Clean Install on IIS 7.0 in Windows 2008 RC0

andy18    Windows-related    

I was poking around the Windows 2008 RC0 lately with IIS 7.0. While I was trying to install the FTP 7.0 into the server, the service fail to be installed. iisreset has also fail from the command line with the message:

The IIS Admin Service or the World Wide Web Publishing Service, or a service dependent on them failed to start. The service, or dependent services, may had an error during its startup or may be disabled.

I looked up in the Services MMC and the notice that the IIS Admin Services will fail to be started each time the iisreset is performed. This makes the reason for the FTP 7.0 RC0 to fail to install as at the end of the installation, it will run the iisreset command to restart the services.

I have tried uninstalling the Web Server Roles from the server and reinstall everything and it does not helps with the FTP 7.0 installation. Finally, I have make a clean IIS uninstalaltion by running the following command, which uninstall the Windows Process Activation(WAS). I then re-exceute the Web Server Role installation and this time the FTP 7.0 install without any issues

Start /w pkgmgr /uu:IIS-WebServerRole;WAS-WindowsActivationService

Changing Windows Remote Desktop listening port

andy18    Windows-related    

By default, Windows Remote Desktop(RDP) is listening on the port 3389. You may change the listening port by modifying the registry key as follow:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber

Change the PortNumber to something else you wish to apply. Make sure the port you are changing is not being used by other services on the server.

To connect to the RDP from your local RDP client application, enter “ServerName:Port” or “IP:Port”

Could not load the DLL xplog70.dll, or one of the DLLs it references. Reason: 126(The specified module could not be found.)

andy18    SQL-related    

I was trying to setup a SQL backup maintenance on a SQL 2005 today notice the it does not allow me to do so. At the SQL Management Studio, it shows that the “Agent XPs disabled” at the SQL Server Agent. It looks like this has been miss out to enable during the initial installation. In order to enable this, you will need to run the following T-SQL

use master
go
sp_configure ’show advanced options’, 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
sp_configure ‘Agent XPs’, 1;
go
RECONFIGURE
GO

Alright, everything is set and the message went away. However, it still does not allow me to start the SQL Agent services. The event log captured the following during the service startup:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSSQLSERVER
Event Category: (2)
Event ID: 17750
Date: 10/12/2007
Time: 1:37:19 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: IDOCM
Description:
Could not load the DLL xplog70.dll, or one of the DLLs it references. Reason: 126(The specified module could not be found.).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

I try lookup on the SQL installation directory binn folder and to my surprise the xplog70.dll is not there. I copied the dll from another SQL installation server and voila, the SQL Agent services has been started!

Windows Vista Remote Desktop Authentication Certificate Error

andy18    Windows-related    

I was trying to remote login to a Windows Longhorn server today after a reformat of the server from my Windows Vista Business. However, connection was being rejected and being bounce back with the error message

The authentication certificate received from the remote computer has expired or is not valid

I am so frustrated about this as I am able to login as of yesterday ( before the OS reload );Additionally, the server is a clean OS installation with no extra setting / application installation. Tried from other’s terminal RDP and is working fine. It just does not work from my Windows Vista machine.

After some checks, it turns out to be the server time zone and actual time is not synchronizing with my machine. As I have login on yesterday through my machine RDP, the check for the certificate will throws the invalid message. After changing the server time and time zone, I am able to login.

The other solution is to remote the certificate on the remote server through the Certificate MMC > > Certificates > Remote Desktop > Certificates

Mailenable 2.x Webmail calendar feature

andy18    Others    

I was running some upgrade to refresh my memory on the Mailenable Professional to Enterprise edition. Everything runs well except that some of the new features in the version 2.0 is not showing up on the webmail after the upgrade, this include the calendar feature.

Additionally, some of the new ‘bugs’ I notice is that the Mailenable MMC shortcut available at the Start Menu is still pointing to the old Mailenable Professional MMC option. I notice this as the Mailenable MMC that I fire up does not shows the new features in Mailenable Enterprise. I ended up update the Mailenable Enterprise shortcut on the Start Menu to point to the new target.

For the webmail, when it loads, it is not showing the new Enterprise level skin when I first try it out. Apparently the default base folder is set to the “default” (Pro) version. In order to have the new Enterprise level new skin, you will need to change the default base by navigating within the Mailenable MMC console to “Servers> localhost> Services> Webmail”, right click on the webmail and select “Properties”. In the webmail porperties window navigate to the “Site Options” tab, here you will be able to select the default base. Use the dropdown menu and select “enterprise”. Restart the IIS services as well after this and try refresh your webmail browser. You should get the new interface.

Force Queue run in Exim

andy18    Others    

If you would like to force your Exim mail server to retry the frozen emails in your mail queue, you may issue the following command as root :

shell#> exim -v -qff

MySQL 5.0.x error with PHP 5.2.3

andy18    SQL-related    

I was trying to setup a new Windows 2003 web server today and everything looks to be in order. It comes to my attention that phpmyadmin has just release 2.11.0 stable version 2 days ago. Without any further hesitation, I downloaded the latest zip files and extracted to the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\phpmyadmin. Next, I install PHP 5.2.3 and MySQL 5.0.45 to the box. While try to check on the PHP installation, it prompts the following on the CLI:

C:\php5>php-cgi.exe -v
PHP 5.2.3 (cgi-fcgi) (built: May 31 2007 09:37:20)
Copyright (c) 1997-2007 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2007 Zend Technologies
with the ionCube PHP Loader v3.1.32, Copyright (c) 2002-2007, by ionCube Ltd., and
with Zend Extension Manager v1.2.0, Copyright (c) 2003-2007, by Zend Technologies
with Zend Optimizer v3.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2007, by Zend Technologies
Error in my_thread_global_end(): 1 threads didn’t exist

“Error in my_thread_global_end(): 1 threads didn’t exist” has been discussed heavily in PHP bugs report 41350 Apparently the only way to resolve this is to grab the libmysql.dll from PHP 5.2.1 and replace it on PHP 5.2.2 / 5.2.3

Once the libmysql.dll has been replaced, I have no issues with the CLI test output. However, when I login as root to the Phpmyadmin, it shows me the following screen:

I ended up downgraded the PhpMyadmin version to 2.10.1. I will just have to wait either PHP and MySQL developer to release a patch to correct this.

Skype is offline?

andy18    Others    

Those users who has rely very heavy on Skype as part of their daily or business communication will find having problems to get connected on yesterday. This including me

Skype has published on their blog saying is one of their algorithm within their networking software which causes the issues. However, some may have believe that the downtime of Skype is due to some published DDoS exploit on the Skype application which causes this.

So far when I tried to connect right now, I am still not able to get connected

Compiling mod_headers into Apache with cPanel

andy18    Cpanel    

mod_headers is an extension modules of Apache 1.x and 2.x which allow customization of HTTP response headers. Details on the mod_headers can be found on the Apache 1.1 mod_headers and Apache 2.0 mod headers page.

Here’s some easy steps to compile it to your cPanel Apache server:

1. Make a backup copy of your httpd.conf by running cp /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf.bak ( or any file name that you like )

2. cd /home/cpapachebuild/buildapache/apache_1.x.xx/src/modules/standard – if you do not see the directory of apache_1.x.xx, download the apache source file from the Apache Download page to /home/cpapachebuild/buildapache/ and untar it.

3. /usr/local/apache/bin/apxs -c mod_headers.c

4. /usr/local/apache/bin/apxs -i -a -n headers mod_headers.so

This will compile the mod_headers to the Apache and add in the configuration lines to the httpd.conf file as well.

Run a apachectl configtest as well to make sure it is Syntax-error free. Restart the Apache services and you are done.

Wordpress Friendly URL in Windows IIS

andy18    Others    

Most of the users who is using Wordpress love one of the features – Premalink that will help your blog to have a better position with search engine crawl. By default, Wordpress display your post to something like this http://www.andy.name.my/?p=456 . We will need to change the way this display to a more friendly readable format by the search engine spider – something like http://www.andy.name.my/index.php/year/month/date/post_title/. Other than the above reason, it gives some rough summary about what your post is to your readers.

Wordpress is written in PHP based environment and is capable of running on any operating system backend – Windows or Linux; as long as the server support PHP and MySQL.

Users who host their Wordpress in Linux environment won’t find any issues enabling Premalink for their blog as Apache comes with a module namely mod_rewrite that support this. However, users who has setup their Wordpress at Windows is not able to enable this option – Reasons? Most of the hosting provider by default is running IIS on the Windows Server environment and the main thing is that mod_rewrite module is only applicable for Apache. Guess what? I am one of the user who host my blog on a Windows and find it problematic to enable the permalink. While I was thinking to switch over to Linux, I came across this post which have save my time of doing the migration of files over.

It’s some simple to have Premalink enabled for your Wordpress in Windows IIS environment as follow:

1. Create a php.ini file with the following lines in the file and upload it to your root directory of your Wordpress installation directory.

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
cgi.force_redirect = 0

2. Enable the Premalink options in your WordPress by going to Options > Premalinks