Reprogram Your ATT Phone

I don’t recommend doing this as it may actually make your phone unusable. I recently acquired an iPhone (November 2008) and have been itching to mod it a little bit. No, I haven’t tried the jailbreak technique as I prefer to keep everything simple on my phones. But as soon as the warranty is up, you betcha.

Anyway, I just signed up for a service called TrapCall (TrapCall.com) and it required me to setup my phone to do automatic forwarding of voicecalls. So I decided to write down the steps required to undo and redo this setup (in case this company goes bye bye).

Program:
All you have to do is dial *004*18669676590*11# and hit SEND!

Unprogram:
All you have to do is dial ##004# and hit SEND!

That got me to thinking, what if I typed in 1800XXXXXXX*11# instead? Can I actually get this to forward anywhere I want? That’s pretty cool actually.

Format Large HD FAT32

If anyone has done disk backups using the DOS Ghost client (or other DOS based clients) you have probably had some issues with NTFS. Don’t get me wrong, NTFS is a pretty decent file system, but FAT32 is noticeably more compatible.

Getting a drive that’s NTFS to work on DOS/MAC/Pre-Windows 98/Linux is sometimes a PITA.

Most external drives come preformatted as FAT32 for this very reason. If you need it NTFS that’s no big deal – just open up the disk manager in Windows and blast away (diskmgmt.msc). Windows, however, has a limit on formatting for FAT partitions: 32GB. Whoopie.

The easiest way is to use a disk formatting utility (Hiren’s has some good ones on there). The second easiest is to use DOS style commands.

Start
Run
CMD
format /FS:FAT32 G:
Y

The command can be broken down as follows:
Format – this is the actual command
/FS:FAT32 – Filesystem Fat32
G: – the drive letter of the drive you want to reformat

***EDIT***
Apparently you can also use several freeware programs. One that was given to me is called Swissknife.

VMWare HA ESXi

I’ve been reading a ton about high availability servers. A ton. And since we’ve been using the vmware free servers since 1.0, I guess it’s about time to get caught up on them again.

VMWare server 1.* was great – it’s free, ran reasonably well, and is free. The problem, however, was no native 64bit support, horrible RAM management, and no USB 2.0 support.

Welcome to VMWare server 2.*. Runs fairly well, is still free, and has 64bit support. No other options/features though.

So then I wanted to dabble in with HA – I need ESX right? ESX server costs money. My budget is pretty low at the moment so not-free is out of the question.

ESXi is free, however, so we’ll use that. Unfortunately you need to have at least 3 full-time servers for this to work (1 as a server manager, 2 as the mirrored servers)

First, download ESXi 3.5.*.
Then, burn the image to a CD
Load said CD into a server
Install on said server
Repeat on at least one other server

You should now have two fully functioning ESXi servers.

On your third server, install some version of Windows. I know, I know, windows blows. But in this case it’s not bad. Hard to break windows if you only use it for 1 single purpose. I ended up installing a VL version of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 SP2.

Then, here’s where it gets a little expensive, you need to acquire a copy of VMWare Infrastructure. And by little expensive I really mean you should buy some lube to prepare for the… nevermind.

Without Infrastructure you cannot HA your vmware machines.

Install Infrastructure.

Tricky part: DNS settings. If you have only a few virtual hosts, you may as well hand edit your DNS hosts settings. If you have several hundred, a DNS server is more handy.

Power on one of your VMWare ESXi servers – then press alt + F1
Now type in “unsupported” without the quotes
Then type in your root password when prompted

vi /etc/hosts
Shift + I
Scroll down to the last line, hit enter to start a new line, and then type in your OTHER server’s IP information:
192.168.2.101 host2.localdomain host2
:wq!

Test the settings by pinging the host:
ping host2
If you get a response that’s a good thing. No response is a bad thing.

Now, do the same thing on the other host:
Press alt + F1
Now type in “unsupported” without the quotes
Then type in your root password when prompted

vi /etc/hosts
Shift + I
Scroll down to the last line, hit enter to start a new line, and then type in your OTHER server’s IP information:
192.168.2.100 host1.localdomain host1
:wq!

Ping test once again and it should work just fine.

Then, and only then, do we start to work on the infrastructure side of things.

Create a new datacenter
Right-Click and create new cluster. I’m choosing HA.
Right-Click and add a host. Type in the IP of the first host and root/password.
Right-Click and add the second host using the same method.
Infrastructure should automatically add them to the HA area.

Reset Cisco IP Phone

Reset the 7940 and 7960 IP Phones to the Factory Default

In order to perform a factory reset of a phone if the password is set, complete these steps:

1. Unplug the power cable from the phone, and then plug in the cable again.
The phone begins its power up cycle.

2. Immediately press and hold # and while the Headset, Mute, and Speaker buttons begin to flash in sequence, release #.
The Headset, Mute, and Speaker buttons flash in sequence in order to indicate that the phone waits for you to enter the key sequence for the reset.

3. Press 123456789*0# within 60 seconds after the Headset, Mute, and Speaker buttons begin to flash.
If you repeat a key within the sequence, for example, if you press 1223456789*0#, the sequence is still accepted and the phone resets.
If you do not complete this key sequence or do not press any keys, after 60 seconds, the Headset, Mute, and Speaker buttons no longer flash, and the phone continues with its normal startup process. The phone does not reset.

If you enter an invalid key sequence, the buttons no longer flash, and the phone continues with its normal startup process. The phone does not reset.
If you enter this key sequence correctly, the phone displays this prompt:

Keep network cfg? 1 = yes 2 = no
4. In order to maintain the current network configuration settings for the phone when the phone resets, press 1. In order to reset the network configuration settings when the phone resets, press 2.

If you press another key or do not respond to this prompt within 60 seconds, the phone continues with its normal startup process and does not reset. Otherwise, the phone goes through the factory reset process.

Exchange 2007 Not Reading All DCs

When people install programs without fully realizing what they are doing, bad things tend to happen. Installing Exchange can be a tedious process – it has so many prerequisites that it can take several hours just to get to the point that exchange actually starts to install.

As we all know, Exchange 2007 requires a 64bit operating system. At least it’s required in a production environment since Microsoft will not support 32bit 2007 servers. We also know that Exchange 2007 does not read from the Global Catalog if the GC is running on a Windows 2000 Server. The newest Exchange requires a minimum of 2003 standard in order to read fully from Active Directory. And we all know that AD is required for Exchange to be happy. These are things we know.

If you open the Exchange Management Console and navigate to Server Configuration. In the main reading pane you should see your Exchange Server(s). Right click on your Exchange Server and select properties. The bottom two text boxes will show you the current Domain Controller(s) and Global Catalog(s). If you have more than one Domain controller and Exchange is only showing one, you have a problem.

First thing to check is always the Eventviewer. Check the eventvwr!!!
Second thing to check is if you can ping your DC from the Exchange Server, and that you can ping your Exchange Server from your DC.
Third thing is to run the command “dcdiag” on the DC not showing up in Exchange:
Start - Run - CMD - dcdiag - press enter
IF all of those pass with flying colors, you can add the DC and GC manually to Exchange using the PowerShell.

PowerShell Fix Steps:

On the Exchange Server, open the Exchange Management Shell.
set-exchangeserver -identity Name_Of_Server -staticDomainControllers ‘dc.domain.com’, ‘dc2.domain.com’
set-exchangeserver -identity Name_Of_Server -staticglobalcatalogs ‘dc.domain.com’, ‘dc2.domain.com’

IMPORTANT NOTE!!!
the Name_Of_Server MUST BE the name of your server. If you named it exchange07, use that name!
the ‘dc.domain.com’ MUST BE the FQDN Fully Qualified Domain Name of your server. If the servername is exchange07, the FQDN would be something like exchange07.mydomain.local!

Then recheck in the Exchange Management Console to verify that the GC and DCs are properly imported.

If you ever need to remove the additions:
get-exchangeserver -identity Name_of_server -staticdomaincontrollers $NULL
get-exchangeserver -identity Name_of_server -staticglobalcatalogs $NULL
After roughly 15 minutes, the “real” GC and DC’s should be populating. If not, check the eventviewer!

Comcast Business with Third-Party Router

I’ve had a few clients that required the use of their current router/firewall combination but wanted the speed of the new Comcast Business Cable Internet connection.

The last client has 16 employees all running on a bonded T1 connection. Maxing out of 1.544mb/sec is no way to live in today’s age. So this client ordered Comcast high-speed to replace the aging T1 (at less than half the cost too), and wanted help getting everything up and running. Why not use the Comcast/SMC router/firewall combination and call it a day? Well, that would be the easy way out. The SMC device is pretty potent for average use, but does not have a VPN server built in. The current configuration has VPN in the mix.

Unfortunately there is no way to setup the SMC into bridged mode, so that makes it a little more difficult to setup. Here’s a little fix I found out after searching for a few hours (yes, hours).

Log into the SMC Firewall (cusadmin/highspeed by default)
Click on the firewall setting
Make sure Disable Firewall for True Static IP Subnet Only is enabled
Make sure Smart Packet Detection is disabled
Check your network settings AND WRITE THESE DOWN (we want the Public IP address which is not a 10.*.*.*, the netmask 255.255.255.252 usually, the gateway which is usually a single IP off from the public IP, and the DNS servers)
Save all settings

Log into your existing router/firewall
Set the IP address of the WAN to the Public IP of the SMC Firewall you wrote down
Set the Gateway, Subnetmask, and DNS entries also to what you’ve written down.
Save all settings

Plug a cable from the SMC Firewall switch to the WAN port of your existing router/firewall. Check your connection by pinging 4.2.2.2

If you’ve set everything up correctly you should get responses by 4.2.2.2 UNLESS you have a rule specifically denying ICMP replies. In that case, just open a web browser window and start running on the internet. You may want to use www.speakeasy.net/speedtest to run a speed test.

After connecting, the Speedtest indicated a connection of 21395kbps down and 8947kbps up. That’s 2674KB (2.6MB) down and 1118KB (1.1MB) up. Not bad at all.

Folding At Home Error

I use FaH at home (PS3, File Server, Gaming Rig) and at work (Workstation, Non-Production Server). The beta SMP clients give the most points so I end up using those when I can.

I did get this error though:
MISSING_WORK_FILES

Booo.
So I changed the shortcut from:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Folding@Home Windows SMP Client V1.01\Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe" -smp
to:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Folding@Home Windows SMP Client V1.01\Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe" -delete 1

Then when you run the program it’ll say “deleting work unit from queue” and then self-close. You may need to run this for all 4 in the queue (or more if you’ve set it that way). Just change -delete 1 to -delete 2, -delete 3, -delete 4, and so on.

Make sure to change it back to -advmethods or -smp if you want it to run again.

Ramblings Of An IT Person