Monthly Archives: November 2019

Error: 0x8007232B DNS Name Does Not Exist

Posted on by
Reply

KB ID 0001622

Problem

Seen when attempting to ‘Activate’ a Window machine;

Error: 0x8007232B DNS name does not exist

Solution

The reason for this error is the Windows machine has looked for a KMS (Key Management Server) in its local DNS, and not found one. This is because (out of the box) it has a Windows KMS licence code installed. Now if you have a KMS server you need to work out why you cant see it, I’ve covered troubleshooting KMS in link below;

Using a KMS Server

So if you don’t have a KMS server and dont wish you deploy one, you need to change, the Windows activation code on this machine to a MAK (Multiple Activation Key) instead,  Note: you will get these keys from the Microsoft Volume Licence Service Center. Then from an administrative command window;

[box]

slmgr -ipk 12345-ABCDE-12345-ABCDE-12345
slmgr -ato

[/box]

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Cluster: Not Reachable On UDP Port 3433

Posted on by
1

KB ID 0001621

Problem

Seen on a Microsoft Hyper-V failover cluster (Server 2019);

Network Interfaces {Node-Name} {Interface-Name} and {Node-Name} {Interface-Name} are on the same cluster network, yet address {IP-Address} is not reachable from {IP-Address} using UDP port 3433

Solution

I’ve seen this error before, and usually you just need to disable the firewall or open UDP port 3433 and then re-validate the cluster (job done). However, in my case the following was true;

  • All IP addresses could ‘ping’ the IP addresses that it was telling me it could not communicate with.
  • All local firewalls were turned off on the domain profile.
  • No AV was running, or third party firewalls were installed.

There seemed to be no reason for this, I disabled and re-enabled the ‘Live migration’ NIC and 50% of the links ‘went green’ but then the Live Migration link said ‘partitioned‘ 🙁

In the end, (even though the cluster was in a failed state) I moved all my VMs onto one Host, then ran Windows update, and bounced the server, then repeated the process on the other host and the problem went away. I don’t know it it was a bug/update/driver problem, but fingers crossed it’s been OK since.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Office 365 Retention Policies

Posted on by
2

KB ID 0001620

Problem

Most things in Office 365 operate on a 30 day retention principle, but what if you are governed by restrictions that require you to retain your data for 5 years or 7 years in some cases? We have had Retention policies in Exchange for years, and I knew you could create a policy in exchange online, but what about OneDrive or SharePoint data?

Well with O365 you can specify a ‘top level’ retention policy that applies to ‘most’ of your data. I say most because some application data is not 100% retained.

BE AWARE: Despite the name containing ‘retention’ this is also how you specify when to automatically delete old files (if that is MORE your requirement).

Solution

From Office 365 admin > Admin Centers > Security and Compliance.

Information governance > Retention > Create.

Give your policy a name > Next.

Obviously we want to choose ‘Yes I want to retain’ > I would change the retain based on to ‘when it was last modified’ > Next.

Note: You can choose the second option to automatically delete files that are a certain age.

Note2: You can add a specific policy for files containing certain words/phrases or specific date i.e. financial, (at present this does not apply to Teams).

Specify ‘What’ you want to apply the policy to, by default it’s off for Skype and Teams Data, and Exchange public folders strangely? > Next.

Review the settings > Create this policy.

 

Office 365 Retention Policies via PowerShell

As usual, you can do similar things with PowerShell;

[box]

New-RetentionCompliancePolicy -Name "PeteNetLive-Retention-Policy" -ExchangeLocation All -SharePointLocation All -ModernGroupLocation All -OneDriveLocation All -Enabled $true
New-RetentionComplianceRule -Name "PeteNetLive-Retention-Policy-Rule" -Policy "PeteNetLive-Retention-Policy" -RetentionDuration 2555

[/box]

Note: 2555 Days is 7 years.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Exchange Event ID 1012 & 1013

Posted on by
3

KB ID 0001619

Problem

Seen on Exchange 2013/2016

Event ID 1012

Log Name: Application
Source:  MSExchangeDiagnostics
Event ID: 1012
Task Category: General
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User:  N/A
Description: Data loss occurred in RetentionAgent: RetentionAgent: Data loss occurred. The size of this folder E:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Logging\Diagnostics\DailyPerformanceLogs has reached the max size allowed – 5120 MB. Some files will be purged.

Event ID 1013

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchangeDiagnostics
Event ID: 1013
Task Category: General
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description: Potential data loss warning in RetentionAgent: RetentionAgent: Warning: Potential data loss. The size of this folder E:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Logging\Diagnostics\DailyPerformanceLogs has reached 95% of max size allowed – 5120 MB. Some data will be purged once it reaches the max limit.

Temporary Solution

I must say I don’t really like this solution, if you trawl the forums, you will see this is how you suppress the error. But you should really relocate the logs

Navigate to: {Drive Letter}:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\bin\Microsoft.Exchange.Diagnostics.Service.exe.config

Locate the DailyPerformanceLogs section and look for the LogDataLoss entry, change it from True to False.

Then restart the Microsoft Exchange Diagnostic Service.

Proper Solution

To relocate the logs to another location, or a larger partition/disk, do the following;

First double check the log location;

[box]

logman query ExchangeDiagnosticsDailyPerformanceLog | more

[/box]

Then to move the logs, stop the logging, relocate the log location, and finally start the logging again;

[box]

logman -stop ExchangeDiagnosticsDailyPerformanceLog
logman -update ExchangeDiagnosticsDailyPerformanceLog -o “H:\Exchange\PerformanceLogs”
logman -start ExchangeDiagnosticsDailyPerformanceLog

[/box]

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Adding Windows Server NFS Shares to VMware ESX

Posted on by

KB ID 0000319

Problem

You have a Windows 2019/2016, 2012, or 2008 server with plenty of storage space, and you would like to present that to an ESX/ESXi server as a datastore. You can configure a folder (or drive) as an NFS share and present it to VMware vSphere, so that it can be used as a datastore.

Note: For Server 2008 and vSphere 4/5 Scroll down.

Create NFS Shares on Windows Server 2019, 2016, and 2012

Essentially you need to add the ‘Server for NFS’ role, (Below “File and Storage Services“).

Create a folder to share, on its properties > NFS Sharing > Manage NFS Sharing.

Tick to share > Permissions.

You can add each host individually here, but I’m just changing the default rule to allow Read/Write to ALL MACHINES > Tick ‘Allow root access’ > OK.

VMWare vSphere 6 Connecting to Windows NFS Shares

Make Sure you have a VMKernel port on the same network as your NFS share.

DataStore View > Right click the ‘Cluster‘ > Storage > New Datastore > NFS > Next > NFS 3 > Next.

Give the datastore a name > Select the share name (prefix it with a forward slash, and remember they are case sensitive!) > Enter the IP or FQDN of the NFS server > Next > Next > Finish.

Create NFS Shares on Windows Server 2008

Gotchas

1. The system will not work if you do not have a vmkernel port, if you already have iSCSI or vmotion working then this will already be in place.

If not you will see an error like this,

Call “HostDatastoreSystem.CreateNasDatastore” for object “ha-datastoresystem” on ESX “{name or IP of ESX server}” failed.

2. Make sure TCP port 2049 is open between the NFS share and the ESX box. On an ESX 3.x servers you may need to run ” esxcfg-firewall -e nfsClient “.

Other Points

1. You CAN boot a windows VM from any NFS store (just because Windows cannot boot from NFS – does not mean a VM can’t).

2. NFS Datastores are limited to 16TB.

3. vSphere supports up to 64 NFS Datastores (ESX supports up to 32).

4. Thin provisioned disks will “re-expand” when moved/cloned to another NFS Datastore (THOUGH NOT in a vSphere environment).

5. On Server 2008 R2 NFS can only support 16 TCP connections, to raise the limit see here.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Windows ‘Auto Suspends’ In ESX

Posted on by

KB ID 0000311

Problem

Has annoyed me for a while, first seen in vSphere4 ESX, a guest Windows  machine “Suspends” after a while.

Solution

1. Power the Windows  VM down.

2. Right click the VM and Select “Edit Settings”.

3. Select the VM Options Tab > Power Management > Select “Put OS into standby mode..” > OK.

HTML5

FLEX

vClient

4. Power the VM on again, problem sorted.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Outlook: Import and Export Data (.pst)

Posted on by

Backup and restore from .pst file

KB ID 0000154

Problem

You want to import your mail from an older version of Outlook  into your new Outlook mailbox, or you simply want to backup your mail.

Solution

Thankfully the process is the same for modern Outlook as it was for previous versions of Outlook.

1. In Outlook > Select the “File” Tab > Open > Open & Export > Import/Export

Note: On older versions of Outlook  its simply Open > Import (you select Import even if your going to Export!)

 

2. Export to a file.

3. Outlook Data File (.pst).

4. Select your mailbox, select the ailbox – {username} > To back up everything (calendar contacts the lot), tick “Include sub folders” > Next.

Note: If using a POP mail account, here it may say Personal Folders.

5. Choose a location to save the .pst file.

6. If you want to password protect this (remember someone can import your .pst and read all your mail). I usually leave this option blank > OK.

7. After a few seconds the mailbox will export. (Note: if the mailbox is very small this might happen so quickly nothing is displayed on the screen). And there it is.

To “Import” your mailbox,

1. Launch thewWizard as above (Step 1) > Select “Import from another program or file” > Next.

2. Outlook Data File (.pst) >Next.

3. Browse to, and select your .pst file > Next.

4. Stop and think! where do you want to import the files to? Select as appropriate > Finish (Note at this point if the .pst is password protected you will be prompted for a password).

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Microsoft Outlook – Showing Email Headers

Posted on by

KB ID 0000663 

Problem

There are plenty of reasons for wanting to look at a message header, to see where a mail has come from or from which email address it was sent for example. Different versions of Outlook have different methods of letting you read the email header.

Solution

Display Message Headers with Outlook 2013

1. Open the mail in question and select ‘file’.

2. Info > Properties.

3. Your message headers are displayed.

Display Message Headers with Outlook 2010

1. Open the mail in question and select ‘file’.

2. Info > Properties.

3. Your message headers are displayed.

Display Message Headers with Outlook 2007

1. Option 1: Open the mail in question, and select the expand icon next to ‘Options’.

2. Option 2: From the inbox right click the relevant message and select ‘Message Options’.

3. Your message headers are displayed.

Display Message Headers with Outlook 2003

1. Option 1: Open the mail in question > View > Options.

2. Option 2: From the inbox right click the relevant message and select ‘Options’.

3. Your message headers are displayed.

 

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

 

Exchange 2013 – Working with and Managing the OAB

Posted on by

KB ID 0000745 

Problem

Exchange 2013, has changed the way Offline Address Books are handled, with previous versions only one server (the first server holding the mailbox role) was responsible for generating the OAB. With 2013 however multiple servers generate the OAB, In fact every server that has a special arbitration mailbox called an organization mailbox will create a copy. This is better for fault tolerance and resilience, and you will find the OAB files located at %ExchangeInstallPath%ClientAccessOAB. Another change is the way the OAB is distributed, now it can only be distributed via the web (no public folder distribution any more).

With the new Exchange Admin Center (https://localhost/ecp) there are no options to mange the OAB, so you will need to do that via PowerShell.

Solution

Pre-Requisites

If your AD environment contains more than one forest, you need to change the parameters that the management shell is going to use first, (or you will get no results). To do that execute the following command;

[box] Set-ADServerSettings -ViewEntireForest $true [/box]

Locate the OAB Generation Server(s)

[box]

Get-Mailbox -Arbitration | where {$_.PersistedCapabilities -like “*oab*”} | ft name,servername

OR If your serveris a member of a DAG group, first get the database name,

Get-Mailbox -Arbitration | where {$_.PersistedCapabilities -like “*oab*”} | ft name,database

Then use that like so,

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus database-name

[/box]

Create a new OAB for Exchange 2013

[box] New-OfflineAddressBook -Name “PNL OAB” -AddressLists “Default Global Address List” -VirtualDirectories “EX1OAB (Default Web Site)”[/box]

Force Exchange 2013 to Update the OAB

Simply restarting the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Assistant service should do this, however you can force the issue with the following command.

[box] Update-OfflineAddressBook “default offline address book” [/box]

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA