Quick steps which should be done as pre-migration steps when you want to migrate System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 to System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager.

Diagram below shows schematics of the lab environment prepared for migration testing.

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In previous articles in the RANCID series I described:

• How to install RANCID on openSUSE
• Add devices to RANCID

So, we have RANCID collecting configuration from network devices to repository with version control. Only question is how to get access and make use of information collected there.

In this part of RANCID stories I will show how to install and configure WebSVN to access RANCID repository via web browser.

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VMware Wosktation allows to run ESXi as virtual machine (virtual environment as virtual machine – kind of funny). It can be very useful to evaluate, experiment and learn vSphere at home. This can be also very helpful if we want ot run virtual appliances which are compatible with ESX only. I will show how easy is to install ESXi 5 as virtual machine on VMware Workstation 9.

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I think it’s common problem as Active Directory gets bigger in organizations, control over content of that mission-critical component seems to be lost. Same happened in my place. In addition to that we had to provide information from AD on a regular basis in a form of report. We had no tools to pull all data from AD, process it and present in some readable format. However, I was working with skilled SQL guy who was also very good in Reporting Services. So, I proposed that we can link Active Directory with SQL Server and use Transact-SQL to pull information from AD, process it on SQL and then make it readable and presentable through Reporting Services. That would allow SQL guy to process all information and do all kind of reporting required.

Here are components of our LAB environment before solution went to production:

And below steps how we made SQL Server 2008 R2 to work with Active Directory to use Transact-SQL queries to pull information from directory database.

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Recently I had issue which occured without any particular reason on SQL Server 2012. All of the sudden I start getting error message:

Cannot connect to WMI provider. You do not have permission or the server is
unreachable.
Note that you can only manage SQL Server 2005 servers with SQL
Server Configuration Manager.
Invalid Namespace.

when tried to run SQL Server Configuration Tools.

What resolved situation is command:

mofcomp C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof

As I had to fight with WIndows XP Autologon (we have it on many computers which are used for example for CCTV), I think can write down one more quick tips how to skip Autologon feature and use different account to access computer (for example to install Windows Updates).

So, situation I was dealing with was computer with Windows XP, connected to Active Directory domain with Autologn feature enabled. After computer started I’ve seen welcome dialog and after pressed ctrl-alt-del autologn procedure kick in and login to computer with restricted account. How to skip autologon process and be able to enter different username and password?

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As a part of preparation for monitoring our WIndows Server 2008 R2 using SNMP and Nagios we had to add SNMP Services to few systems which didn’t have it yet. So, based on that fact I thought it might be nice to capture all steps involved in adding SNMP to Windows Server machine. Here you can see steps, screenshots and short description how to achieve that.

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Again one of those things which I forget when is needed. Autologon in Windows XP. Funny enough is the fact that each time I’m looking for this information is when I want to prevent Windows XP from auto logon and trying to disable that in registry using remote access from Registry Editor.

Fortunately Microsoft prepared full detailed description, so now I can write down in my scratchpad for future reference instead of using Google each time I need that 😀

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If you need to install Xdebug on openSUSE and don’t want ot use existing binary repo easiest way is to use pecl to do that and here is how…

First install all required packages

dev-lnx-02:~ # zypper --non-interactive install gcc autoconf automake php5 php5-pear php5-devel

Now we can download and install Xdebug itself:

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I use SecureCRT quite often to access Linux systems as well as network devices.

When going through one of the presentations on SecureCRT web page I found handy tip how to configure session logs to have it divided by date, time and session.

Screenshot below demonstrates settings for log file:

Basically parameters are set to:

• Log file name: %Y-%M-%D–%h-%m-%s.%t__%S(%H).txt
• Options / Start log upon connect: checked
• Custom log data / On each line: %h:%m:%s(%t):

These settings will create separate log file for each session every time connection will be established.

In addition to that each line will start with timestamp added by SecureCRT.