Diagnosing Active Directory

Here are some tips for checking the health of Active Directory:


Run dcdiag, netdiag and repadmin in verbose mode.
  DCDIAG /V /C /D /E /s:yourdcname > c:\dcdiag.log



  netdiag.exe /v > c:\netdiag.log (On each dc)

  repadmin.exe /showrepl * /verbose /all /intersite > c:\repl.txt



   A quick little dump repadmin /replsum > c:\replsum.txt
   ADReplStatus

   dnslint /ad /s “ip address of your dc”


**Note: Using the /E switch in dcdiag will run diagnostics against ALL dc’s
in the forest. If you have significant numbers of DC’s this test could
generate significant detail and take a long time. You also want to take
into account slow links to dc’s will also add to the testing time.
When complete search for fail, error and warning messages.

 DCDiag explanation
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2011/03/22/what-does-dcdiag-actually-do.aspx


Description and download for dnslint
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321045


ADReplStatus Download and Description
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30005
http://windowsitpro.com/active-directory/active-directory-replication-status-tool-ad-utility-weve-all-been-waiting-almost


(Reference: Paul Bergson - https://dirteam.com/paul/2009/01/26/troubleshooting-active-directory-issues/)

Internet Explorer 11 not supported on RDWeb on Server 2008 R2

I ran into this problem when trying connect to my Remote Desktop Services on Windows Server 2008 R2, where it told me that "browser not support" and I need to have at least Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher!  Crazy, since I was using Windows 10 and IE 11.


I ran across this article: IE11 Browser not supported on RDWeb 2008 R2 by Shannon Fritz, who Dale Hayter for the workaround. 


Essentially, you connect to the web server hosting the RDS Web Access page, go to the RDWeb folder (in IIS) and edit the HTTP Response Headers.  You add a new header with name: X-UA-Compatible and value: IE-9, ok it, and restart the web server.


Shannon's page has great screen shots for those who need to 'see' it done.   It was a great help and worked like a champ!

AD Federation Services setup

I'm doing a lab/tutorial to learn AD Federation Services.  My simple setup is:

Server1 - Running Windows 2012 R2
xxxxxx - Oracle Virtual Box with 2 hosts
xxxxxx   xxxxxx>  Windows Server 2008 R2
Oracle Linux

Server2 - Running Windows Server 2012 R2
HyperV with one client - Windows 7 client


Systems are on the same subnet, but connected with Windows RAS setup with VPN.
Following the   AD FS Step-by-Step Guide



During instructions, had to setup IIS to require SSL certificate.  Decided to do a self-assigned ticket but had to use a couple of tools to get it to work properly.

Followed instructions on How to Create a Self Signed Certificate in IIS 7 to generate a self-assigned certificate.

Linux - Accept License!

I just didn't understand this text-base license agreement for free software.  This blog post helped me realize what was being asked.  Worked for Oracle Linux as well.

“License not accepted” when CentOS 7 initiate.

by XTitanium » 2014/10/27 08:47:58

Hello ，everyone!
I am a new CentOS 7 user. I installed the minimum CentOS 7 and used command 'yum -y groupinstall "GNOME Desktop" ' to install a gnome desktop environment.
After installation finished, I used command 'startx' to enter the gnome desktop then I shut down the machine.
But today I open the machine, there has a information and I can not log in.
The information is:
====================================================================
Initial setup of CentOS Linux 7 (core)
1) [x] Creat user 2) [!] License information
(no user will be created) (license not accepted)
Please make your choice from above ['q' to quit | 'c' to continue | 'r' to refresh]:

I enter c or r, give me the same information. I enter q, the machine is restarted.
What should I do? What is this license meaning?




ANS: Try selecting 2 to see the license screen.

Adobe - Premiere - need to add 140 titles! How!!

I work with Premiere for projects on my evangelism website, and it did a bunch of footage, but I need to add titles.   I did not want to have to open, cut, past each set of title in each video. 

I heard that you could use Adobe InDesign (video: How to update multiple titles in Premiere Pro using InDesign), but I didn't have the latest version and didn't feel like learning a new adobe product like InDesign.  Maybe later.

So, I decided to use Powerpoint with no background, create my title label in the lower-thirds, save each file out as a *.jpg.  But that creates a file with a white back ground;  it needs to be transparent *.png format.  After a little digging, I found a utility called ImageMagick that would remove a white background and make it a transparent png.

command used was:
convert -transparent white whatever.jpg whatever.png

I used a command shell FOR loop to do the conversion.  Now, I can at least import the png files and change them with PPT and ImageMagick.

Removing Hyper-V from Dell XPS 720

I installed Windows server 2012 and wanted to run Hyper-v on my *old* Dell XPS 720. I quickly found out that Hyper-V requires SLAT and VMX enabled in the processor. The XPS 720 does not have SLAT functionality. Therefore, when I rebooted, the Windows 2012 would not boot and kept recycling.

I was able to enter the recovery mode and to a command prompt. It appears that the recovery mode is booting from the recovery partition, which is a Windows PE. Regardless, the command that saved me from reinstalling was to uninstall the Hyper-v feature.

The command is"

DISM /Image:C:\ /Disable-Feature:Microsoft-Hyper-V

REFERENCE

Windows client versions compared to server versions & Hyper-v

Interesting comparison:

Vista ~ Windows Server 2008
Windows 7 ~ Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows 8 ~ Windows Server 2012
Windows 8.1 ~ Windows Server 2012 R2

This appears to be true, because I have installed Server 2012 R2 on an old Dell XPS 720 that has (hardware-assisted virtualization - VMX) but does not have SLAT (second layer address translation - EPT) and Hyper-V will not run.  But I think that Hyper-V would run in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Used a MS utility called coreinfo.exe   to determine if the processor can handle Hyper-V.

Will keep chugging at it. .


REFERENCE:


More info on coreinfo.exe see article