Yet another blog about Monkeys and IT
Microsoft
DNS Caching at a glance
Apr 14th
What is DNS Caching?! DNS caching is a mechanism that enables a client or a server DNS resolutions queries to be saved locally for a set timeframe on that DNS server or client. A DNS query is a request for name resolution that is sent to a DNS server to resolve a name-to-IP-address.
Since Caching stores the information obtained through a previous query locally it improves DNS performance and substantially reduce DNS related traffic on the network. It eliminates the need for repetitive queries to the remote DNS server.
The period of time or TTL (Time to Live) of which the DNS cached query may be stored in the DNS cache, either on the client side or on the server side, is determined by the authoritative server of that resource record. This value applies to all cached DNS resource records and it will be removed once expired regardless if the same record entry accessed before the TTL expires. (more…)
Manually configuring IP addressing in Windows via Command Prompt
Apr 8th
As a system administrator in any enterprise IT environment the ultimate goal is to insure system uptime and the consistent availability of network resources. Any delay of service, misconfiguration, system downtime, security breach.. etc will have a huge impact on the employees productivity. Time is not calculated by minutes or hours, it is calculated by dollars and how much the company loses within the down time of IT services, and believe me, there is always someone should be blame in these cases, try not to be you.
As for Linux users command line is the fastest and preferred way to configure, modify and fix any problem in no time. Yet in Windows environment most administrators prefer the GUI method to get the job done. However, Windows can be administrated through command line as well; Windows server 2008 Server Core supports strong command line management capabilities. (more…)
Windows activation problem – code 0x8007232B
Apr 6th
When you try to activate Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista Enterprise, or Windows Vista Business (Windows Server 2008 in my case) using volume-licensed media you may receive the following error message:
Windows Activation Error: A problem occurred when Windows tried to activate. Error Code 0x8007232B. For a possible resolution, click More Information. Contact your system administrator or technical support department for assistance.
Clicking “More Information” will display the following message:
Error Details
The following information was found for this error:
Code:
0x8007232B
Description:
DNS server failure .
Configuring DNS Zones
Feb 20th
DNS Zones types at a glance:
DNS has a hierarchical structure tree called “DNS namespace” that allows it to support any size of networks (The local network, the Internet for examples) without any concerns about scalability. The root domain can have many subdomains and the subdomains can have other sub-subdomains.. etc. Any organization can use private DNS namespace within the organization without making it visible to the outside (internet) .
Domain name servers DNS store information about portion of the domain namespace called a “zone” which is a contiguous portion of the (more…)
Installing DNS server on a standalone or member server
Feb 16th
DNS Domain Name System (or Service or Server) is a name resolution service that resolves (interpret, translate) human friendly addresses such as nj180degree.net into IP addresses such as 172.16.10.1, this process is usually called Name Resolution.
Without name resolution it would be quit a hassle to locate the exact IP addresses of your resources in an IP internetworked system to access them especially when you run a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol service on the network that will change the IP addresses of your networked devices quit constantly. (more…)
How to integrate Windows 7 to a domain using NETDOM
Sep 28th
Netdom.exe is a command line tool that is built into Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It is available if you have the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) server role installed. It is also available if you install the Active Directory Domain Services Tools that are part of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT).
NETDOM is not installed by default in Windows 2000/XP/2003 so you have to install it through the Support Tools /Resource Kit to get your hand on it, also you have to install the correct version of NETDOM specified for your operating system. (more…)
Active Directory integration with Samba for RHEL/CentOS5.5
Sep 4th
I’ve been asked to develop an enterprise level of complex network servers that can provide many services including mail server, ftp, web server, file server, print server, backup server, roaming profiles and user’s home directory.. etc. The client demanded at least one Linux machine regardless of the service running on it. I’ve decided to run the web server (Apache) on it associated with the FTP server for managing the web pages contents, so I had to come out with a solution to join the Linux server to the Domain Controller (which is windows server 2003) as a member server.
It is true that any number of Samba servers can normally be set up in a Windows network without joining them to a domain. However, advantages of domain membership are central management, authentication and single sign-on. So once you’ve done with all the configuration and successfully joined the server to the DC you can use the same account name and password to log on to your Linux or Windows machine as well as the network administrators will be able to logon to the machine with their administrator credentials. (more…)
Creating a User Template in Active Directory
May 21st
When you are creating several users with similar account options and group membership creating those users would be a repetitive and time consuming task. However, in Active Directory you may be able to reduce some of the repetition by creating a USER TEMPLATE.
User template simply an inactive user account (disabled account) that can be copied to create users with common attributes. Copying from the User Template Account will run the same wizard for creating a new user account so you can fill in the missing fields such as username and password, as well as you can make some changes on those in common attributes fields. (more…)
Change UAC behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators
May 11th
User Account Control (UAC) is enabled in Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista and Windows 7 by default. Every time an Administrator trying to configure, change or apply different configuration tasks this service will prompt for permission to continue. By clicking Continue in the dialog box the Administrator would grant this permission. (more…)
