Can I ‘Shrink’ My Exchange Database?
KB ID 0001706 Problem Saw this asked in a forum today, and my response was; It never gets smaller, if you delete things out of it, it just creates more ‘whitespace’ within the database, unless you; a) Take it offline, and defragment it using eseutil. b) Move the mailboxes out of it, to another database and delete it. Which is true, but even Microsoft say you should not need to defragment a database! Before you do anything...
VMware vSphere – How to Import and Export OVF and OVA Files
KB ID 0000562 Problem I prefer to think of OVF Templates as “Zip” files for Virtual Machines and Virtual Appliances. Where as the OVA file is the complete appliance pre packaged. There are two things you will want to do with an OVF Template; 1. Export a VM to an OVF Template 2. Import an OVF Template (Note: VMware call this “Deploy an OVF Template”) Note: There are tools for OVF templates for other VMware...
Using Azure Site Recovery for Migrations
KB ID 0001513 Requirement ASR (Azure Site Recovery) is primarily used to provide a ‘failover’ environment to be used in a disaster or major outage scenario. Essentially you deploy an Azure Site Recovery Configuration Server in your environment, then in your Azure Portal you create and configure a failover vault. OK, but we are talking about migrations, well we can use exactly the same procedure to migrate from on premises...
Linux (CentOS 7) Generating CSR (Certificate Signing Requests)
KB ID 0001206 Problem If you want to use digital certificates on your CentOS server, then you will need to generate a CSR. It does not matter if you want to purchase a publicly signed certificate, or even if you are going to sign your own. Below is how to generate a CSR for a single web host. Note: Most cert vendors now require a minimum key length of 2048 so thats what I’m going to use. And I’m assuming you have openSSL...
Using OSPF over DMVPN
KB ID 0001151 Dtd 03/02/16 Problem This article is a supplement to the earlier one on Setting Up DMVPN. It covers how to use OSPF over the top of DMVPN. This is the topology I’m going to use; As I’ve said (above) this is not a run though on setting up DMVPN, but if you want to spin it up in GNS3, or on the test bench, here’s the DMVPN config; Hub Site configure terminal interface Tunnel10 ip address 192.168.254.1...