What is SPBM, how are vSAN policies used and what are the options for each setting within a new policy. That’s what I’ll be attempting to explain using this post which was created with vSAN 6.6 and will be updated as future revisions are released. vSAN policies can be applied to either the vSAN datastore,…
Certified: vSAN Specialist 2017!
Yesterday, I took and passed VMware’s vSAN Specialist 2017 certification exam! It was a 60 question 105 minute exam which I was able to complete with 40 minutes to spare. The specialist exams aren’t related to the typical VCP, VCAP, or VCDX exams in the sense that it tests the knowledge someone has in the specific…
vSAN – Disk Group rebalancing
For vSAN, the definition of balancing is to spread out resources (in this case, disk utilization) across the disk nodes that make up the group. This can be done manually or automatically. In either case some performance degradation can occur. Rebalancing can take up to 24 hrs so be patient when its triggered. Post a…
Registering .NET without affecting other sites
Only tested with IIS 7 on Server 08 R2 Open ‘CMD’ and navigate to ‘C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFramework<.NET version number> Type ‘aspnet_regiis.exe -ir’ If this is a fresh version of IIS (no other sites running on it) or you’re not worried about the hosted sites breaking with a framework change you can use -i instead of -ir. At…
Symbolic Links 2008/Vista+
This applies to Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 as well, of course. While this may be old news to some, MaxPC had a good article in their latest issue about using symbolic links in Vista. To paraphrase, symbolic links are like shortcuts but at the OS level, not the file system level. Starting in…
Allow non-admins to start and stop system services
Step 1 – Create the Console We need to open a hidden console snap-in Click Start > Run (or press WIN + R) and type “mmc.exe” This opens an empty Microsoft Management Console. Click File > Add/Remove Snap-in… (Ctrl+ M) Scroll down the list of available Snap-ins and select Security Configuration and Analysis Click Add…
Cmdlet to delete e-mail in Exchange 2010
This can be used to find/delete one email or thousands of emails. Again, the below came in handy to zap away the offending emails. Using Search-Mailbox to search emails Introducing… the Search-Mailbox cmdlet. This can search for specified criteria and will copy the results to a destination mailbox. First off though, we have to tell Search-Mailbox which…
Issue with drive mappings
Error with either Kix32, manually mapping drives, and/or internet issues. The error I was getting: ‘The mapped network drive could not be created because the following error has occurred: An extended error has occurred.’ – Side note, MS should really rethink the wording on this error. Run these commands as an admin on the machine:…
Anonymous LDAP requests
I strongly recommend against this. Many applications communicate with directory services through LDAP, but the LDAP Request for Comments (RFC) specification stipulates that an LDAP bind should support the passing of a credential. Connecting anonymously really shouldn’t be needed. You may have many Unix-style applications that currently use an anonymous LDAP bind to other directory…
Remote Access to Event Viewer for non-Admins – Windows Server 2003/2008
In 2008, this is a doddle. Add the user to the built in Event Viewers group! In 2003 however, there’s a bit more to it. You’ll need to amend the registry. The security of each log is configured locally through the values in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesEventlog The Application log Security Descriptor is configured through the following…