Just quick config snippet for Debian 6.0 which I came across when setting up few Debian Linux 6.0 virtual machines for recent network LAB. By default network adapter is set to get IP address from DHCP.

/etc/network/interfaces – dynamic IP address configuration

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
# The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback
# The primary network interface allow-hotplug
eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp

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Mailboxes created for conference rooms (on Exchange 2007 Recipient Type : Room Mailbox) by default has disabled auto accept for calendar appointments. That causes issue when people trying to book room as all appointments show as tentative and manual interaction/accept is required. In order to streamline process and make it more handy for people (in case nobody is assigned to control room bookings) you can enable auto accept feature, so all appointments will be accepted automatically. To do that use PowerShell:

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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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By default ADLDS does not allow to reset password on users created in ADLDS repository over connection without SSL. As sometimes there is a need to build test environment with ADLDS quick, SSL is the last thing which anyone would care about, especially if main thing to test is script automating password resets.

So, for convenience of the developers ADLDS allows to disable requirements for SSL connection to reset passwords. How to disable that reuqirement? See below how it was done on server where ADLDS was installed on port 50389:

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By default password policy from Active Directory domain will impact ADLDS and users created in ADLDS instance. To prevent domain policies from enforcing password restrictions and rules on ADLDS users one simple setting has to be adjusted:

• ADAMDisablePasswordPolicies

Here is how it looks on computer which has ADLDS instance installed on port 50389:

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Some time ago I described How to : Install RANCID on openSUSE 11.4 “Celadon”. However, just after installation RANCID will do nothing without proper configuration.

So, in this lab I will show how to:

• create group of devices in rancid
• add information about credentals to RANCID
• add 2 Cisco routers to that group
• collect configuration from routers
• setup cron task to run rancid automatically

Systems which will be used to demonstrate how to add device to RANCID and collect configuration:

• lab-gw-01 – IP: 172.16.90.5 – openSUSE witn RANCID – installed on VMware Workstation
• lab-r1 – IP: 172.16.90.123 – Cisco router – started on GNS3
• lab-r2 – IP: 172.16.90.124 – Cisco router – started on GNS3

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Recently I went through troubleshooting of Site-to-Site Layer-2 link. One of the things we did during troubleshooting of that link was checking interface statistics for interfaces which were connecting two geographical sites together.

Below quick overview how ot check and reset port statistics if required during troubleshooting process.

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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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Using any of the iDevices with PC computer with Windows 7 will enfornce us to use iTunes as application which can synchronize content of a device with PC, backup device to the computer, etc. By default iTunes will create all folders for content synchronization between PC and iDevice on C: drive. However, sometimes this might be inconvinient, especially if someone has multiple partitions on hard disk dedicated for certain type of content. Also, when number of applications, music files and movies is growing on iDevice iTunes can consume lot of space, so this might be reasonable to move iTunes content to another partition or disk on our system. I will show quick way how ot make iTunes data move smooth and transparent for our device.

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In some companies performance is measured based on number of emails someone sent. regardless the reason for those emails and content, what matters the most is if someone is sending something to others. So, I was asked to produce quick count how many emails one individual sent.

Here is quick PowerShell command which I ran on Exchange 2007 Mailbox server to find requested number:

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