRAC_Pub-v1/en-us/GUID-03779EB2-C1FE-4E33-A82F-71A18E85CE5F
Android Playstore
I have an android phone now for only the second (third) time in my life:
1.) working for an MSP they required me to have their phone and it was a terrible motorola piece of garbage
2.) I bought a freedompop Samsung SII which had a battery that would last ~2 hours and was terribly slow
3.) I bought another freedompop LG Optimus F3 which has an awesome (so far) battery and is iPhone4-or-iphone5-peppy
I’ve been on the iPhone since the 3G came out, so it’s still somewhat different for me.
During updates on the LG phone I noticed that it was rather difficult to install new applications; I’d have to play around with rebooting it, turning the wifi off and on, laughing at it, and singing songs just to get a new app to install. In the play store I saw that google maps was constantly “downloading” but never finishing. I tried to stop it, didn’t work.
A day later, and growing more weary of how slow it was to download apps, I googled.
http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-inch/202017-google-play-store-not-working.html
btswein gave the answer:
“Clear the data and cache for google play”
Settings > Applications > All > Google Play > Clear data
or, on the LG
Settings > Apps > Google Play services (AND google play store) > Clear data
Then it magically worked much better! Thanks, guy.
Cord Cutting
So I “Cut the cord” back in 2013 after having ATT Uverse for a couple years. ATT had just informed me that my TV and internet rates would both be going up by a combined $30 a month, but that my internet speed had doubled (6Mbps up to a blazing 12Mbps)! Yay! So the service was cancelled.
An antenna was purchased from Crutchfield (Channel Master 4221HD)
While this antenna says “Mid-Range outdoor rooftop” I ended up just setting it up in the attic of the house and I get great signal strength (Channels 2 through 67+ all come in crystal clear)
I live roughly 30 miles away – line of sight – from the closest major city with broadcast towers
If I had a need (or more money) I probably would have settled on the Channel Master 4228HD for extended ranges
The antenna requires no power and I ended up re-using the existing coax run from the basement to the attic
Netflix and Amazon Prime apps on the TV. An AppleTV for connectivity to the mobile phones. Chromecast. XBMC (now Kodi) running on a raspberry pi is a major provider of entertainment as well.
The only complaint, after about a year of antenna TV, was the lack of a DVR function. I priced it out running MythTV/XBMC combo, but the cost of the computer in addition to the 30-35 watts of power used (about $3.50 a month in electricity) wasn’t ideal.
Then I read about the Channel Master DVR+ and was amazed! This is going to sound like a CM ad, but this is my experience so far.
I received the DVR+ and set it up with HDMI, power, and a wireless USB. I ran through the initial setup wizard and then updated the firmware. I could now pause live TV! But something was missing; it wasn’t automatically recording what I was watching so I couldn’t rewind. I grabbed an old laptop and a USB to SATA enclosure, did a little work, and then had a 250GB SATA drive external to the DVR+. After formatting all functionality was as it should be! $250 for this isn’t bad, although I had a USB wireless and external HD laying around already.
Cisco Callmanager CUCM LDAP Logs
So we had a working LDAP lookup system for our callmanager 8.x system up until very recently. What changed? We moved colocations and decided to decommission a few of the older domain controllers. No big deal, just point anything that had LDAP lookups to new DCs. Right?
So we noticed the callmanager was not populating any new employees. Hard to assign phones etc to them if that’s the case.
Connect
SSH to your CUCM box (our cucmadmin account was necessary)
I used putty.
List all logs, Take note of dates
file list activelog cm/trace/dirsync/log4j/ det date
The newest file should be on the bottom, looking like “dirsync0007.log” or similar
Open the log and see the errors
file tail activelog cm/trace/dirsync/log4j/dirsync00007.log
This will view the bottom part of the log (newest) live, so run a LDAP resync from the web interface of the CUCM and see results.
Unfortunately I had to wait the 10 minute timeout period to notice that it was looking at the old LDAP server despite the changes.
If I find out why it was still pointing to the old system I will update this post accordingly.
Cisco Callmanager Custom Ringtone
I’ve verified the steps work (with some deviation required) for CM 4.x through 8.x
As I have access to both Windows and Linux, I have directions that may utilize either one of these platforms.
Save your file as a .wav. I ended up using VLC Player to convert/stream to a .wav file.
On linux (with sox installed)
sox -t wav MYWAVEFILE.wav -t raw -r 8000 -U -b 8 -c 1 NEWFILE.raw resample -ql
Next steps are not well described, but I may expand them later.
Open your callmanager web page
Login on the OS Administration portal
Grab the ringtone.xml file (mine was in the / dir) (TFTP files)
Edit this based on your current ring tone files (follow along like a template)
Upload both the newly edited ringtone.xml and the ringtone.raw
Login on the Unified Serviceability portal
Tools > Services Feature
Restart the TFTP service
Check your phone and verify you can see the new ringtone. I found that certain models (7940) didn’t like ringtones longer than ~5 seconds whereas others (7945) were totally fine.
KMS Setup and Citrix XenDesktop
I might split this off since KMS doesn’t need Citrix and Citrix doesn’t need KMS. But for my environment I needed both.
Background
I had installed a KMS server (Key Management Services server) for a recently-deployed Citrix XenDesktop environment. XenDesktop does NOT support MAK keys for the shared desktops (although it technically works), and instead lets me know to use KMS. KMS is really nice now that it’s working.
I actually ended up installing KMS on the WSUS server. Things I found out (my notes, take with a grain of salt since I haven’t gone back over it nor verified anything):
Prerequisites
- Server 2008R2 Installed and configured on an AD Domain (member server or domain controller OK)
- Server 2008R2 KMS Key (VLSC site at Microsoft)
- Client KMS Keys (see below)
- Hypervisor (for XenDesktop VDI) – Hyper-V, VMWare ESXi, XenServer are all supported. I use XenServer 6.1 although 6.2 just came out.
Common Client KMS Setup Keys
Full List found here (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219430.aspx)
Windows 7 Professional
FJ82H-XT6CR-J8D7P-XQJJ2-GPDD4
Windows 7 Enterprise
33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH
Windows 8 Professional
NG4HW-VH26C-733KW-K6F98-J8CK4
Windows 8.1 Professional
GCRJD-8NW9H-F2CDX-CCM8D-9D6T9
Windows 8 Enterprise
32JNW-9KQ84-P47T8-D8GGY-CWCK7
Windows 8.1 Enterprise
MHF9N-XY6XB-WVXMC-BTDCT-MKKG7
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
YC6KT-GKW9T-YTKYR-T4X34-R7VHC
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
489J6-VHDMP-X63PK-3K798-CPX3Y
Windows Server 2012 Standard
XC9B7-NBPP2-83J2H-RHMBY-92BT4
Windows Server 2012R2 Standard
D2N9P-3P6X9-2R39C-7RTCD-MDVJX
Windows Server 2012 Datacenter
48HP8-DN98B-MYWDG-T2DCC-8W83P
Windows Server 2012R2 Datacenter
W3GGN-FT8W3-Y4M27-J84CP-Q3VJ9
Office Professional Plus 2010
VYBBJ-TRJPB-QFQRF-QFT4D-H3GVB
Office Professional Plus 2013
YC7DK-G2NP3-2QQC3-J6H88-GVGXT
Install And Activate Your KMS Server
Add the product key (your KMS key from the VLSC) on your server and activate with Microsoft. If you utilize the GUI you will receive an alert saying “Are you sure you want this to become a KMS Server in your environment?” I used the command line instead:
slmgr /ipk YOURPRODUCTKEYHERE
slmgr /ato
If you receive any errors, you will not be able to proceed much further.
You can also use the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT).
KMS For Office Products
Download the Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=97b7b710-6831-4ce5-9ff5-fdc21fe8d965
And install/run the executable
The wizard will ask for your KMS key for Office – enter that.
To install a new Office Key, simply type:
ospp /inpkey:YOURKMSKEY
ospp /act
Verify KMS Is Working
You must have 5 or more SERVER clients or 25 or more CLIENT clients trying to activate. Every 6 months. The KMS activation is good for 180 days before it needs to re-register with your KMS server.
Command line find out the number of activations
slmgr /dlv
Your pop up will display the following key information: The KMS channel your server belongs to (B channel for me), License status, Current KMS count, and number of requests received.
There is a KMS Emulator that can artificially inflate your numbers on the KMS server:
KMSClient.exe 1688 127.0.0.1 Windows
KMSClient.exe 1688 127.0.0.1 Office2010
KMSClient.exe 1688 127.0.0.1 Office2012
Citrix – Initial Setup
- Create a new virtual guest – I ended up using Windows 7 SP1 x64 Enterprise (Pro for proof of concept, Ent for production use)
- Install all updates and software required on the base image. I ended up with the OS, Antivirus, Java, Flash, and Reader installed by default.
- Join this guest to the domain if applicable.
- Install the Virtual Desktop Agent – I ended up “sharing” the XenDesktop Installer CD from the primary DDC XenDesktop system (\\xendesktopserver\sharename)
- Shut down the VM by using the Desktop Agent – in my case I had a virtual private disk as well, so this is very necessary with all changes
- Take a snapshot of the VM – name it “PREARM”
- Start the VM back up and rearm the Activation Key
slmgr /rearm - Shut down the VM by using the Desktop Agent
- Take a second snapshot of the VM – name it “ARMED”
- Use this second image (“ARMED”) as the base for your XenDesktop rollout
Updating the Master Image
- Roll back to the snapshot “PREARM”
- Startup the VM
- Make any changes/updates
- Shut down the VM by using the Desktop Agent
- Delete the current “PREARM” snapshot
- Take a snapshot of the VM – name it “PREARM”
- Start the VM back up and rearm the Activation Key
slmgr /rearm - Shut down the VM by using the Desktop Agent
- Delete the current “ARMED” snapshot
- Take a second snapshot of the VM – name it “ARMED”
- Use this second image (“ARMED”) as the base for your XenDesktop rollout
***EDIT***
I couldn’t get my office 2010 laptop to activate against the KMS host. I verified that the DNS entry was added:
nslookup -type=srv _vlmcs._tcp
Port 1688
Srv hostname MYSERVER.MYDOMAIN.TLD
The eventviewer showed “The client has sent an activation request to the key management service machine” along with “0xC0020017, 0X00000000, 127.0.0.1:1688”
That’s why! 127.0.0.1! Localhost my arse.
You can change this by setting the host:
Open a command prompt with admin privs
cd\program files\microsoft office\office14 (or 15)
cscript ospp.vbs /sethst:YOURSERVER_FQDN.domain.tld
Then activate
cscript ospp.vbs /act
Success!
To set this back to default:
cscript ospp.vbs /remhst
To change the key:
cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:YOURKEYHERE
Remote key:
cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:KEY COMPUTERNAME
cscript ospp.vbs /act COMPUTERNAME
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624350.aspx
NON-Domain Systems KMS Activation
cscript \windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /skms FQDN_OF_KMS_SERVER:port
-or-
cscript \windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /skms IPADDRESS_OF_KMS:port