Current System Configuration :
Now the fun stuff :
DHCP Server
Microsoft TCP/IP Printing
Network Monitoring and Agent
Simple TCP/IP Services
CD Key : xxx-xxxxxxx
Change folder to E:\MSProxy\msp2.0
Click on install options
Choose "Select All"
Caching Enabled - (must be ntfs drive. I chose to remove caching
from c:\ and made it 1Gig on E:\ only)
Clients connect using name "NTSERVER"
Automatically configure browser during client setup : NTSERVER / 80
Deselect Access Control for both proxy services
IIS Logging problems ....
I am currently running NT4.0, with IIS4 and SP3 on one server and SP4 on another. I have been getting messages that there were problems creating a new log file. It began about 10 days ago, but I just noticed it now. When I take a llok at the messages in the log I see messages like:
IIS Logging was unable to create the directory 4òû. The data is the error.
and
IIS Logging was unable to create the directory â.8.ØT4.°'8... The data is the error.
After researching much of the available places for help, I came across a LOT of people asking the question and almost nobody answering it. Actually most answers were trying to convince the poor public into turning on full control for the group "everyone" on the directory - can you imagine that for a response !!!?!?!? Even Microsoft's own technical article suggests it. But, after digging deep enough, I did find one reply that seemed to make more sense, which stated :
Run a chkdsk /f on all your drives. See what turns up in the log. Sounds like NTFS corruption.
Well, I did, and it worked like a charm. I vaguely remember this happening a few years ago, but for some odd reason, I hadnt documented it - now I have, for all to benefit from. This process does require a reboot, because the drive is currently in use, and will be performed in the next reboot's pre-boot stage.
Killing system jobs .....
When you are using plain old ntbackup to do your system/server backups, and the job requests a new tape, because the first one errors out, or fills up, the job just hangs. This I knew. This happens because the job is set to run as a non-interactive process, so the message to insert a new tape just sits there. We cant even see it.
What I always used to have to do, was to restart the system. There was no other way, that I knew of, to kill the job. The process just hangs, and the task manager wont let you kill it. It give the old permission denied error.
Well, did you know why this happens? Because I sure didn't. It turns out that as "administrator", you cant kill "system" jobs. The scheduler service runs as "system", and therefore owns the process. That is why "administrator" gets the permission denied error. To get around this, do the following :
Works like a charm.
The IIS4.0 Web Server :
After about 2 years of using it, I found the need to change my web server's default 404 error page. I had originally just served out one domain's web server from my NT box (www.pluzzi.com), but am now hosting over 7 domains here (all nonprofit, so dont ask).
Since I dont have any special software to do this for me, and only registered one IP address, you probably ask how? Well, in this process, I had to move many of the original files that were served from the root directory of the Web Server, to another area, or even a subdirectory.
The problem was that in my web logs (which are checked every single day), I noticed that a few people must have bookmarked some of my original older pages. This was my assumption based on the fact that the page has been relocated, and there was no referrer in the log file. I figured that must be a bookmark for the old page. Now if these are such loyal people that they bookmark my pages, I dont want to just give them a generic 404 page, as that seems so unfriendly, and I myself dont like it when it happens to me.
So I decided that I should at least offer them the search page with a 404 error message instead. This way they know the page has moved, or doesnt exist anymore, but give them a direction to look in. In the future, I may try to submit automatically, what page they were looking for, but this is just the early stages, version 1 if you will.
To accomplish this whole task, I had to write an asp script that senses the server name in the web query and redirects it accordingly. The script works great and I have had zero problems to date with it. For what its worth, I am sure that there are some good programmers that would balk at my code, because its "quick and dirty" instead of "mean and lean", but hey - it works. Regardless, last night I was pondering again, and thought of something. No matter which domain you search by now, if you get a 404 error, it will only query the www.pluzzi.com website for the search answer. So now I need to create an asp script for the 404 default error page. That is the next project on the block. Lucky for me the other sites are all pretty static, and dont have much content, so 404's are highly unlikely.
I must say that I am happy with the "feel" of the page however. It is warm, friendly and unobtrusive - not to mention helpful, and after all, wasnt that the idea in the first place?
Some interesting info on "rdisk /s" :
I just came across a reader's input in the Nov '99 issue of Windows NT Magazine that states some potential issues are apparent if you registry has grown a bit. The letter states that it is possible that when the SAM grows larger than the size of a floppy, that this process can cause problems. The information that Micorosoft issued is contained in http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q122/8/57.asp. Apparently when you run the "rdisk" command, the current SAM overwrites the existing SAM in the \winnt\repair directory. If the repair copy of the SAM wont fit on a 3.5" diskette, you may need to make a backup copy of the \%systemroot%\repair directory BEFORE you run the /s option.