A S K

Changes in Windows 2008 Active Directory

2011-04-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

Active Directory Domain Services

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), formerly known as Active Directory Directory Services, is the central location for configuration information, authentication requests, and information about all of the objects that are stored within your forest. Using Active Directory, you can efficiently manage users, computers, groups, printers, applications, and other directory-enabled objects from one secure, centralized location.

Auditing. Changes made to Active Directory objects can be recorded so that you know what was changed on the object, as well as the previous and current values for the changed attributes.
Fine-Grained Passwords. Password policies can be configured for distinct groups within the domain. No longer does every account have to use the same password policy within the domain.
Read-Only Domain Controller. A domain controller with a read-only version of the Active Directory database can be deployed in environments where the security of the domain controller cannot be guaranteed, such as branch offices where the physical security of the domain controller is in question, or domain controllers that host additional roles, requiring other users to log on and maintain the server. The use of Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODCs) prevents changes made at branch locations from potentially polluting or corrupting your AD forest via replication. RODCs also eliminate the need to use a staging site for branch office domain controllers, or to send installation media and a domain administrator to the branch location.
Restartable Active Directory Domain Services. Active Directory Domain Services can be stopped and maintained. Rebooting the domain controller and restarting it in Directory Services Restore Mode is not required for most maintenance functions. Other services on the domain controller can continue functioning while the directory service is offline.
Database Mounting Tool. A snapshot of the Active Directory database can be mounted using this tool. This allows a domain administrator to view the objects within the snapshot to determine the restore requirements when necessary.

Active Directory Rights Management Services
Your organization’s intellectual property needs to be safe and highly secure. Active Directory Rights Management Services, a component of Windows Server 2008, is available to help make sure that only those individuals who need to view a file can do so. AD RMS can protect a file by identifying the rights that a user has to the file. Rights can be configured to allow a user to open, modify, print, forward, or take other actions with the rights-managed information. With AD RMS, you can now safeguard data when it is distributed outside of your network.
- Application Support. Support for AD RMS is already included within Windows Vista. Internet Explorer 7 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system already have support for AD RMS. The AD RMS client can also be installed on other Windows operating systems.
- Persistent Protection. Your content can be protected on the go. You specify who can open, modify, print, or manage the content, and the rights stay with the content—even after it has been transferred outside of your organization.
- Usage Policy Templates. If you have a common set of rights that you use to control access to information, a Usage Policy Template can be created and applied to content. This alleviates the need to recreate the usage rights settings for every file you want to protect.
- AD RMS Software Development Kit. The AD RMS Software Development Kit (SDK) can be used by independent software vendors (ISVs) to rights-enable their applications, meaning the application investments you’ve already made may be (or will become) compatible with AD RMS.
  
  Active Directory Federation Services
  Active Directory Federation Services is a highly secure, highly extensible, and Internet-scalable identity access solution that allows organizations to authenticate users from partner organizations. Using AD FS in Windows Server 2008, you can simply and very securely grant external users access to your organization’s domain resources. AD FS can also simplify integration between untrusted resources and domain resources within your own organization.
  - Availability As an Integrated Server Role. AD FS is a server role within Windows Server 2008 that can be easily deployed and managed using Server Manager, instead of handled as an added feature, as in Windows Server 2003 R2.
  - Integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. AD FS can be used to facilitate a single sign-on solution for Office SharePoint Server 2007.
  - Integration with Active Directory Rights ManagementServices (AD RMS). AD FS can integrate with AD RMS to support the sharing of rights-protected content between organizations without requiring AD RMS to be deployed in both organizations.
  - Improved Administration. Importing and exporting trust information has been enhanced so that each organization can quickly export or import XML files to facilitate the configuration of trust information.
    
    Active Directory Certificate Services
    Most organizations use certificates to prove the identity of users or computers, as well as to encrypt data during transmission across unsecured network connections. Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) enhances security by binding the identity of a person, device, or service to their own private key. Storing the certificate and private key within Active Directory helps securely protect the identity, and Active Directory becomes the centralized location for retrieving the appropriate information when an application places a request.
    - Enrollment Agent Templates. Delegated enrollment agents can be assigned on a per-template basis.
    - Integrated Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP). Certificates can be issued to network devices, such as routers.
    - Online Responder. Certificate Revocation List (CRL) entries can be returned to the requestor as a single certificate response instead of the entire CRL. This reduces the total amount of network traffic consumed when clients validate certificates.
    - Enterprise PKI (PKI View). A new management tool for AD CS, this tool allows a Certificate Services administrator to manage Certification Authority (CA) hierarchies to determine the overall health of the CAs and to easily troubleshoot errors.
      
      Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
      Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS), formerly known as Active Directory Application Mode, can be used to provide directory services for directory-enabled applications. Instead of using your organization’s AD DS database to store the directory-enabled application data, AD LDS can be used to store the data. AD LDS can be used in conjunction with AD DS so that you can have a central location for security accounts (AD DS) and another location to support the application configuration and directory data (AD LDS). Using AD LDS, you can reduce the overhead associated with Active Directory replication, you do not have to extend the Active Directory schema to support the application, and you can partition the directory structure so that the AD LDS service is only deployed to the servers that need to support the directory-enabled application.
      - Install from Media Generation. The ability to create installation media for AD LDS by using Ntdsutil.exe or Dsdbutil.exe.
      - Auditing. Auditing of changed values within the directory service.
      - Database Mounting Tool. Gives you the ability to view data within snapshots of the database files.
      - Active Directory Sites and Services Support. Gives you the ability to use Active Directory Sites and Services to manage the replication of the AD LDS data changes.
      - Dynamic List of LDIF files. With this feature, you can associate custom LDIF files with the existing default LDIF files used for setup of AD LDS on a server.
      - Recursive Linked-Attribute Queries. LDAP queries can follow nested attribute links to determine additional attribute properties, such as group memberships.
        
        Additional Active Directory Improvements
        The Active Directory Installation Wizard includes several improvements over earlier versions. These improvements make it easier for an administrator to control the installation of domain controllers within the domain. Enhancements include:
        New Forest Functional Level. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new Active Directory forest functional level. Many of the new features in the Active Directory server roles require the Active Directory forest to be configured with this new functional level.
        Enhanced Command Line and Automated Management. Windows PowerShell cmdlets provide the ability to fully manage Active Directory server roles.
        Improved Automated Monitoring and Notification. An updated System Center Manager 2007 Management Pack helps improve the monitoring and management of Active Directory server roles.
        Better Management with Server Manager. Server Manager, the Windows Server 2008 R2 server management tool, allows an administrator to pre-stage domain controllers. When the domain controller role is added from the Server Manager console, the files that are needed to perform the installation of the directory service are copied to the server. When an administrator starts the Installation Wizard, dcpromo.exe, the files are already cached and available.
        Improved Compliance with Established Standards and Best Practices. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes an integrated Best Practices Analyzer for each of the server roles. The Best Practices Analyzer creates a checklist within Server Manager for the role, which you can use to help perform all the configuration tasks.
        Answer File Creation. If several domain controllers use the same settings when they are installed, the Summary page allows you to export the settings from the current installation into an answer file. The password used for your Directory Services Restore Mode administrator account is not exported with the answer file, and you can specify that the user who is installing the domain controller is always prompted for the administrator password. This way, passwords are not accessible to users who have access to the location where the answer files are stored.
        Read-Only Domain Controller Installation The Read-Only Domain Controller role can be installed using the Installation Wizard. When installing a Read-Only Domain Controller, you can define who is allowed to install and manage the domain controller. In the first phase of the installation, a domain administrator can define the account that can install the Read-Only Domain Controller. Once defined, the user that is associated with the Read-Only Domain Controller will have the rights to install the directory service.

Best of Active Directory Stuff

2011-01-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

A Domain is a way to partition a network for security and administrative purposes.

When you create an Active Directory site, the Active Directory automatically assigns the role of bridgehead server to one domain controller. The bridgehead server sends and receives replication data from remote sites.

OUs can also serve as administrative and security boundaries. Different security standards can be placed

on OUs, including different group policies. Administratively, an OU can be delegated so that a certain administrator or group controls it.

With an OU, you can set security for a subset of an existing domain, have different administrators manage, and place different policies on the OU

Sites are not a part of the DNS namespace, but they are maintained for traffic and replication flow purposes.

When you define various sites within the Active Directory Sites and Services tool, you enable the Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC) and other Active Directory services to know that your enterprise contains remote sites. The KCC also knows that those sites are connected by WAN communication links or site links. When you define information about those site links, then the Active Directory can make decisions about how to best use the bandwidth available.

Global catalog servers contain a full replica of Active Directory objects within their domain and a partial replica of Active Directory objects in other domains in the forest.

User principal name (UPN) suffixes are the names of the current domain and the root domain.

A site is physical grouping of computers based on TCP/IP connectivity, and a domain is a logical grouping of users, computers, and other Active Directory objects based on administrative and security needs.

The DNS namespace is used on the Internet while the Active Directory namespace is used for private networks

If your site uses a firewall, your proxy server must be designated as the bridgehead server for the replication traffic to flow through the firewall.

The Active Directory Sizer is a tool that gathers information from you about your network and your computers and the gives you a report that estimates the hardware you will need on your computers to meet the workload demands of your environment.

A primary tool you would want to consider using is the Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT).

While I’m on the subject of connecting and synchronizing with the Active Directory, I should mention that Windows 2000 includes an Active Directory Connector (ADC) for connecting the Exchange Server 5.5 directory with the Active Directory.

FSMO -

Schema Master—the schema master is a domain controller that manages any changes that are made to the Active Directory schema. There is only one schema master in an Active Directory forest.

Domain Naming Master—the domain naming master domain controller manages the addition or removal of domains from the Active Directory forest. There can be only one domain naming master per forest.

Relative ID (RID) Master—the RID master manages the allocation of RIDs to domain controllers in the domain. The RID master manages object security IDs and RIDs for the domain. There is one RID master per domain in the forest.

PDC Emulator—The PDC Emulator role allows a Windows 2000 domain controller to act like a PDC to Windows NT servers and clients. Since NT is not aware of the peer-to-peer relationship, the PDC Emulator role allows the Windows 2000 domain controller to act like a PDC—it emulates the PDC role. This feature allows you to use Windows NT Servers and Windows 2000 Servers in the same domain (called mixed mode).

Infrastructure Master—the Infrastructure master role updates group-to-user references. In other words, the Infrastructure master keeps track of what users belong to what groups and in what domains. There is only one Infrastructure master in each domain in the forest.

Global Catalog—In addition to the standard master operation roles, there are also global catalog servers. Global catalog servers hold a partial replica for all objects in all domains. Global catalog servers are used for network logons by providing universal group membership information to a domain controller when a logon occurs. Global catalogs also assist user object queries.

The file system provides a way for your operating system to store data in a logical, organized manner. Without a file system, your computer would not be able to logically write and read data on a hard disk.

Convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs

Active Directory database and the log files, which is C:\WINNT\NTDS by default

Domain controllers’ SYSVOL folder contains Active Directory information.

Child domains are automatically connected to the root domain through a transitive trust relationship. Transitive trusts are two-way trust relationships and allow all domains in a tree to trust each other automatically. Because the trust is transitive, if Domain 1 trusts Domain 2 and Domain 2 trust Domain 3, then Domain 1 automatically trusts Domain 3 through the transitive nature of the trust.

Active Directory Trust Relationships

In Active Directory, when two domains trust each other or a trust relationship exists between the domains, the users and computers in one domain can access resources residing in the other domain. The trust relationships supported in Windows Server 2003 are summarized below:

Parent/Child trust: A parent/child trust relationship exists between two domains in Active Directory that have a common contiguous DNS namespace, and who belong to the identical forest. This trust relationship is established when a child domain is created in a domain tree.
Tree Root trust: A tree root trust relationship can be configured between root domains in the same forest. The root domains do not have a common DNS namespace. This trust relationship is established when a new tree root domain is added to a forest.
Shortcut trust: This trust relationship can be configured between two domains in different domain trees but within the same forest. Shortcut trust is typically utilized to improve user logon times.
External trust: External trust relationships are created between an Active Directory domain and a Windows NT4 domain.
Realm trust: A realm trust relationship exists between an Active Directory domain and a non-Windows Kerberos realm.
Forest trust: Forest trust can be created between two Active Directory forests.

Do not place the global catalog server role on the same domain controller that holds the Infrastructure master role. The Infrastructure master finds data that is out-of-date and then requests updated data from the global catalog server. As you can see, if both roles reside on the same domain controller, then the Infrastructure master will not be able to function because it will never find any out-of-date data since the global catalog is always up-to-date.

A site can contain several domains, or a single domain can span multiple sites.

Without site links, the Active Directory cannot replicate data between sites

The Active Directory can use RPC/IP (Remote Procedure Calls over Internet Protocol) or SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) to send replication data between sites. SMTP can be used for low-bandwidth links or links that use the Internet.

Within each site, the Active Directory automatically configures a domain controller to be a bridgehead server. The bridgehead server sends and receives replication data from remote sites.

Kerberos is an Internet standard authentication protocol, and it provides much faster service and more powerful security features than NTLM, the authentication protocol in Windows NT, does. Kerberos V5 is the default protocol among Windows computers (Server and Professional) within an Active Directory forest. Second, Windows 2000 supports Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) for backward compatibility. With NTLM, down level clients and servers, such as NT and 9x, can log on to a Windows 2000 Server.

NTLM is available only when a domain is operating in mixed mode—not native mode.

Finally, Windows 2000 also supports Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS), which is a protocol, used to authenticate Web clients to Web servers. Windows 2000 can use SSL/TLS to authenticate users on the Internet on a Windows 2000 Server, and this protocol is used in conjunction with Windows 2000’s certificate services

Best features of Kerberos V5 is the single logon for user accounts (user need only be authenticated one time by a domain controller in order to gain access to network wide resources)

If the user name and password are valid against the now encrypted timestamp, the domain controller makes two Kerberos V5 tickets using the user’s password as an encryption key and then sends the two tickets back to the local computer where the user initiated the logon attempt. The two tickets are the following:

✦ Logon Session Key—this ticket contains the permissions that enable the user to have a logon session in the domain.

✦ Ticket-Granting Ticket—this ticket is used to obtain additional access tickets so the user can access resources on the network.

Comma Separated Value (CSVDE), which you can use to add objects to the Active Directory using a text file that, can be imported to the Active Directory. However, you can only create accounts with CSVDE—not delete or change them. The second utility is Lightweight Directory Access Protocol Interchange Format (LDIFDE), which enables to you to create, delete, and manage bulk import accounts.

Logon Workstations uses the NetBIOS protocol, so when you enter the computer name, use the NetBIOS name and not the full DNS name for the computer.

Active Directory is built on three different security components

1. Security Principals—Security Principals are users, groups, or computers.

2. Security Identifiers (SID)—A SID is a unique number that identifies a user, group, or computer account.

3. Security Descriptor—A Security Descriptor describes the permissions that have been assigned for an object.

A Windows 2000 domain controller, System State Data contains the following:

✦ Registry

✦ COM+ Class Registration database

✦ System boot files

✦ Active Directory Services database

✦ SYSVOL directory

You can back up System State Data only on your local server. You cannot backup System State Data on a remote computer.

The Active Directory is based on the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database and is considered a fault-tolerant, transaction-based database. This feature enables the Active Directory to totally manage and track its own data. There are two basic components of the Active Directory—the database file that contains all of the Active Directory objects and the transaction log files that provide the fault tolerance to the database.

Each domain controller contains the Active Directory database file, which is called Ntds.dit (directory information tree) and is found, by default, in system\NTDS directory.

The database file stores information in three different tables:

✦ Object table—Contains objects and object attributes.

✦ Link table—Contains links or relationship information between the objects and attributes in the Object table.

✦ Schema table—contains the definitions of all the possible objects that can be created in the Active Directory.

Aside from the actual database file and the transaction log files, there are three other files used by the Active Directory:

✦ Checkpoint files—Checkpoint files hold pointers to transactions that have already been written to the database file.

✦ Reserved log files—reserved log files are used as backups in the case of low disk space.

✦ Patch files—Patch files are used to manage data during an online backup.

The current transaction log file is named Edb.log and is stored in the same directory as the database file. The Edb.log file has a fixed size of about 10MB. When the Edb.log file fills to its capacity, a new log file is created and the old log file is renamed edbxxxxxx.log where xxxxxx is a hexadecimal character to indicate it is an old log file. Once all of the transactions in the old log file have been performed, the old transaction log is deleted.

Circular logging does not create new transaction log files, but rather overwrites the old one when it fills. In essence, it uses the same log file over and over by overwriting unneeded information. Circular logging enables the Active Directory to maintain fewer transaction logs, but for the best data recoverability, you should not use circular logging.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTDS\Paramters\CircularLogging

Enter a 1 to enable circular logging (0 to disable it).

The automatic cleanup process, called Garbage Collection, occurs every twelve hours. During Garbage Collection, old transaction logs are deleted, and unneeded objects are deleted from the Active Directory. The deletion of objects occurs by a process called tombstoning. Suppose you delete a printer object from the Active Directory. During Garbage Collection, the printer object is tagged with a tombstone, which is not visible to clients. Once an object is tombstoned, it appears as though it has been deleted, when in reality the tombstone is kept for a default period of 60 days, called the Tombstone Lifetime.

The length of time tombstoned objects remain in the directory service before being deleted is either 60 days for Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory, or 180 days for Windows Server 2003 SP1 Active Directory (by default).

A Ghost objects, also called phantom objects. Ghost objects are actually errors that occur within the database and occur when an object has been deleted, but some kind of error has prevented the object from actually being removed. You end up with a ghost object that appears in the directory although the object is not actually available.

Update Sequence Numbers (USNs). The Active Directory uses USNs, which are 64-bit numbers, in order to keep track of changes that occur to objects in the Active Directory. When an object is changed, its USN is updated so that all other domain controllers have an outdated USN for that object.

Intrasite replication is replication that occurs within an Active Directory site.

Intersite replication is replication that occurs between different Active Directory sites.

Replication partitions

Schema partition - contains objects and object attributes

Configuration partition - contains the physical structure of the Active

Directory, such as where sites are located, what domains are contained in what sites, and so forth.

Domain partition - replicates information about Active Directory objects to all domain controllers within the domain.

Active Directory replication uses a process called store and forward. This simply means that replication changes are not directly sent to every domain controller. Instead, changes made on one domain controller are replicated to that domain controller’s replication partners, who then send the replicated data to their replication partners, and so forth until the replicated data reaches all domain controllers. Fortunately for us, the Active Directory internally determines which domain controllers will be partners. This is accomplished through an automatic replication topology generation through the Windows 2000 Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC) service. The KCC is built in to every Windows 2000 domain controller and runs every 15 minutes by default.

In a site, a complete replication cycle should take 15 minutes or less.

Intrasite replication uses Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) over Internet Protocol (IP). The RPC/IP communication within a site is considered synchronous. In other words, after a domain controller sends a request for Active Directory data replication to the originating domain controller, it waits for a reply before requesting data from any other originating domain controller.

Intersite replication supports synchronous RPC/IP (compressed). However, Intersite replication also supports Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) for directory replication. The major difference between using RPC/IP and SMTP is that RPC/IP is synchronous while SMTP is asynchronous, which simply means that a domain controller does not wait for a reply from an originating domain controller before making a replication request to another domain controller. SMTP is used for replication between the schema and configuration partitions (as well as the global catalog), but not for the domain partition.

Use SMTP when you have unreliable site links.

The Active Directory uses Pull Replication. This means that database changes are pulled from a source domain controller where the changes are made to direct replication partners.

The Active Directory avoids collisions first by attribute replication. For example, if one administrator changes the name of a user account while another changes the password, a collision does not occur because replication changes occur on an attribute level, not the entire object level.

Because of the loop, one domain controller could be sent the same replication traffic more than once. The Active Directory prevents this potential problem through a process called Propagation Dampening. Propagation dampening enables domain controllers to detect when replication traffic has already reached a domain controller. If the replication traffic has reached the domain controller, then the sending domain controller kills the replication traffic so that it is not sent twice to the receiving domain controllers.

The Up-to-date vector is a value that a domain controller maintains in order to track all originating updates that have been received. When a domain controller requests a pull change from another domain controller, it sends its Up-to-date vector.

The High Watermark vector is maintained on a domain controller to determine the latest change for a specific object that was received from the source domain controller. Like the Up-to-date vector, the domain controller sends its High Watermark vector to the source domain controller for examination. The High Watermark vector prevents the same object changes from being sent twice.

The major difference between the Up-to-date and High Watermark vectors is that the High Watermark vector maintains values for domain controllers from which it requests changes, while the Up-to-date vector is maintained for every domain controller that has ever issued an originating update.

Schema determines what objects can be stored in the database, how they are stored, and how they are defined.

Metadata, which means “data about data.” The metadata determines what an object is and how it is defined. In other words, the metadata knows that user accounts may have qualities of user name, password, physical address, phone number, and so forth—not qualities such as one-sided, staple, color, and sort.

Every object has attributes, and every object belongs to a class as well. Classes are also a part of the metadata that also help define objects.

Each object belongs to at least one class, and each class belongs to a specific category of classes, which are as follows:

✦ Structural—All directory objects belong to classes that are structural. This means that structural classes can have instances in the class, such as in the User class.

✦ Abstract—An abstract class is a template that is used to create new structural classes. Objects do not belong to abstract classes, but abstract classes do contain attributes they provide to other classes.

✦ Auxiliary—Auxiliary classes contain lists of attributes and help define structural and abstract classes.

There is also a special 88 class category that is used for backward compatibility for classes that do not fall under one of these three specifications. 88 classes were defined before the 1993 X.500 standards.

There is only one schema per Active Directory forest, so when you modify the schema, you modify it for your entire enterprise.

Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI) Editor is an Active Directory editor that enables you to add, move, and delete objects as well as view and manage attributes for objects. ADSI is also used to query the Active Directory and define query scopes.

IntelliMirror – Active Directory, Group Policy, Offline Files, Synchronization Manager, Disk Quotas, Roaming User Profiles, Windows Installer, Remote Installation Services.

Service Location Records (SRV) are DNS resource records that map Windows 2000 servers that run the DNS service. Each server maintains a list of SRV records for the domain or zone in which the server resides. SRV records are used to find domain controllers

Zone is a contiguous portion of the DNS namespace that is segmented for management purposes. Within that zone, there is a primary DNS server that holds the primary zone database file. All other servers are provided for load balancing and contain a copy of the primary zone database file called the secondary zone database file. The primary zone database file is the only writable version, so all updates are made to the primary zone database file and replicated to the secondary zone database files through a process called zone transfer.

An authoritative restore enables you to restore an Active Directory backup and to prevent the restored changes from being overwritten due to domain controller replication. In fact, an authoritative restore marks the restore job as authoritative and its data is replicated to other domain controllers, overwriting their existing data.

Use the NTDSUTIL command-line utility to perform an authoritative restore.

Synchronization Manager works with offline files to ensure that a cached copy of a file is synchronized with the server’s copy when the user reconnects to the network.

To test whether a domain controller is also a global catalog server:

Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Sites and Services.
Double-click Sites in the left pane, and then locate the appropriate site or click Default-first-site-name if no other sites are available.
Open the Servers folder, and then click the domain controller.
In the domain controller's folder, double-click NTDS Settings.
On the Action menu, click Properties.
On the General tab, view the Global Catalog check box to see if it is selected.

Port Numbers

2011-01-27T07:02:00.001-08:00

25 SMTP
53 DNS
80 HTTP
88 Kerberos
102 X.400
110 POP3
3389 RDP
119 NNTP
135 RPC
137 – NetBIOS Session Service
139 – NetBIOS Name Service
143 IMAP4
379 LDAP (SRS)
389 LDAP
21 ftp
443 HTTP (SSL)
445 – NetBIOS over TCP
465 SMTP (SSL)
563 NNTP (SSL)
636 LDAP (SSL)
691 LSA
993 IMAP4 (SSL)
994 IRC (SSL)
995 POP3 (SSL)
1503 T.120
1720 H.323
1731 Audio conferencing
1863 – MSN IM
3268 GC
3269 GC (SSL)
6001 Rpc/HTTP Exchange Store
6002 HTTP Exchange Directory Referral service
6004 Rpc/HTTP NSPI Exchange Directory Proxy service/Global Catalog
6667 IRC/IRCX
6891 – 6900 – MSN IM File transfer
6901 – MSN IM Voice
7801 – 7825 – MSN IM Voice

Implementing DFS Namespaces

2011-01-27T00:24:00.000-08:00

DFS (Distributed File System) was first introduced in Windows 2000 as a way of managing shared disk resources across a network and making it easier for users to find and access these resources. Unfortunately DFS in Windows 2000 was somewhat limited in its capabilities, especially in regard to providing high availability in distributed multi-site environments but also in efficiently replicating shared resources over slow WAN links. These limitations made DFS in Windows 2000 something of a pain to work with, and Windows Server 2003 offered little in terms of improvements.

With the release of Windows Server 2003 R2 however, a fresh release based on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, DFS has been significantly enhanced in several ways. In this article and several following on WindowsNetworking.com, I’ll describe these enhancements and show how to implement them in various enterprise scenarios.

Installing DFS

What used to be DFS in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 is now two separate components in Windows Server 2003 R2:

DFS Namespaces - This component allows you to create a namespace, which is a virtual free of shared folders located on different servers.

DFS Replication - This component allows you to replicate the contents of shared folders using a new replication engine that replaces the File Replication Service (FRS) used by DFS in Windows 2000. Note that FRS is still used for replicating SYSVOL on domain controllers however.

The simplest way of installing these new DFS components is to use the Manage Your Server Wizard to add or upgrade the File Server role. Doing this installs the new DFS Management console and provides you the option of installing DFS Replication also if desired (Figure 1):

Figure 1: Installing DFS using the Manage Your Server Wizard

If you only want to implement DFS Namespaces, you don’t need to install the additional DFS Replication component (I’ll cover DFS Replication in a future article on WindowsNetworking.com). In addition, if you want to take advantage of all the R2 enhancements to DFS Namespaces, you should ensure that:

All servers that host namespaces are running Windows Server 2003 R2 (or at least SP1).

All domain controllers are running SP1 or later.

All servers from which you plan on performing DFS namespace management tasks are running SP1 or later.

In addition, all desktop computers that will be accessing your namespaces should be running Windows XP SP2 or later.

Creating a Namespace

Let’s use the new DFS Management console to create a new namespace. Our new namespace will be domain-based, that is, rooted at the domain (standalone namespaces are also supported and will be discussed later). Here’s the scenario we’re going to use for our example:

The Accounting department uses two file servers, BOX 162 and 163.

BOX162 hosts the following shares: Payables and Receivables.

BOX 163 hosts the following shares: Invoices, Inventory, and Reports.

The department wants to use DFS Namespaces to consolidate these resources into a single virtual folder tree that looks something like this:

Accounting
            Ledger
                        Accounts Payable (maps to Payables share)
                        Accounts Receivable (maps to Receivables share)
            Catalog
                        Inventory (maps to Inventory share)
            Billing
Invoices (maps to Invoices share)
            Report Database (maps to Reports share)

For purposes of this example, we’ll create our namespace on BOX162 on which we’ve installed the DFS Management console using the procedure outlined in the previous section. Start by opening the DFS Management console on this server and select the Namespaces node in the console tree (Figure 2):

Figure 2: Namespaces node in DFS Management console

Note that there are no namespaces until we choose to create one. To create a namespace, click New Namespace in the Action pane or right-click the Namespaces node and select New Namespace. The New Namespace Wizard starts and asks you to specify the server that will host your new namespace. Since we’ve installed DFS Namespaces on BOX162 we’ll use this server to host our namespace (Figure 3):

Figure 3: BOX612 will host the new namespace

Click Next to proceed with the wizard. If the DFS service is not running on BOX612, you’ll now be prompted to start it. Next you’ll specify a name for your namespace, and considering the requirements of the Accounting department previously, we’ll name our new namespace “Accounting” (Figure 4):

Figure 4: The new namespace will have the name Accounting

Note that we didn’t previously create an Accounting share on this server, so the wizard will create this for us. Click Next and select domain-based namespace as the type of namespace we want to create (Figure 5):

Figure 5: Selecting domain-based namespace

A quick aside here concerning namespace types:

Domain-based namespaces - These namespaces are stored on both your namespace servers and within Active Directory. Storing namespaces in Active Directory makes them easier to search for in a domain-based networking environment, but the size of domain-spaced namespaces is limited to around 5000 folders. Also, a domain-based namespace can be hosted on more than one namespace server to provide fault tolerance.

Standalone namespaces - These namespaces are stored only on name servers and not within Active Directory. The advantage of this approach is that you can host ten times more folders (up to 50,000 folders) in your namespace, but to make your namespace fault-tolerant you have to use clustering since a standalone namespace can only be hosted on a single server.

Clicking Next and then Create will create a new namespace named Accounting in the R2.local domain of our sample forest. This namespace will be rooted in a shared folder named C:\DFSRoots\Accounting on BOX162, and this root folder will also be created by the wizard shared with Everyone being given Read permission. Figure 6 shows the new namespace, which as yet has no folders in it:

Figure 6: The new Accounting namespace in the R2.local domain

Adding Folders to the Namespace

Now let’s add our folders to the namespace. There are two kinds of folders we need to add:

Folders with targets - These are virtual (DFS) folders that map to real (physical) shared folders. For example, the folder Accounts Payable folder needs to have the Payables share on BOX162 as its target, the Report Database folder needs to have the Reports share on BOX163 as its target, and so on.

Folders - These are virtual folders that don’t map to any real shared folders on the network but are simply used to organize how shared resources are presented to users by the namespace. For example, the Ledger folder needs to be created to contain the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable folders, which are both folders with targets located on BOX612.

To create a new folder in our Accounts namespace, select the namespace in the console tree and click New Folder in the Action pane or right-click the namespace and select New Folder. This opens the New Folder properties sheet, which lets you specify a name for your new folder and optionally a target. For example, to create the Ledger folder which has no target, enter the information shown in Figure 7:

Figure 7: Creating a folder with no target

Then select the Ledger folder in the console tree, click New Folder again, and create the Accounts Payable folder as shown in Figure 8:

Figure 8: Creating a new folder with a target

Continue creating folders, with and without targets, until the desired namespace is complete (Figure 9):

Figure 9: Finished namespace for the Accounting department

Testing the Namespace

To try accessing resources in our new namespace, we’ll log on as ordinary user Bob Smith to a desktop computer running Windows XP. Then, once logged on, we’ll click Start, then Run, type \\R2.local\Accounting (which is the root of our namespace) and click OK. This opens a window that displays four folders (Billing, Catalog, Ledger and Report Database) as if they are shared folders on a single server (Figure 10). By clicking into each of these folders we can access further folders and the documents stored within their target folders.

Figure 10: Viewing the namespace and its contents

Configuring and Using DFS Replication

2011-01-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

Configuring DFS Replication

In the previous article we used DFS Replication to provide fault-tolerance for \\r2.local\Accounting\Billing\Invoices, a folder within the \\r2.local\Accounting namespace in the r2.local domain. This folder originally had only one folder target, the shared folder \\BOX163\Invoices, and to make this folder redundant we had to do two things:

Add a second folder target, namely the shared folder \\BOX162\Invoices, so that if the first folder target was unavailable, client machines could obtain a referral from the namespace server so they could connect to the second target instead.

Replicate the contents of the first folder target (\\BOX163\Invoices) to the second folder target (\\BOX162\Invoices) and keep the contents of these two shared folders in sync so that if one of them becomes unavailable, clients can still access the files stored in this namespace folder.

Using the Replicate Folder Wizard, we saw how easy this task is to perform. Let's spend a moment looking more closely at the results of the previous walkthrough and the configuration options that are available to us. The first figure shows the two folder targets created for the \\r2.local\Accounting\Billing\Invoices of our namespace:

Figure 1: The invoices folder with its two folder targets

Clicking the Add Folder Target link in the Actions pane at the right (or right-clicking on the Invoices folder in the console tree and selecting Add Folder Target) lets us easily add additional folder targets for this folder if greater redundancy is needed. Let's switch to the Replication tab in the middle pane and see what options are available:

Figure 2: Replication status of Invoices folder

Here we see the two folder targets that replicate with each other to provide fault-tolerance for the Invoices folder. Right-clicking on either of these folder targets and selecting Properties will bring up read-only properties for these targets. Clicking the Stop Replicating link in the Action pane will stop replication between these folder targets and delete the replication group that the Replicate Folder Wizard created earlier for these targets. To further configure replication settings, we first need to select the previously created replication group in the console tree, which can be found under the Replication node as shown here:

Figure 3: Configuring the replication group created previously

The Memberships tab lets us add additional members to this replication group. A member is a server that participates in replication of folders, so for example if we want to create a third folder target for Invoices and point this folder target to a share on a server named BOX164, we first need to make BOX164 a member of the replication group for Invoices and then add the folder target to the share on that box. DFS Replication makes this easy—click the New Member to start a wizard that guides you through the process of adding a new server to the replication group.

Alternatively, let's say you want to make another folder in the namespace redundant. For example, the folder \\r2.local\Accounting\Catalog\Inventory currently has a single folder target, namely \\BOX163\Inventory. If you wanted to add a second folder target for this folder, say \\BOX162\Stuff, simply click the New Replicated Folder link in the Action pane to start a wizard that guides you through the process. Once this is done, the new replicated folder will be displayed on the Replicated Folders tab.

The Connections tab displays the two one-way connections created by DFS Replication between \\BOX163\Invoices and \\BOX162\Invoices, the two folder targets for the Invoices folder:

Figure 4: The two one-way connections for the replication group

We'll see the advantage of having one-way connections in a moment. But first, recall that when we ran the Replicate Folder Wizard we chose to have files replicated continuously between the two targets for Invoices. What if we want to change this and schedule when replication occurs instead? This might be useful for example if the two members of the replication group are in different sites connected by a WAN link that is so highly utilized during the day that you would prefer to have replication occur only at night. You can configure your replication schedule in two ways. First, you can define a schedule for the entire replication group and all folders that it replicates by right-clicking the replication group under Replication in the console tree at the left and selecting Properties:

Figure 5: The properties sheet for the replication group

Then click the Edit Schedule button and edit the schedule for the replication group as desired.

Figure 6: Editing the schedule for a replication group

Note that these schedules operate according to the schedule of the receiving member of a replication action over a replication connection i.e. DFS Replication is a pull process not a push process. You can also limit how much absolute bandwidth is used by the replication process, but be aware that this is only an average bandwidth and peak bandwidth may exceed this value occasionally. The second way of scheduling replication is to configure it on a per-connection basis, which can be done by opening the properties sheet of the appropriate connection instead. There are other DFS Replication settings we could look at, but let's move on now and talk about two enterprise scenarios where DFS Replication can be especially useful, namely branch office backups and publishing content.

Using DFS Replication for Branch Office Backups

When we walked through the Replicate Folder Wizard in the previous article, we saw that two pre-defined topologies could be selected:

Full Mesh. Every member of the replication group replicates with every other member of the group.

Hub and Spoke. Every hub member replicates with the hub member, and if desired you can add a second hub member for fault tolerance (the two hub members replicate with each other).

The full mesh topology is useful mainly in large LAN environments where all subnets have high speed connectivity and you are using DFS Namespaces together with DFS Replication to provide fault-tolerant shared file resources to users. Note that Microsoft recommends that replication groups with full mesh topologies have no more than 10 members in them.

The hub and spoke topology is more interesting and can have a particular use for enterprises that have large headquarters where the company's permanent IT staff are located and multiple small branch offices with little or no on-site IT staff present. For such branch offices, one big concern is ensuring that reliable backups are done. Performing backups however costs money (tape drives and tapes) and effort (rotation and archiving of tapes) at such branch offices, and using DFS Replication you can workaround this as follows:

Create a replication group that has the hub member at headquarters and an additional spoke member at each branch office.
Create a folder target on the hub member for each branch office member, where the branch office folder target points to the shared file resources that need to be backed up at that branch office.
Configure DFS Replication to replicate between the hub and each branch office at 1 a.m. each night.
Finally, disable the connections that go from the hub to each branch office so that replication occurs only from the branch offices to the hub and not vice versa.

Now all you have to do is configure your tape backup system at headquarters to back up the folder targets on the hub each night at 3 a.m. and you've automatically got each branch office's file resources backed up at headquarters without cost or effort to the branch offices themselves.

UsingFS Replication to Publish Content

The hub and spoke topology can also be useful for publishing content from headquarters to branch offices in enterprise environments similar to the one described above. Just create a replication group with two hub members at headquarters (the second hub member is used to ensure fault-tolerance in case the first one fails) and with one spoke member at each branch office. DFS Replication will then automatically take files created at headquarters and replicate them out to branch offices. This is a great way of disseminating information throughout an enterprise, and again you can disable inbound connections to the hubs if you only need to publish content to the branches and not the other way.

Ref Windowsnetworking.com

Windows 2003 DFS (Distributed File System)

2011-01-27T00:10:00.000-08:00

Introduction

The Distributed File System is used to build a hierarchical view of multiple file servers and shares on the network. Instead of having to think of a specific machine name for each set of files, the user will only have to remember one name; which will be the 'key' to a list of shares found on multiple servers on the network. Think of it as the home of all file shares with links that point to one or more servers that actually host those shares. DFS has the capability of routing a client to the closest available file server by using Active Directory site metrics. It can also be installed on a cluster for even better performance and reliability. Medium to large sized organizations are most likely to benefit from the use of DFS - for smaller companies it is simply not worth setting up since an ordinary file server would be just fine.

Understanding the DFS Terminology
It is important to understand the new concepts that are part of DFS. Below is an definition of each of them.

Dfs root: You can think of this as a share that is visible on the network, and in this share you can have additional files and folders.

Dfs link: A link is another share somewhere on the network that goes under the root. When a user opens this link they will be redirected to a shared folder.

Dfs target (or replica): This can be referred to as either a root or a link. If you have two identical shares, normally stored on different servers, you can group them together as Dfs Targets under the same link.

The image below shows the actual folder structure of what the user sees when using DFS and load balancing.

Figure 1: The actual folder structure of DFS and load balancing

Windows 2003 offers a revamped version of the Distributed File System found in Windows 2000, which has been improved to better performance and add additional fault tolerance, load balancing and reduced use of network bandwidth. It also comes with a powerful set of command-line scripting tools which can be used to make administrative backup and restoration tasks of the DFS namespaces easier. The client windows operating system consists of a DFS client which provides additional features as well as caching.

Setting Up and Configuring DFS

The Distributed File System console is installed by default with Windows 2003 and can be found in the administrative tools folder. To open, press Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Distributed File System or in the Control Panel, open the Administrative Tools folder and click on the Distributed File System icon. This will open the management console where all the configuration takes place.

The first thing you need to do is create a root. To do this, right click the node and select New Root.
Press next on the first window to be brought to the screen where you will have to make the choice of creating either a stand alone or domain root. A domain root will publish itself in Active Directory and supports replication, whereas a stand alone root does not. If you have an AD Domain Controller set up on your machine, I recommend choosing the domain root.

Note: The root would be the top level of the hierarchy. It is the main Active Directory container that holds Dfs links to shared folders in a domain. Windows 2003 allows your server to have more than one root - which wasn't the case in Windows 2000.

The next screen is the one where you have to select which trusted domains will be hosted. Since I only have one domain in my network, only domain.com is visible.

Once this is done you have to select a server on that domain - in my example it is netserv. The FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) of this host server is netserv.domain.com.

Figure 2: inputting the host server name

The following screen allows you to specify the root name of your primary DFS root. You should give it something which will accurately define the contents of that share.
In my example I have called this root "Company" - which would be a real name of an ogranization. You can change this to anything you want. You might wish to have a root called "Documents" - which would clearly state that one can expect to find anything related or specific to documents, and documentation in that root.

Figure 3: entering the dfs root name

You will now have to select the location of a folder in which all the files will be stored.

Figure 4: selecting the root share

Tip: for added security, when selecting a folder, try to choose one that is located on a partition other than that of the operating system.

Your DFS root is now configured and visible in the configuration console. Right click the root target and press Status to check if it is online or not.
A green check mark verifies that everything is working properly and that the node is online, whereas a red X means that there is a problem.

To add a new link, right click the root for which you want the link to be created, and select New Link.
In the "New Link" screen, enter a name and path for the link and click OK. Repeat this for as many links as you need to create.

Figure 5: creating a new link

Links are visible right under the node. Below is a screenshot displaying the three links I have created for the COMPANY root.

Figure 6: dfs root and three links in the DFS mmc console

Publishing the root in Active Directory
By publishing dfs roots in AD as volume objects, network users will be able to search for shares more easily and administration can be delegated.

To do this right click the desired dfs root, select Properties and go to the Publish tab. Enter the appropriate details in each box and press OK.
In the keywords section you can specify certain words that will help locate the dfs root when it is being searched for.

Figure 7: publish tab in the dfs properties window

The dfs root will now be published in Active Directory.

File Replication Services

There are two types of replication:

* Automatic - which is only available for Domain DFS
* Manual - which is available for stand alone DFS and requires all files to be replicated manually.

The four ways in which replication can be achieved between two or more servers are:

- Ring
- Hub and Spoke
- Mesh
- Custom

The first three refer to network topologies and the last allows you to specify an advanced method of replication, which can be tuned to your needs.

The advantages and disadvantages of replication are as follows:

Advantages - client caching, integration with IIS, easy to administer and setup.

Disadvantages - limited configuration options, there is no method of programmatically initiating a replication session.

Ref. windowsnetworking.com

How to Write a Letter Requesting Sponsorship

2009-12-23T06:02:00.000-08:00

Write the letter in proper format. Start with the title of the person you are addressing, the address, and date.

Begin with a description of the company (if it's a corporate letter) or state who you are (if it's for personal sponsorship) For example, So and So firm is a nonprofit organization committed to rehabilitation... whatever.

State the event and the purpose in lucid terms. "We are holding a ---- event on ----- for raising money/making a video/whatever the reason."

Request sponsorship by saying "We would be grateful if you helped in sponsoring our event...". Try to give a plan, for example do you want a banner? An announcement? If it's a banner or the sort you could quote sizes and prices. This makes it easier for companies to select a sponsorship plan instead of trying to figure out what exactly you want and how much.

Give details. For example, how many people are attending? Who will be the Chief Guest/guests, whether your event will be aired, what publicity you will get, etc.

Leave a feedback note. Please get back to me at (insert telephone number, address, etc.).

Sign off with your name and (if applicable) official position.

Failure to install Sql Server 2008 "access is denied"

2009-12-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

While installing SQL Server 2008 RC0 it give error message as "Access is denied".
Final Solution is -
This failure often is caused by a system or domain policy removing the SeDebugPrivelege security privilege from the administrator account running setup. Verify that the account running has this privilege.

The AccessChk tool will print all privleges for an account (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb664922.aspx) by running:
accesschk.exe -a \ *
Alternatively, we can check this through your group policy editor as mentioned below:
Open Group Policy...
Start
Run
Type: gpedit.msc
OK
Navigate to
Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment\Debug programs
The account through which we are trying to run the setup should be here ( besides the local admin on that machine). I included that here, restarted the server ( this is mandatory, gpupdate /force will not work) and ran the setup and it was successful this time.
SQL Server 2008 setup needs this privilege to start up the SQL Server process and listen to an event that signals back to setup that SQL Server successfully started.

Right-Click, Registry Access Denied (Final Solution)

2009-12-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

I had an odd issue with my Windows Vista. Every time I do right-click on a file or folder, an error message would pop-up saying “Registry Access Denied“, after acknowledging the message, the context menu would appear and function normally.

I did numerous searches, examined permissions, removed/added the user from groups, nothing worked. Then it hit me, it was the context menu that was having an issue, perhaps I should take a look at all the items that are listed in the registry to see how they matched the right-click menu after it appeared.

Doing yet another search, Online Tech Tips had info on editing the right-click menu. Following the registry path mentioned: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\ I was able to see that there was an entry for a zip program that wasn’t appearing on the context menu. After backing up the registry, I removed that entry and viola, no more error. Simpler than I thought…

zipx was exactly my problem! I uninstalled this and now I don’t get that annoying message anymore.

Veer

2009-12-18T13:32:00.001-08:00

Taali
Surili Akhiyon Wale
Salaam Aaya
Meherbaniyan
Kanha (Thumri)
Taali (Solo)
Surili Akhiyon Wale (Duet)
Spirit Of Veer (Instrumental)

Veer - 128Kbps [Waseem Khan]
Veer - 320Kbps [Waseem Khan]

Note - Open in IE6 or above or right click and "Save as Target"

Chance Pe Dance

2009-12-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

Pe Pe Pepein
Pump It Up
Pal Mein Hi
One More Dance
Yaba Daba Yahoo
Rishta Hai Mera
Just Do It
Pump It Up - Remix
Pe Pe Pepein (Duet)

Chance Pe Dance - 320Kbps - Full Songs [Ask 2 Waseem]
Chance Pe Dance - 128Kbps - Full Songs [Ask 2 Waseem]

Pyaar Impossible

2009-12-16T23:38:00.000-08:00

Alisha
Pyaar Impossible
You And Me
10 On 10
Ek Thi Ladki
Alisha - Remix
Pyaar Impossible - Remix

Pyaar Impossible - 320Kbps - Full Download [Ask 2 Waseem]

Dulha Mil Gaya

2009-12-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Akela Dil

Aaja Aaja Mera Ranjhna

Magar Meri Jaan

Tu Jo Jaan Le

Rang Diya Dil
Dulha Mil Gaya
Dilrubaon Ke Jalwe
Shiri Farhad Tu Meri Shiri
Dilrubaon Ke Jalwe - Remix
Dulha Mil Gaya - Remix
Dil Akela Dil On Line - Remix
Dulha Mil Gaya - 128Kbps(Full Download) (Waseem Khan)

Yahoo! Messenger 10.0.0.542 Beta

2009-12-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! Messenger 10.0.0.542 Beta

3GP Player

2009-12-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

3GP Player Download

Kurbaan

2009-12-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

Shukran Allah

Dua

Ali Maula

Rasiya
Kurbaan Hua
Ali Maula - Remix

Full Movie Songs Download

3 Idiots - Download Songs

2009-12-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

Aal Izz Well - DOWNLOAD

Zoobi Doobi- DOWNLOAD

Behti Hawa Sa Tha Woh- DOWNLOAD

Give Me Som Sunshine- DOWNLOAD

Jaane Nahin Denge- DOWNLOAD

Zoobi Doobi - Remix- DOWNLOAD

Aal Izz Well - Remix- DOWNLOAD

Rocket Singh (2009) - Download Songs

2009-12-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

Pocket Mein Rocket (Benny Dayal) - Rocket Singh

Gadbadi Hadbadi (Vishal Dadlani) - Rocket Singh

Pankhon Ko (Salim Merchant) - Rocket Singh

Windows Server Support Interview Questions and Answers (L2)

2009-12-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

What is the difference between Authorized DHCP and Non Authorized DHCP?
To avoid problems in the network causing by mis-configured DHCP servers, server in windows 2000 must be validate by AD before starting service to clients. If an authorized DHCP finds any DHCP server in the network it stop serving the clients

Difference between inter-site and intra-site replication. Protocols using for replication.
Intra-site replication can be done between the domain controllers in the same site. Inter-site replication can be done between two different sites over WAN links
BHS (Bridge Head Servers) is responsible for initiating replication between the sites. Inter-site replication can be done B/w BHS in one site and BHS in another site.
We can use RPC over IP or SMTP as a replication protocols where as Domain partition is not possible to replicate using SMTP

How to monitor replication
We can user Replmon tool from support tools

Brief explanation of RAID Levels
Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 offer two types of disk storage: basic and dynamic.

Basic Disk Storage
Basic storage uses normal partition tables supported by MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. A disk initialized for basic storage is called a basic disk. A basic disk contains basic volumes, such as primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives. Additionally, basic volumes include multidisk volumes that are created by using Windows NT 4.0 or earlier, such as volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, and stripe sets with parity. Windows XP does not support these multidisk basic volumes. Any volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, or stripe sets with parity must be backed up and deleted or converted to dynamic disks before you install Windows XP Professional.

Dynamic Disk Storage
Dynamic storage is supported in Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. A disk initialized for dynamic storage is called a dynamic disk. A dynamic disk contains dynamic volumes, such as simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. With dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without the need to restart Windows.

Note: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers.
You cannot create mirrored volumes or RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-based computers. However, you can use a Windows XP Professional-based computer to create a mirrored or RAID-5 volume on remote computers that are running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, or the Standard, Enterprise and Data Center versions of Windows Server 2003.

Storage types are separate from the file system type. A basic or dynamic disk can contain any combination of FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS partitions or volumes.

A disk system can contain any combination of storage types. However, all volumes on the same disk must use the same storage type.

To convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk:

Use the Disk Management snap-in in Windows XP/2000/2003 to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
3. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. You can also right-click My Computer and choose Manage if you have My Computer displayed on your desktop.
4. In the left pane, click Disk Management.
5. In the lower-right pane, right-click the basic disk that you want to convert, and then click Convert to Dynamic Disk. You must right-click the gray area that contains the disk title on the left side of the Details pane.
6. Select the check box that is next to the disk that you want to convert (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.
7. Click Details if you want to view the list of volumes in the disk. Click Convert.
8. Click Yes when you are prompted to convert the disk, and then click OK.

Warning: After you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, local access to the dynamic disk is limited to Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Additionally, after you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, the dynamic volumes cannot be changed back to partitions. You must first delete all dynamic volumes on the disk and then convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk. If you want to keep your data, you must first back up the data or move it to another volume.

Dynamic Storage Terms
A volume is a storage unit made from free space on one or more disks. It can be formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter. Volumes on dynamic disks can have any of the following layouts: simple, spanned, mirrored, striped, or RAID-5.
A simple volume uses free space from a single disk. It can be a single region on a disk or consist of multiple, concatenated regions. A simple volume can be extended within the same disk or onto additional disks. If a simple volume is extended across multiple disks, it becomes a spanned volume.
A spanned volume is created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks. You can extend a spanned volume onto a maximum of 32 disks. A spanned volume cannot be mirrored and is not fault-tolerant.
A striped volume is a volume whose data is interleaved across two or more physical disks. The data on this type of volume is allocated alternately and evenly to each of the physical disks. A striped volume cannot be mirrored or extended and is not fault-tolerant. Striping is also known as RAID-0.
A mirrored volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is duplicated on two physical disks. All of the data on one volume is copied to another disk to provide data redundancy. If one of the disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disk. A mirrored volume cannot be extended. Mirroring is also known as RAID-1.
A RAID-5 volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is striped across an array of three or more disks. Parity (a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data after a failure) is also striped across the disk array. If a physical disk fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that failed disk can be re-created from the remaining data and the parity. A RAID-5 volume cannot be mirrored or extended.
The system volume contains the hardware-specific files that are needed to load Windows (for example, Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com). The system volume can be, but does not have to be, the same as the boot volume.
The boot volume contains the Windows operating system files that are located in the %Systemroot% and %Systemroot%\System32 folders. The boot volume can be, but does not have to be, the same as the system volume.

RAID 0 – Striping

RAID 1- Mirroring (minimum 2 HDD required)

RAID 5 – Striping With Parity (Minimum 3 HDD required)

RAID levels 1 and 5 only gives redundancy

What are the different backup strategies are available

Normal Backup
Incremental Backup
Differential Backup
Daily Backup
Copy Backup

What is a global catalog
Global catalog is a role, which maintains Indexes about objects. It contains full information of the objects in its own domain and partial information of the objects in other domains. Universal Group membership information will be stored in global catalog servers and replicate to all GC’s in the forest.

What is Active Directory and what is the use of it
Active directory is a directory service, which maintains the relation ship between resources and enabling them to work together. Because of AD hierarchal structure windows 2000 is more scalable, reliable. Active directory is derived from X.500 standards where information is stored is hierarchal tree like structure. Active directory depends on two Internet standards one is DNS and other is LDAP. Information in Active directory can be queried by using LDAP protocol

What is the physical and logical structure of AD?
Active directory physical structure is a hierarchal structure which fallows Forests—Trees—Domains—Child Domains—Grand Child—etc

Active directory is logically divided into 3 partitions

1.Configuration partition 2. Schema Partition 3. Domain partition 4. Application Partition (only in windows 2003 not available in windows 2000)

Out of these Configuration, Schema partitions can be replicated between the domain controllers in the in the entire forest. Where as Domain partition can be replicated between the domain controllers in the same domain

What is the process of user authentication (Kerberos V5) in windows 2000?
After giving logon credentials an encryption key will be generated which is used to encrypt the time stamp of the client machine. User name and encrypted timestamp information will be provided to domain controller for authentication. Then Domain controller based on the password information stored in AD for that user it decrypts the encrypted time stamp information. If produces time stamp matches to its time stamp. It will provide logon session key and Ticket granting ticket to client in an encryption format. Again client decrypts and if produced time stamp information is matching then it will use logon session key to logon to the domain. Ticket granting ticket will be used to generate service granting ticket when accessing network resources

What are the port numbers for Kerberos, LDAP and Global Catalog?

Kerberos – 88, LDAP – 389, Global Catalog – 3268

What is the use of LDAP (X.500 standard?)

LDAP is a directory access protocol, which is used to exchange directory information from server to clients or from server to servers

What are the problems that are generally come across DHCP?
Scope is full with IP addresses no IP’s available for new machines
If scope options are not configured properly eg default gateway
Incorrect creation of scopes etc

What is the role responsible for time synchronization?
PDC Emulator is responsible for time synchronization. Time synchronization is important because Kerberos authentication depends on time stamp information

What is TTL & how to set TTL time in DNS?
TTL is Time to Live setting used for the amount of time that the record should remain in cache when name resolution happened.

We can set TTL in SOA (start of authority record) of DNS

How to take DNS and WINS, DHCP backup
%System root%/system32/dns
%System root%/system32/WINS
%System root%/system32/DHCP

What is recovery console
Recovery console is a utility used to recover the system when it is not booting properly or not at all booting. We can perform fallowing operations from recovery console

We can copy, rename, or replace operating system files and folders
Enable or disable service or device startup the next time that start computer
Repair the file system boot sector or the Master Boot Record
Create and format partitions on drives

What is DFS & its usage

DFS is a distributed file system used to provide common environment for users to access files and folders even when they are shared in different servers physically.
There are two types of DFS domain DFS and Stand alone DFS. We cannot provide redundancy for stand alone DFS in case of failure. Domain DFS is used in a domain environment which can be accessed by /domain name/root1 (root 1 is DFS root name). Stand alone DFS can be used in workgroup environment which can be accessed through /server name/root1 (root 1 is DFS root name). Both the cases we need to create DFS root ( Which appears like a shared folder for end users) and DFS links ( A logical link which is pointing to the server where the folder is physically shared)

The maximum number of Dfs roots per server is 1.
The maximum numbers of Dfs root replicas are 31.
The maximum number of Dfs roots per domain is unlimited.
The maximum number of Dfs links or shared folders in a Dfs root is 1,000

What is RIS and what are its requirements
RIS is a remote installation service, which is used to install operation system remotely.

Client requirements
PXE DHCP-based boot ROM version 1.00 or later NIC, or a network adapter that is supported by the RIS boot disk.
Should meet minimum operating system requirements
Software Requirements
Below network services must be active on RIS server or any server in the network
Domain Name System (DNS Service)
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
Active directory “Directory” service

How many root replicas can be created in DFS?
31

What is the difference between Domain DFS and Standalone DFS?
Refer question 17.

High Level

Can we establish trust relationship between two forests?

In Windows 2000 it is not possible. In Windows 2003 it is possible

What is FSMO Roles

Flexible single master operation (FSMO) roles are
Domain Naming Master
Schema Master
PDC Emulator
Infrastructure Master
RID Master

Brief all the FSMO Roles
Windows 2000/2003 Multi-Master Model

A multi-master enabled database, such as the Active Directory, provides the flexibility of allowing changes to occur at any DC in the enterprise, but it also introduces the possibility of conflicts that can potentially lead to problems once the data is replicated to the rest of the enterprise. One way Windows 2000/2003 deals with conflicting updates is by having a conflict resolution algorithm handle discrepancies in values by resolving to the DC to which changes were written last (that is, "the last writer wins"), while discarding the changes in all other DCs. Although this resolution method may be acceptable in some cases, there are times when conflicts are just too difficult to resolve using the "last writer wins" approach. In such cases, it is best to prevent the conflict from occurring rather than to try to resolve it after the fact.
For certain types of changes, Windows 2000/2003 incorporates methods to prevent conflicting Active Directory updates from occurring.
Windows 2000/2003 Single-Master Model
To prevent conflicting updates in Windows 2000/2003, the Active Directory performs updates to certain objects in a single-master fashion.

In a single-master model, only one DC in the entire directory is allowed to process updates. This is similar to the role given to a primary domain controller (PDC) in earlier versions of Windows (such as Microsoft Windows NT 4.0), in which the PDC is responsible for processing all updates in a given domain.

In a forest, there are five FSMO roles that are assigned to one or more domain controllers. The five FSMO roles are:

Schema Master:

The schema master domain controller controls all updates and modifications to the schema. Once the Schema update is complete, it is replicated from the schema master to all other DCs in the directory. To update the schema of a forest, you must have access to the schema master. There can be only one schema master in the whole forest.
Domain naming master:

The domain naming master domain controller controls the addition or removal of domains in the forest. This DC is the only one that can add or remove a domain from the directory. It can also add or remove cross references to domains in external directories. There can be only one domain naming master in the whole forest.

Infrastructure Master:

When an object in one domain is referenced by another object in another domain, it represents the reference by the GUID, the SID (for references to security principals), and the DN of the object being referenced. The infrastructure FSMO role holder is the DC responsible for updating an object's SID and distinguished name in a cross-domain object reference. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the infrastructure master in each domain.

Note: The Infrastructure Master (IM) role should be held by a domain controller that is not a Global Catalog server (GC). If the Infrastructure Master runs on a Global Catalog server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a Global Catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. As a result, cross-domain object references in that domain will not be updated and a warning to that effect will be logged on that DC's event log. If all the domain controllers in a domain also host the global catalog, all the domain controllers have the current data, and it is not important which domain controller holds the infrastructure master role.

Relative ID (RID) Master:

The RID master is responsible for processing RID pool requests from all domain controllers in a particular domain. When a DC creates a security principal object such as a user or group, it attaches a unique Security ID (SID) to the object. This SID consists of a domain SID (the same for all SIDs created in a domain), and a relative ID (RID) that is unique for each security principal SID created in a domain. Each DC in a domain is allocated a pool of RIDs that it is allowed to assign to the security principals it creates. When a DC's allocated RID pool falls below a threshold, that DC issues a request for additional RIDs to the domain's RID master. The domain RID master responds to the request by retrieving RIDs from the domain's unallocated RID pool and assigns them to the pool of the requesting DC. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the RID master in the domain.

PDC Emulator:

The PDC emulator is necessary to synchronize time in an enterprise. Windows 2000/2003 includes the W32Time (Windows Time) time service that is required by the Kerberos authentication protocol. All Windows 2000/2003-based computers within an enterprise use a common time. The purpose of the time service is to ensure that the Windows Time service uses a hierarchical relationship that controls authority and does not permit loops to ensure appropriate common time usage.

The PDC emulator of a domain is authoritative for the domain. The PDC emulator at the root of the forest becomes authoritative for the enterprise, and should be configured to gather the time from an external source. All PDC FSMO role holders follow the hierarchy of domains in the selection of their in-bound time partner.
In a Windows 2000/2003 domain, the PDC emulator role holder retains the following functions:
Password changes performed by other DCs in the domain are replicated preferentially to the PDC emulator.
Authentication failures that occur at a given DC in a domain because of an incorrect password are forwarded to the PDC emulator before a bad password failure message is reported to the user.

Account lockout is processed on the PDC emulator.

Editing or creation of Group Policy Objects (GPO) is always done from the GPO copy found in the PDC Emulator's SYSVOL share, unless configured not to do so by the administrator.

The PDC emulator performs all of the functionality that a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server-based PDC or earlier PDC performs for Windows NT 4.0-based or earlier clients.

This part of the PDC emulator role becomes unnecessary when all workstations, member servers, and domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or earlier are all upgraded to Windows 2000/2003. The PDC emulator still performs the other functions as described in a Windows 2000/2003 environment.

At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the PDC emulator master in each domain in the forest.

How to manually configure FSMO Roles to separate DC’s

How can I determine who are the current FSMO Roles holders in my domain/forest?

Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domains utilize a Single Operation Master method called FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation), as described in Understanding FSMO Roles in Active Directory.

The five FSMO roles are:

• Schema master - Forest-wide and one per forest.

• Domain naming master - Forest-wide and one per forest.

• RID master - Domain-specific and one for each domain.

• PDC - PDC Emulator is domain-specific and one for each domain.

• Infrastructure master - Domain-specific and one for each domain.

In most cases an administrator can keep the FSMO role holders (all 5 of them) in the same spot (or actually, on the same DC) as has been configured by the Active Directory installation process. However, there are scenarios where an administrator would want to move one or more of the FSMO roles from the default holder DC to a different DC. The transferring method is described in the Transferring FSMO Roles article, while seizing the roles from a non-operational DC to a different DC is described in the Seizing FSMO Roles article.

In order to better understand your AD infrastructure and to know the added value that each DC might possess, an AD administrator must have the exact knowledge of which one of the existing DCs is holding a FSMO role, and what role it holds. With that knowledge in hand, the administrator can make better arrangements in case of a scheduled shut-down of any given DC, and better prepare him or herself in case of a non-scheduled cease of operation from one of the DCs.

How to find out which DC is holding which FSMO role? Well, one can accomplish this task by many means. This article will list a few of the available methods.

Method #1: Know the default settings

The FSMO roles were assigned to one or more DCs during the DCPROMO process. The following table summarizes the FSMO default locations:

FSMO Role Number of DCs holding this role Original DC holding the FSMO role
Schema One per forest The first DC in the first domain in the forest (i.e. the Forest Root Domain)
Domain Naming One per forest
RID One per domain The first DC in a domain (any domain, including the Forest Root Domain, any Tree Root Domain, or any Child Domain)
PDC Emulator One per domain
Infrastructure One per domain

Method #2: Use the GUI

The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of some of the AD snap-ins. Use this table to see which tool can be used for what FSMO role:

FSMO Role Which snap-in should I use?
Schema Schema snap-in
Domain Naming AD Domains and Trusts snap-in
RID AD Users and Computers snap-in
PDC Emulator
Infrastructure

Finding the RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Masters via GUI

To find out who currently holds the Domain-Specific RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Master FSMO Roles:

1. Open the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in from the Administrative Tools folder.
2. Right-click the Active Directory Users and Computers icon again and press Operation Masters.
3. Select the appropriate tab for the role you wish to view.
4. When you're done click close.

Finding the Domain Naming Master via GUI

To find out who currently holds the Domain Naming Master Role:
1. Open the Active Directory Domains and Trusts snap-in from the Administrative Tools folder.
2. Right-click the Active Directory Domains and Trusts icon again and press Operation Masters.
3. When you're done click close.

Finding the Schema Master via GUI

To find out who currently holds the Schema Master Role:
1. Register the Schmmgmt.dll library by pressing Start > RUN and typing:
2. Press OK. You should receive a success confirmation.
3. From the Run command open an MMC Console by typing MMC.
4. On the Console menu, press Add/Remove Snap-in.
5. Press Add. Select Active Directory Schema.
6. Press Add and press Close. Press OK.
7. Click the Active Directory Schema icon. After it loads right-click it and press Operation Masters.
8. Press the Close button.

Method #3: Use the Ntdsutil command

The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of the Ntdsutil command.

Caution: Using the Ntdsutil utility incorrectly may result in partial or complete loss of Active Directory functionality.
1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type Ntdsutil in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Type roles, and then press ENTER.

Note: To see a list of available commands at any of the prompts in the Ntdsutil tool, type ?, and then press ENTER.
3. Type connections, and then press ENTER.
4. Type connect to server , where is the name of the server you want to use, and then press ENTER.
5. At the server connections: prompt, type q, and then press ENTER again.
6. At the FSMO maintenance: prompt, type Select operation target, and then press ENTER again.

At the select operation target: prompt, type List roles for connected server, and then press ENTER again.

select operation target: List roles for connected server

Server "server100" knows about 5 roles

Schema - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=C

onfiguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net

Domain - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=C

onfiguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net

PDC - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Conf

iguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net

RID - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Conf

iguration,DC=dpetri,DC=net

Infrastructure - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Si

tes,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net

select operation target:

8. Type q 3 times to exit the Ntdsutil prompt.

Note: You can download THIS nice batch file that will do all this for you (1kb).

Another Note: Microsoft has a nice tool called Dumpfsmos.cmd, found in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit (and can be downloaded here: Download Free Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tools). This tool is basically a one-click Ntdsutil script that performs the same operation described above.

Method #4: Use the Netdom command

The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of the Netdom command.

Netdom.exe is a part of the Windows 2000/XP/2003 Support Tools. You must either download it separately (from here Download Free Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tools) or by obtaining the correct Support Tools pack for your operating system. The Support Tools pack can be found in the \Support\Tools folder on your installation CD (or you can Download Windows 2000 SP4 Support Tools, Download Windows XP SP1 Deploy Tools).

1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type CMD in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. In the Command Prompt window, type netdom query /domain: fsmo (where is the name of YOUR domain).

Close the CMD window.

Note: You can download THIS nice batch file that will do all this for you (1kb).

Method #5: Use the Replmon tool

The FSMO role holders can be easily found by use of the Netdom command.

Just like Netdom, Replmon.exe is a part of the Windows 2000/XP/2003 Support Tools. Replmon can be used for a wide verity of tasks, mostly with those that are related with AD replication. But Replmon can also provide valuable information about the AD, about any DC, and also about other objects and settings, such as GPOs and FSMO roles. Install the package before attempting to use the tool.

1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type REPLMON in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Right-click Monitored servers and select Add Monitored Server.
3. In the Add Server to Monitor window, select the Search the Directory for the server to add. Make sure your AD domain name is listed in the drop-down list.
4. In the site list select your site, expand it, and click to select the server you want to query. Click Finish.
5. Right-click the server that is now listed in the left-pane, and select Properties.
6. Click on the FSMO Roles tab and read the results.
7. Click Ok when you're done.

How can I forcibly transfer (seize) some or all of the FSMO Roles from one DC to another?

Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domains utilize a Single Operation Master method called FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation), as described in Understanding FSMO Roles in Active Directory.

The five FSMO roles are:

• Schema master - Forest-wide and one per forest.
• Domain naming master - Forest-wide and one per forest.
• RID master - Domain-specific and one for each domain.
• PDC - PDC Emulator is domain-specific and one for each domain.
• Infrastructure master - Domain-specific and one for each domain.

In most cases an administrator can keep the FSMO role holders (all 5 of them) in the same spot (or actually, on the same DC) as has been configured by the Active Directory installation process. However, there are scenarios where an administrator would want to move one or more of the FSMO roles from the default holder DC to a different DC.

Moving the FSMO roles while both the original FSMO role holder and the future FSMO role holder are online and operational is called Transferring, and is described in the Transferring FSMO Roles article.

However, when the original FSMO role holder went offline or became non operational for a long period of time, the administrator might consider moving the FSMO role from the original, non-operational holder, to a different DC. The process of moving the FSMO role from a non-operational role holder to a different DC is called Seizing, and is described in this article.

If a DC holding a FSMO role fails, the best thing to do is to try and get the server online again. Since none of the FSMO roles are immediately critical (well, almost none, the loss of the PDC Emulator FSMO role might become a problem unless you fix it in a reasonable amount of time), so it is not a problem to them to be unavailable for hours or even days.

If a DC becomes unreliable, try to get it back on line, and transfer the FSMO roles to a reliable computer. Administrators should use extreme caution in seizing FSMO roles. This operation, in most cases, should be performed only if the original FSMO role owner will not be brought back into the environment. Only seize a FSMO role if absolutely necessary when the original role holder is not connected to the network.

What will happen if you do not perform the seize in time? This table has the info:

FSMO Role Loss implications

Schema The schema cannot be extended. However, in the short term no one will notice a missing Schema Master unless you plan a schema upgrade during that time.

Domain Naming Unless you are going to run DCPROMO, then you will not miss this FSMO role.

RID Chances are good that the existing DCs will have enough unused RIDs to last some time, unless you're building hundreds of users or computer object per week.

PDC Emulator Will be missed soon. NT 4.0 BDCs will not be able to replicate, there will be no time synchronization in the domain, you will probably not be able to change or troubleshoot group policies and password changes will become a problem.

Infrastructure Group memberships may be incomplete. If you only have one domain, then there will be no impact.

Important: If the RID, Schema, or Domain Naming FSMOs are seized, then the original domain controller must not be activated in the forest again. It is necessary to reinstall Windows if these servers are to be used again.

The following table summarizes the FSMO seizing restrictions:
FSMO Role Restrictions
Schema Original must be reinstalled
Domain Naming
RID
PDC Emulator Can transfer back to original
Infrastructure

Another consideration before performing the seize operation is the administrator's group membership, as this table lists:
FSMO Role Administrator must be a member of
Schema Schema Admins
Domain Naming Enterprise Admins
RID Domain Admins
PDC Emulator
Infrastructure

To seize the FSMO roles by using Ntdsutil, follow these steps:

Caution: Using the Ntdsutil utility incorrectly may result in partial or complete loss of Active Directory functionality.

1. On any domain controller, click Start, click Run, type Ntdsutil in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Type roles, and then press ENTER.

Note: To see a list of available commands at any of the prompts in the Ntdsutil tool, type ?, and then press ENTER.

3. Type connections, and then press ENTER.
4. Type connect to server , where is the name of the server you want to use, and then press ENTER.
5. At the server connections: prompt, type q, and then press ENTER again.
6. Type seize , where is the role you want to seize. For example, to seize the RID Master role, you would type seize rid master:

Options are:

7. You will receive a warning window asking if you want to perform the seize. Click on Yes.
fsmo maintenance: Seize infrastructure master
Attempting safe transfer of infrastructure FSMO before seizure.
ldap_modify_sW error 0x34(52 (Unavailable).
Ldap extended error message is 000020AF: SvcErr: DSID-03210300, problem 5002 (UNAVAILABLE)
data 1722
Win32 error returned is 0x20af(The requested FSMO operation failed. The current FSMO holde

r could not be contacted.)
)

Depending on the error code this may indicate a connection,

ldap, or role transfer error.
Transfer of infrastructure FSMO failed, proceeding with seizure ...
Server "server100" knows about 5 roles
Schema - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER200,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=netDomain - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net
PDC - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net
RID - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER200,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net
Infrastructure - CN=NTDS Settings,CN=SERVER100,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=dpetri,DC=net

fsmo maintenance:

Note: All five roles need to be in the forest. If the first domain controller is out of the forest then seize all roles. Determine which roles are to be on which remaining domain controllers so that all five roles are not on only one server.

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you've seized all the required FSMO roles.
9. After you seize or transfer the roles, type q, and then press ENTER until you quit the Ntdsutil tool.

Note: Do not put the Infrastructure Master (IM) role on the same domain controller as the Global Catalog server. If the Infrastructure Master runs on a GC server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a GC server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest.

What is the difference between authoritative and non-authoritative restore

In authoritative restore, Objects that are restored will be replicated to all domain controllers in the domain. This can be used specifically when the entire OU is disturbed in all domain controllers or specifically restore a single object, which is disturbed in all DC’s

In non-authoritative restore, Restored directory information will be updated by other domain controllers based on the latest modification time.

What is Active Directory De-fragmentation?
De-fragmentation of AD means separating used space and empty space created by deleted objects and reduces directory size (only in offline De-fragmentation)

Difference between online and offline de-fragmentation
The size of NTDS.DIT will often be different sizes across the domain controllers in a domain. Remember that Active Directory is a multi-master independent model where updates are occurring in each of the domain controllers with the changes being replicated over time to the other domain controllers.

The changed data is replicated between domain controllers, not the database, so there is no guarantee that the files are going to be the same size across all domain controllers.

Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 servers running Directory Services (DS) perform a directory online defragmentation every 12 hours by default as part of the garbage-collection process. This defragmentation only moves data around the database file (NTDS.DIT) and doesn’t reduce the file’s size - the database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted.

Active Directory routinely performs online database defragmentation, but this is limited to the disposal of tombstoned objects. The database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted (or online).

An NTDS.DIT file that has been defragmented offline (compacted), can be much smaller than the NTDS.DIT file on its peers.

However, defragmenting the NTDS.DIT file isn’t something you should really need to do. Normally, the database self-tunes and automatically tombstoning the records then sweeping them away when the tombstone lifetime has passed to make that space available for additional records.

Defragging the NTDS.DIT file probably won’t help your AD queries go any faster in the long run.

So why defrag it in the first place?

One reason you might want to defrag your NTDS.DIT file is to save space, for example if you deleted a large number of records at one time.
To create a new, smaller NTDS.DIT file and to enable offline defragmentation, perform the following steps:
Back up Active Directory (AD).
Reboot the server, select the OS option, and press F8 for advanced options.
Select the Directory Services Restore Mode option, and press Enter. Press
Enter again to start the OS.
W2K will start in safe mode, with no DS running.
Use the local SAM’s administrator account and password to log on.
You’ll see a dialog box that says you’re in safe mode. Click OK.
From the Start menu, select Run and type cmd.exe
In the command window, you’ll see the following text. (Enter the commands in bold.)
C:\> ntdsutil
ntdsutil: files
file maintenance:info

....
file maintenance:compact to c:\temp

You’ll see the defragmentation process. If the process was successful, enter quit to return to the command prompt.

Then, replace the old NTDS.DIT file with the new, compressed version. (Enter the commands in bold.)

C:\> copy c:\temp\ntds.dit %systemroot%\ntds\ntds.dit

Restart the computer, and boot as normal.

What is tombstone period
Tombstones are nothing but objects marked for deletion. After deleting an object in AD the objects will not be deleted permanently. It will be remain 60 days by default (which can be configurable) it adds an entry as marked for deletion on the object and replicates to all DC’s. After 60 days object will be deleted permanently from all Dc’s.

What is white space and Garbage Collection?

refer question 7

What are the monitoring tools used for Server and Network Heath. How to define alert mechanism
Spot Light , SNMP Need to enable .

How to deploy the patches and what are the softwares used for this process
Using SUS (Software update services) server we can deploy patches to all clients in the network. We need to configure an option called “Synchronize with Microsoft software update server” option and schedule time to synchronize in server. We need to approve new update based on the requirement. Then approved update will be deployed to clients
We can configure clients by changing the registry manually or through Group policy by adding WUAU administrative template in group policy

What is Clustering. Briefly define & explain it

Clustering is a technology, which is used to provide High Availability for mission critical applications. We can configure cluster by installing MCS (Microsoft cluster service) component from Add remove programs, which can only available in Enterprise Edition and Data center edition.
In Windows we can configure two types of clusters
NLB (network load balancing) cluster for balancing load between servers. This cluster will not provide any high availability. Usually preferable at edge servers like web or proxy.

Server Cluster: This provides High availability by configuring active-active or active-passive cluster. In 2 node active-passive cluster one node will be active and one node will be stand by. When active server fails the application will FAILOVER to stand by server automatically. When the original server backs we need to FAILBACK the application

Quorum: A shared storage need to provide for all servers which keeps information about clustered application and session state and is useful in FAILOVER situation. This is very important if Quorum disk fails entire cluster will fails

Heartbeat: Heartbeat is a private connectivity between the servers in the cluster, which is used to identify the status of other servers in cluster.

How to configure SNMP

SNMP can be configured by installing SNMP from Monitoring and Management tools from Add and Remove programs.
For SNMP programs to communicate we need to configure common community name for those machines where SNMP programs (eg DELL OPEN MANAGER) running. This can be configured from services.msc--- SNMP service -- Security

Is it possible to rename the Domain name & how?

In Windows 2000 it is not possible. In windows 2003 it is possible. On Domain controller by going to MYCOMPUTER properties we can change.

What is SOA Record

SOA is a Start Of Authority record, which is a first record in DNS, which controls the startup behavior of DNS. We can configure TTL, refresh, and retry intervals in this record.

What is a Stub zone and what is the use of it.
Stub zones are a new feature of DNS in Windows Server 2003 that can be used to streamline name resolution, especially in a split namespace scenario. They also help reduce the amount of DNS traffic on your network, making DNS more efficient especially over slow WAN links.

What are the different types of partitions present in AD?
Active directory is divided into three partitions
Configuration Partition—replicates entire forest
Schema Partition—replicates entire forest
Domain Partition—replicate only in domain
Application Partition (Only in Windows 2003)
What are the (two) services required for replication
File Replication Service (FRS)
Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC)

Can we use a Linux DNS Sever in 2000 Domain?
We can use, But the BIND version should be 8 or greater

What is the difference between IIS Version 5 and IIS Version 6?

Refer Question 1

What is ASR (Automated System Recovery) and how to implement it
ASR is a two-part system; it includes ASR backup and ASR restore. The ASR Wizard, located in Backup, does the backup portion. The wizard backs up the system state, system services, and all the disks that are associated with the operating system components. ASR also creates a file that contains information about the backup, the disk configurations (including basic and dynamic volumes), and how to perform a restore.

You can access the restore portion by pressing F2 when prompted in the text-mode portion of setup. ASR reads the disk configurations from the file that it creates. It restores all the disk signatures, volumes, and partitions on (at a minimum) the disks that you need to start the computer. ASR will try to restore all the disk configurations, but under some circumstances it might not be able to. ASR then installs a simple installation of Windows and automatically starts a restoration using the backup created by the ASR Wizard.

What are the different levels that we can apply Group Policy
We can apply group policy at SITE level---Domain Level---OU level

What is Domain Policy, Domain controller policy, Local policy and Group policy
Domain Policy will apply to all computers in the domain, because by default it will be associated with domain GPO, Where as Domain controller policy will be applied only on domain controller. By default domain controller security policy will be associated with domain controller GPO. Local policy will be applied to that particular machine only and effects to that computer only.

What is the use of SYSVOL FOLDER?
Policies and scripts saved in SYSVOL folder will be replicated to all domain controllers in the domain. FRS (File replication service) is responsible for replicating all policies and scripts

What is folder redirection?
Folder Redirection is a User group policy. Once you create the group policy and link it to the appropriate folder object, an administrator can designate which folders to redirect and where To do this, the administrator needs to navigate to the following location in the Group Policy Object:

User Configuration\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection
In the Properties of the folder, you can choose Basic or Advanced folder redirection, and you can designate the server file system path to which the folder should be redirected.

The %USERNAME% variable may be used as part of the redirection path, thus allowing the system to dynamically create a newly redirected folder for each user to whom the policy object applies.

What different modes in windows 2003 (Mixed, native & intrim….etc)

What are the domain and forest function levels in a Windows Server 2003-basedActive Directory?

Functional levels are an extension of the mixed/native mode concept introduced in Windows 2000 to activate new Active Directory features after all the domain controllers in the domain or forest are running the Windows Server 2003 operating system.

When a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 is installed and promoted to a domain controller, new Active Directory features are activated by the Windows Server 2003 operating system over its Windows 2000 counterparts. Additional Active Directory features are available when all domain controllers in a domain or forest are running Windows Server 2003 and the administrator activates the corresponding functional level in the domain or forest.

To activate the new domain features, all domain controllers in the domain must be running Windows Server 2003. After this requirement is met, the administrator can raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003 (read Raise Domain Function Level in Windows Server 2003 Domains for more info).

To activate new forest-wide features, all domain controllers in the forest must be running Windows Server 2003, and the current forest functional level must be at Windows 2000 native or Windows Server 2003 domain level. After this requirement is met, the administrator can raise the domain functional level (read Raise Forest Function Level in Windows Server 2003 Active Directory for more info).

Note: Network clients can authenticate or access resources in the domain or forest without being affected by the Windows Server 2003 domain or forest functional levels. These levels only affect the way that domain controllers interact with each other.

Important

Raising the domain and forest functional levels to Windows Server 2003 is a nonreversible task and prohibits the addition of Windows NT 4.0–based or Windows 2000–based domain controllers to the environment. Any existing Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000–based domain controllers in the environment will no longer function. Before raising functional levels to take advantage of advanced Windows Server 2003 features, ensure that you will never need to install domain controllers running Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 in your environment.

When the first Windows Server 2003–based domain controller is deployed in a domain or forest, a set of default Active Directory features becomes available. The following table summarizes the Active Directory features that are available by default on any domain controller running Windows Server 2003:

Feature Functionality

Multiple selection of user objects Allows you to modify common attributes of multiple user objects at one time.
Drag and drop functionality Allows you to move Active Directory objects from container to container by dragging one or more objects to a location in the domain hierarchy. You can also add objects to group membership lists by dragging one or more objects (including other group objects) to the target group.
Efficient search capabilities Search functionality is object-oriented and provides an efficient search that minimizes network traffic associated with browsing objects.
Saved queries Allows you to save commonly used search parameters for reuse in Active Directory Users and Computers
Active Directory command-line tools Allows you to run new directory service commands for administration scenarios.
InetOrgPerson class The inetOrgPerson class has been added to the base schema as a security principal and can be used in the same manner as the user class.
Application directory partitions Allows you to configure the replication scope for application-specific data among domain controllers. For example, you can control the replication scope of Domain Name System (DNS) zone data stored in Active Directory so that only specific domain controllers in the forest participate in DNS zone replication.
Ability to add additional domain controllers by using backup media Reduces the time it takes to add an additional domain controller in an existing domain by using backup media.
Universal group membership caching Prevents the need to locate a global catalog across a wide area network (WAN) when logging on by storing universal group membership information on an authenticating domain controller.
Secure Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) traffic Active Directory administrative tools sign and encrypt all LDAP traffic by default. Signing LDAP traffic guarantees that the packaged data comes from a known source and that it has not been tampered with.
Partial synchronization of the global catalog Provides improved replication of the global catalog when schema changes add attributes to the global catalog partial attribute set. Only the new attributes are replicated, not the entire global catalog.
Active Directory quotas Quotas can be specified in Active Directory to control the number of objects a user, group, or computer can own in a given directory partition. Members of the Domain Administrators and Enterprise Administrators groups are exempt from quotas.

When the first Windows Server 2003–based domain controller is deployed in a domain or forest, the domain or forest operates by default at the lowest functional level that is possible in that environment. This allows you to take advantage of the default Active Directory features while running versions of Windows earlier than Windows Server 2003.

When you raise the functional level of a domain or forest, a set of advanced features becomes available. For example, the Windows Server 2003 interim forest functional level supports more features than the Windows 2000 forest functional level, but fewer features than the Windows Server 2003 forest functional level supports. Windows Server 2003 is the highest functional level that is available for a domain or forest. The Windows Server 2003 functional level supports the most advanced Active Directory features; however, only Windows Server 2003 domain controllers can operate in that domain or forest.
If you raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003, you cannot introduce any domain controllers that are running versions of Windows earlier than Windows Server 2003 into that domain. This applies to the forest functional level as well.

Domain Functional Level
Domain functionality activates features that affect the whole domain and that domain only. The four domain functional levels, their corresponding features, and supported domain controllers are as follows:

Windows 2000 mixed (Default)
• Supported domain controllers: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003
• Activated features: local and global groups, global catalog support

Windows 2000 native
• Supported domain controllers: Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003
• Activated features: group nesting, universal groups, SidHistory, converting groups between security groups and distribution groups, you can raise domain levels by increasing the forest level settings

Windows Server 2003 interim
• Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows Server 2003
• Supported features: There are no domain-wide features activated at this level. All domains in a forest are automatically raised to this level when the forest level increases to interim. This mode is only used when you upgrade domain controllers in Windows NT 4.0 domains to Windows Server 2003 domain controllers.

Windows Server 2003
• Supported domain controllers: Windows Server 2003
• Supported features: domain controller rename, logon timestamp attribute updated and replicated. User password support on the InetOrgPerson objectClass. Constrained delegation, you can redirect the Users and Computers containers.

Domains that are upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 or created by the promotion of a Windows Server 2003-based computer operate at the Windows 2000 mixed functional level. Windows 2000 domains maintain their current domain functional level when Windows 2000 domain controllers are upgraded to the Windows Server 2003 operating system. You can raise the domain functional level to either Windows 2000 native or Windows Server 2003.

After the domain functional level is raised, domain controllers that are running earlier operating systems cannot be introduced into the domain. For example, if you raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003, domain controllers that are running Windows 2000 Server cannot be added to that domain.

The following describes the domain functional level and the domain-wide features that are activated for that level. Note that with each successive level increase, the feature set of the previous level is included.

Forest Functional Level

Forest functionality activates features across all the domains in your forest. Three forest functional levels, the corresponding features, and their supported domain controllers are listed below.

Windows 2000 (default)

• Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003

• New features: Partial list includes universal group caching, application partitions, install from media, quotas, rapid global catalog demotion, Single Instance Store (SIS) for System Access Control Lists (SACL) in the Jet Database Engine, Improved topology generation event logging. No global catalog full sync when attributes are added to the PAS Windows Server 2003 domain controller assumes the Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG) role.

Windows Server 2003 interim

• Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows Server 2003. See the "Upgrade from a Windows NT 4.0 Domain" section of this article.

• Activated features: Windows 2000 features plus Efficient Group Member Replication using Linked Value Replication, Improved Replication Topology Generation. ISTG Aliveness no longer replicated. Attributes added to the global catalog. ms-DS-Trust-Forest-Trust-Info. Trust-Direction, Trust-Attributes, Trust-Type, Trust-Partner, Security-Identifier, ms-DS-Entry-Time-To-Die, Message Queuing-Secured-Source, Message Queuing-Multicast-Address, Print-Memory, Print-Rate, Print-Rate-Unit

Windows Server 2003
• Supported domain controllers: Windows Server 2003
• Activated features: all features in Interim Level, Defunct schema objects, Cross Forest Trust, Domain Rename, Dynamic auxiliary classes, InetOrgPerson objectClass change, Application Groups, 15-second intrasite replication frequency for Windows Server 2003 domain controllers upgraded from Windows 2000

After the forest functional level is raised, domain controllers that are running earlier operating systems cannot be introduced into the forest. For example, if you raise forest functional levels to Windows Server 2003, domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server cannot be added to the forest.

Different Active Directory features are available at different functional levels. Raising domain and forest functional levels is required to enable certain new features as domain controllers are upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003

Domain Functional Levels: Windows 2000 Mixed mode, Windows 2000 Native mode, Windows server 2003 and Windows server 2003 interim ( Only available when upgrades directly from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2003)

Forest Functional Levels: Windows 2000 and Windows 2003

Ipsec usage and difference window 2000 & 2003.

Microsoft doesn’t recommend Internet Protocol security (IPSec) network address translation (NAT) traversal (NAT-T) for Windows deployments that include VPN servers and that are located behind network address translators. When a server is behind a network address translator, and the server uses IPSec NAT-T, unintended side effects may occur because of the way that network address translators translate network traffic

If you put a server behind a network address translator, you may experience connection problems because clients that connect to the server over the Internet require a public IP address. To reach servers that are located behind network address translators from the Internet, static mappings must be configured on the network address translator. For example, to reach a Windows Server 2003-based computer that is behind a network address translator from the Internet, configure the network address translator with the following static network address translator mappings:

• Public IP address/UDP port 500 to the server's private IP address/UDP port 500.

• Public IP address/UDP port 4500 to the server's private IP address/UDP port 4500.

These mappings are required so that all Internet Key Exchange (IKE) and IPSec NAT-T traffic that is sent to the public address of the network address translator is automatically translated and forwarded to the Windows Server 2003-based computer

How to create application partition windows 2003 and its usage?

An application directory partition is a directory partition that is replicated only to specific domain controllers. A domain controller that participates in the replication of a particular application directory partition hosts a replica of that partition. Only domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 can host a replica of an application directory partition.

Applications and services can use application directory partitions to store application-specific data. Application directory partitions can contain any type of object, except security principals. TAPI is an example of a service that stores its application-specific data in an application directory partition.

Application directory partitions are usually created by the applications that will use them to store and replicate data. For testing and troubleshooting purposes, members of the Enterprise Admins group can manually create or manage application directory partitions using the Ntdsutil command-line tool.

Is it possible to do implicit transitive forest to forest trust relationship in windows 2003?

Implicit Transitive trust will not be possible in windows 2003. Between forests we can create explicit trust

Two-way trust

One-way: incoming

One-way: Outgoing

What is universal group membership cache in windows 2003?

Information is stored locally once this option is enabled and a user attempts to log on for the first time. The domain controller obtains the universal group membership for that user from a global catalog. Once the universal group membership information is obtained, it is cached on the domain controller for that site indefinitely and is periodically refreshed. The next time that user attempts to log on, the authenticating domain controller running Windows Server 2003 will obtain the universal group membership information from its local cache without the need to contact a global catalog.

By default, the universal group membership information contained in the cache of each domain controller will be refreshed every 8 hours.

GPMC & RSOP in windows 2003?

GPMC is tool which will be used for managing group policies and will display information like how many policies applied, on which OU’s the policies applied, What are the settings enabled in each policy, Who are the users effecting by these polices, who is managing these policies. GPMC will display all the above information.

RSoP provides details about all policy settings that are configured by an Administrator, including Administrative Templates, Folder Redirection, Internet Explorer Maintenance, Security Settings, Scripts, and Group Policy Software Installation.

When policies are applied on multiple levels (for example, site, domain, domain controller, and organizational unit), the results can conflict. RSoP can help you determine a set of applied policies and their precedence (the order in which policies are applied).

Assign & Publish the applications in GP & how?

Through Group policy you can Assign and Publish the applications by creating .msi package for that application
With Assign option you can apply policy for both user and computer. If it is applied to computer then the policy will apply to user who logs on to that computer. If it is applied on user it will apply where ever he logs on to the domain. It will be appear in Start menu—Programs. Once user click the shortcut or open any document having that extension then the application install into the local machine. If any application program files missing it will automatically repair.

With Publish option you can apply only on users. It will not install automatically when any application program files are corrupted or deleted.

DFS in windows 2003?

Refer Question 17 on level 2

How to use recovery console?
The Windows 2000 Recovery Console is a command-line console that you can start from the Windows 2000 Setup program. Using the Recovery Console, you can start and stop services, format drives, read and write data on a local drive (including drives formatted to use NTFS), and perform many other administrative tasks. The Recovery Console is particularly useful if you need to repair your system by copying a file from a floppy disk or CD-ROM to your hard drive, or if you need to reconfigure a service that is preventing your computer from starting properly. Because the Recovery Console is quite powerful, it should only be used by advanced users who have a thorough knowledge of Windows 2000. In addition, you must be an administrator to use the Recovery Console.
There are two ways to start the Recovery Console:

If you are unable to start your computer, you can run the Recovery Console from your Windows 2000 Setup disks or from the Windows 2000 Professional CD (if you can start your computer from your CD-ROM drive).
As an alternative, you can install the Recovery Console on your computer to make it available in case you are unable to restart Windows 2000. You can then select the Recovery Console option from the list of available operating systems

PPTP protocol for VPN in windows 2003?

Point-to-Point-Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is a networking technology that supports multiprotocol virtual private networks (VPN), enableing remote users to access corporate networks securely across the Microsoft Windows NT® Workstation, Windows® 95, and Windows 98 operating systems and other point-to-point protocol (PPP)-enabled systems to dial into a local Internet service provider to connect securely to their corporate network through the Internet

Netdom.exe is domain management tool to rename domain controller

Windows Server Support Interview Questions and Answers (L1)

2009-12-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

IIS

• Fault-tolerant process architecture----- The IIS 6.0 fault-tolerant process architecture isolates Web sites and applications into self-contained units called application pools
• Health Monitoring---- IIS 6.0 periodically checks the status of an application pool with automatic restart on failure of the Web sites and applications within that application pool, increasing application availability. IIS 6.0 protects the server, and other applications, by automatically disabling Web sites and applications that fail too often within a short amount of time
• Automatic Process Recycling--- IIS 6.0 automatically stops and restarts faulty Web sites and applications based on a flexible set of criteria, including CPU utilization and memory consumption, while queuing requests
• Rapid-fail Protection---- If an application fails too often within a short amount of time, IIS 6.0 will automatically disable it and return a "503 Service Unavailable" error message to any new or queued requests to the application

Difference between NT & 2000

• NT SAM database is a flat database. Where as in windows 2000 active directory database is a hierarchical database.
• In windows NT only PDC is having writable copy of SAM database but the BDC is only read only database. In case of Windows 2000 both DC and ADC is having write copy of the database
• Windows NT will not support FAT32 file system. Windows 2000 supports FAT32
• Default authentication protocol in NT is NTLM (NT LAN manager). In windows 2000 default authentication protocol is Kerberos V5.
• Windows 2000 depends and Integrated with DNS. NT user Netbios names
• Active Directory can be backed up easily with System state data

Difference between 2000 & 2003

• Application Server mode is introduced in windows 2003
• Possible to configure stub zones in windows 2003 DNS
• Volume shadow copy services is introduced
• Windows 2003 gives an option to replicate DNS data b/w all DNS servers in forest or All DNS servers in the domain.

Difference between PDC & BDC
PDC contains a write copy of SAM database where as BDC contains read only copy of SAM database. It is not possible to reset a password or create objects without PDC in Windows NT.

Difference between DC & ADC
There is no difference between in DC and ADC both contains write copy of AD. Both can also handles FSMO roles (If transfers from DC to ADC). It is just for identification. Functionality wise there is no difference.

What is DNS & WINS?
DNS is a Domain Naming System, which resolves Host names to IP addresses. It uses fully qualified domain names. DNS is a Internet standard used to resolve host names.
WINS is a Windows Internet Name Service, which resolves Netbios names to IP Address. This is proprietary for Windows

Types of DNS Servers

Primary DNS
Secondary DNS
Active Directory Integrated DNS
Forwarder
Caching only DNS

If DHCP is not available what happens to the client
Client will not get IP and it cannot be participated in network. If client already got the IP and having lease duration it use the IP till the lease duration expires.

What are the different types of trust relationships?
Implicit Trusts
Explicit Trusts—NT to Win2k or Forest to Forest

What is the process of DHCP for getting the IP address to the client?
There is a four way negotiation process b/w client and serverDHCP Discover (Initiated by client)

DHCP Offer (Initiated by server)
DHCP Select (Initiated by client)
DHCP Acknowledgement (Initiated by Server)
DHCP Negative Acknowledgement (Initiated by server if any issues after DHCP offer)

Difference between FAT, NTFS & NTFSVersion5
NTFS Version 5 features
Encryption is possible
We can enable Disk Quotas
File compression is possible
Sparse files
Indexing Service
NTFS change journal
In FAT file system we can apply only share level security. File level protection is not possible. In NTFS we can apply both share level as well as file level security
NTFS supports large partition sizes than FAT file systems
NTFS supports long file names than FAT file systems

What are the port numbers for FTP, Telnet, HTTP, DNS?
FTP-21, Telnet – 23, HTTP-80, DNS-53, Kerberos-88, LDAP-389

What are the different types of profiles in 2000?

Local Profiles
Roaming profiles
Mandatory Profiles

What is the database files used for Active Directory?
The key AD database files—edb.log, ntds.dit, res1.log, res2.log, and edb.chk—all of which reside in \%systemroot%\ntds on a domain controller (DC) by default. During AD installation, Dcpromo lets you specify alternative locations for these log files and database files
NTDS.DIT

What is the location of AD DATABASE?
%System root%/NTDS/NTDS>DIT

What is the authentication protocol used in NT
NTLM (NT LAN Manager)

What is subnetting and supernetting
Subnetting is the process of borrowing bits from the host portion of an address to provide bits for identifying additional sub-networks
Supernetting merges several smaller blocks of IP addresses (networks) that are continuous into one larger block of addresses. Borrowing network bits to combine several smaller networks into one larger network does supernetting

What is the use of terminal services?
Terminal services can be used as Remote Administration mode to administer remotely as well as Application Server Mode to run the application in one server and users can login to that server to user that application.

What is the protocol used for terminal services?
RDP

What is the port number for RDP?
3389

Bomb-Proof Wallpaper

2009-11-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

Known as the world’s toughest wallpaper, X-Flex is a new type of wallpaper that is easily stronger then most building walls upon which it resides. Developed by Berry Plastics and the US Army Corps of Engineers, X-Flex can be used in any area prone to blast damage including national airports and chemical plants. In fact, the US military is seriously looking at redecorating military bases with this wallpaper to protect military personnel stationed at army bases overseas.

The strength of X-Flex comes from it’s building material which is Kevlar-tye sheets that are sandwiched between a layer of elastic polymer wrap. Application of the protective sheets couldn’t be easier and consists of removing the sticky backs and rolling it onto the wall while fastening the edges. An entire room can be done in under an hour.

What is Virtualization, and Why Should You Care?

2009-11-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add to the confusion by over-complicating things. To help add a sense of clarity to the confusion, Laurie McCabe, will pick a technology term, explain what it means in plain English, and then discuss why it may be important to you. This time Laurie looks at Virtualization.

What is Virtualization?
When people talk about virtualization, they're usually referring to server virtualization, which means partitioning one physical server into several virtual servers, or machines. Each virtual machine can interact independently with other devices, applications, data and users as though it were a separate physical resource.

Different virtual machines can run different operating systems and multiple applications while sharing the resources of a single physical computer. And, because each virtual machine is isolated from other virtualized machines, if one crashes, it doesn't affect the others.

Hypervisor software is the secret sauce that makes virtualization possible. This software, also known as a virtualization manager, sits between the hardware and the operating system, and decouples the operating system and applications from the hardware. The hypervisor assigns the amount of access that the operating systems and applications have with the processor and other hardware resources, such as memory and disk input/output.

In addition to using virtualization technology to partition one machine into several virtual machines, you can also use virtualization solutions to combine multiple physical resources into a single virtual resource. A good example of this is storage virtualization, where multiple network storage resources are pooled into what appears as a single storage device for easier and more efficient management of these resources. Other types of virtualization you may hear about include:

•Network virtualization splits available bandwidth in a network into independent channels that can be assigned to specific servers or devices.
•Application virtualization separates applications from the hardware and the operating system, putting them in a container that can be relocated without disrupting other systems.
•Desktop virtualization enables a centralized server to deliver and manage individualized desktops remotely. This gives users a full client experience, but lets IT staff provision, manage, upgrade and patch them virtually, instead of physically.
Virtualization was first introduced in the 1960s by IBM to boost utilization of large, expensive mainframe systems by partitioning them into logical, separate virtual machines that could run multiple applications and processes at the same time. In the 1980s and 1990s, this centrally shared mainframe model gave way to a distributed, client-server computing model, in which many low-cost x86 servers and desktops independently run specific applications.

While virtualization faded from the limelight for a while, it is now one of the hottest trends in the industry again, as organizations aim to increase the utilization, flexibility and cost-effectiveness in a distributed computing environment. VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft, IBM, RedHat and many other vendors offer virtualization solutions.

Why Should You Care?
Virtualization can help you shift your IT focus from managing boxes to improving the services you provide to the organization. If you are managing multiple servers and desktops, virtualization can help you to:

•Save money. Companies often run just one application per server because they don't want to risk the possibility that one application will crash and bring down another on the same machine. Estimates indicate that most x86 servers are running at an average of only 10 to 15 percent of total capacity. With virtualization, you can turn a single purpose server into a multi-tasking one, and turn multiple servers into a computing pool that can adapt more flexibly to changing workloads.
•Save energy. Businesses spend a lot of money powering unused server capacity. Virtualization reduces the number of physical servers, reducing the energy required to power and cool them.
•Save time. With fewer servers, you can spend less time on the manual tasks required for server maintenance. On the flip side, pooling many storage devices into a single virtual storage device, you can perform tasks such as backup, archiving and recovery more easily and more quickly. It's also much faster to deploy a virtual machine than it is to deploy a new physical server.
•Reduce desktop management headaches. Managing, securing and upgrading desktops and notebooks can be a hassle. Desktop virtualization solutions let you manage user desktops centrally, making it easier to keep desktops updated and secure.
What to Consider
Since virtualization makes it easy to set up new virtual servers, you may end up with a lot of servers to manage. Each server needs to be managed just as if it was a physical server. Keeping track of where everything is—and how your virtual resources are using physical resources—is vital, so shop for solutions that have easy-to-use tools that help you monitor and measure use.

Virtualization isn't a magic bullet for everything. While many solutions are great candidates for running virtually, applications that need a lot of memory, processing power or input/output may be best left on a dedicated server.

For all of the upside virtualization isn't magic, and it can introduce some new challenges. But in most cases the many cost and efficiency advantages will outweigh any issues, and virtualization will continue to grow gain popularity.

The 7 Keys to Success by (Will Edwards)

2009-10-06T02:05:00.000-07:00

The 7 Keys to Success

Contents

Your Wake-Up Call.....................................3
Commitment................................................4
An Open Mind..............................................6
Persistence...................................................8
Flexibility....................................................10
Faith.............................................................12
Thankfulness..............................................14
Passion.........................................................16
--------------------------------------------------------

Your Wake-Up Call
When I was quite young, someone told me, "If you want be really successful, find out what God wants to you to do with your life and then dedicate yourself to achieving it".
At the time, I didn’t really like that idea; I did not believe that my life could have any particular purpose; and I did not think that anything God might have in mind would be of any interest to me in any case. Gradually, I have come to believe that what that person said to me, all those years ago, is true.
As human beings, we all share certain basic wants and needs: we have need for food, water, shelter, safety, love, respect and self esteem. We all share an in-built tendency, as Freud stated, to want to move away from pain and toward pleasure. This tendency is part of the human condition for our own good; it keeps us away from harm and generally helps us to make good choices. Most people settle for a pursuing a career that satisfies these basic human wants and needs; and never really think beyond them to what their life could be about.
Somewhere along the line, I came to realise that what God wanted for my life, and what I wanted, were one and the same thing. This understanding came after I had determined to find out what God actually wanted me to do with my life.
It was a profound moment for me. I gradually came to understand my inner hopes, dreams and deepest desires as being implanted by God. So pursuing God’s purpose for my life was, in fact, also pursuing my own purpose. When it really came down to it, I finally realised that I needed to look within to discover my own purpose; and once I had found out what it was, it then became possible to dedicate myself to fulfilling it.
So my message to you is simple: it is time for you to wake-up! It is time for you to start thinking of your life in a different way. It is time for you to fulfil your dream - whatever that may be. That is why you are here on the planet right now. By finding and fulfilling your own unique purpose in life you will be living your life to the full.
It is my hope that you will begin to see yourself as a special person, with a truly unique purpose in life - because that is the truth!

Commitment
Committedness: the trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose.
Commitment: the act of binding yourself, intellectually or emotionally, to a definite course of action.
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
What are you doing with your Life: would you say you are living your dream; or are you living from hand to mouth, making the best of things, just getting to the next week - what we might call: existing rather than living?
If you are living your dream, then well done: you are truly on the road to success. If you are not living your dream - or even if you have no dream at present - then do not despair because this little book was written for you. We are going to help you to find your dream, develop it and then to actually achieve it!
To live a truly successful life, you do need to first have a dream. As Carl Sandburg, American historian, poet and novelist put it, "nothing happens unless first a dream".
If you think about it, nothing at all that now exists within our experience of physical reality did not first exist in the mind of the person who made it or brought it into being. In all cases, everything is created twice: the physical creation follows the mental creation.
To succeed, you must have a dream, or you may prefer to call it a vision - and you must completely commit yourself to its ultimate fulfilment - that is the essence of the mental creation.
Here is one of the real secrets of success: you should dream big dreams, because you can have anything you want! Read that statement again and let it really sink in because it is true that you can have anything you want;
you can be anything you want to be; and you can do anything you want to do. This may at first seem self-indulgent, but remember, your deepest desires were implanted by God.
What does it mean: to commit yourself to your dream? To illustrate, let me tell you a little about the story of Charles Lindbergh. You know, of course who he was - he was the first person to fly the Atlantic solo - non-stop all the way to Paris. An incredible feat which he eventually accomplished in May 1927.
He used to dream of flying the Atlantic during his long-haul flights delivering mail. Once he had imagined the possibility of being the first person to do this, he completely committed himself to its achievement overcoming all kinds of set-backs. He did not allow the negative opinions of the doubters who surrounded him to influence his resolve.
When he was unable to purchase the single aircraft in existence that he calculated would be capable of making that momentous journey, he had his own airplane designed and built. He didn't have the money, but he got a group of St Louis businessmen to sponsor him - that's why the plane was called The Spirit of St Louis - now that's commitment!
Once you have your dream. you too need to demonstrate that kind of resolve - and let me tell you plainly - you are capable of it!
It requires you to take actions that are congruent with your wishes in order to translate them into reality, but the first step is to have that dream - your own dream, not anyone else's ideas about what is best for you in life - and then absolutely commit yourself to its achievement.

An Open Mind
Openness: characterized by an attitude of ready accessibility about one's actions or purposes
Receptiveness: willingness or readiness to receive - especially impressions or ideas
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
Once you have committed yourself to achieving your dream, you should begin to notice something rather odd starting to happen in your life: the universe actually begins to help you to achieve it!
You just need to be Open-Minded - that is, you need to be ready and willing to receive what the universe (you might prefer to say God) has in store for you. Some people call this principle the Law of Attraction, but whatever you call it, it is quite true that you will absolutely set in motion unseen forces which will definitely assist you with the manifestation of your dream.
People, events and circumstances will be drawn to you that will actually assist you in the achievement of your dream. You can probably only fully accept this truth when you experience it for yourself; and once you have committed to your dream, you will begin to experience it. Things will start to happen: they may seem like co-incidence at first, but you are now living in an altered reality.
As an example of this principle in action, let's take a brief look at the true story of Rudy Ruettiger. You may know that Rudy had a dream. His dream - now the subject of a truly inspiring movie - was to play football for Notre Dame. Everyone told him it couldn't be done. But this is how the universe helped him to achieve his dream.
When he was 22 years old, a friend bought him a Notre Dame jacket, from a surplus store, for his birthday. When he gave it to Rudy, he
commented, 'Rudy, you were born to wear this jacket!'. The words stirred something deep within him; and so he boarded a bus destined for South Bend, Indiana with the goal of meeting Notre Dame Championship football coach, Ara Parseghian.
Rudy had to enrol in Holly Cross Junior College to get his grades up prior to ever being considered for Notre Dame. With nowhere to live, he slept in the maintenance room; and after numerous applications and trials, Rudy was finally accepted to Notre Dame and eventually made the football team as a walk-on.
Rudy was not really considered good enough to make the team, but he never missed a practice match and was there suited-up during the final game of his senior year. Now everyone in the crowd knew of Rudy's goal to play for the team; and in the last play of the last game, the crowd started chanting: Ru-dy! Ru-dy! Ru-dy!
Coach Dan Devine was so moved that he put him into the game in the last 27 seconds when he sacked the quarterback and was carried off the field in triumph on the shoulders of the fighting Irish.
When you carry your own dream within, you too will be able to touch the hearts and minds of the people around you in much the same way; and it is a truly wonderful and uplifting experience when you find out for yourself that the universe does indeed help you to achieve your goal.

Persistence
Persistence: refusing to give up, especially when faced with opposition or difficulty; continuing firmly or steadily
Persistence: the act of continually pursuing something in spite of obstacles
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
If having a dream and committing to its ultimate achievement is something like plotting your final destination ahead of an exciting journey, then persistence is rather like the engine you need in order to get there.
Persistence is what drives you on to take the next step in your journey; persistence is what prevents you from getting discouraged by what may have happened in the past; persistence is where the rubber meets the road!
Here is a story, of unknown origin that illustrates what persistence is all about ...
There was a certain man who went to meet a famous guru to ask, "which way is success?"
The be-robed, bearded sage did not speak but pointed to a place far off in the distance. The man, thrilled by the prospect of quick and easy success, rushed off in the appropriate direction. Suddenly, there was a loud "splat!". Eventually, the man limped back, tattered and stunned, assuming he must have misinterpreted the message. He repeated his question to the guru, who again pointed silently in the same direction.
The man obediently walked off once more. This time the splat was deafening, and when the man crawled back, he was bloody, broken, tattered, and irate. "I asked you which way is success," he yelled at the guru. "I followed the direction you indicated. And all I got was splatted! No more of this pointing! Talk!"

Only then did the wise old guru speak, and what he said was this: "Success IS that way. Just a little further on than splat!"
Translating your dream into an action plan and then constantly taking actions, each and every day, that will move you in the direction of your goal is what will get you there in the end. No matter how big your goal, you can get there if you will keep your destination in mind and then continually take actions that move you toward the goal.
When you meet an obstacle, as you inevitably will, persistence determines what you will do; whether you will give up or keep going. Persistence is what gets you back on your feet, dusted down and ready to go again.
Persistence is what gets you past SPLAT!

Flexibility
Flexibility: the quality of being adaptable
Flexibility: a measure of the ability to respond to changes in demand
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
It is a sound NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) principle that to become successful, we need to notice what is working and what is not; and be prepared to change our approach in order to get what we want - that is the essence of flexibility.
A wise person once said, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got". That is a wonderfully true statement - in other words, if you continue doing exactly what you are now doing, then don't be surprised when you don't see any increase or change in your results.
It is the law of cause and effect in operation. The results you are now getting (effects) are the product of the causes (efforts) you have made in the past. To get greater benefits in the future, you need to change what you are doing in the present in order to produce them.
Whilst persistence is an important quality, persistence without flexibility can indeed be futile because, without some flexibility in your approach, you could end up trying to move an immovable object for the rest of your life. The willingness to constantly change what we are now doing and to also demonstrate persistence is what gets us around seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
So notice exactly what is working for you; and notice what is not. Change your approach in some way - you will need to brainstorm various approaches - then continue to observe. By continually changing your
approach and finding what works and what doesn't, you will literally become unstoppable.
As an example, consider the story of Kevin Keegan, famous English footballer (soccer) and eventually manager of England. Kevin was told that he would never become a footballer because he was not talented enough, he was not strong enough and he was too small.
It would have been easy enough for him to just give up; after all these people telling him he would never make it were all professionals - surely they should know what they were talking about! What did Kevin actually do? Well there was nothing he could do about his height, so he worked on what he could do: he worked on his physique until he built a strong, powerful frame; and he worked on his basic ball skills.
After several tryouts, he was eventually signed as an apprentice for Scunthorpe United in 1967. He became a full professional 12 months later; and in 1971 moved to Liverpool where he played on the winning team in the FA Cup 1974, the European Cup 1977, the UEFA Cup 1973 and 1976 and the Football League 1973, 1976-7.
Kevin eventually became the captain of England winning 63 caps between 1972 and 1982; and he became European Footballer of the Year 1978 and 1979. He did it all by being flexible in his approach and persistent in the face of unfavourable odds.
Sometimes, I tell Kevin's story at my Workshop events; and sometimes people will say something like:
'What about all the people who tried and tried but still never made it?'
My answer is that Kevin would also have just been another statistic along with the rest of them if he had not demonstrated these qualities. Kevin was a winner; and you too can become a winner. To become a winner, you simply need to internalise these qualities.
If you really want success, in whatever field of endeavour you are pursuing, you can have it - yes you can! But you need to be prepared to work for it - to do whatever it takes. Finding out and then doing whatever it takes is the quality of flexibility.

Faith
Faith: acceptance of principles which are not necessarily demonstrable
Faith: strong belief in something without proof or evidence
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
There will be many people who will tell you that you will never, or simply cannot, achieve your dream. They are the 80% of people who once had a dream but have now settled for something less. They are the children who once stood in line at school, believing they would one-day become pilots, doctors, actors, singers, ballerinas, missionaries, air-hostesses and so on.
But their experience of life gradually ground them down; and their dreams were reluctantly put away. Those dreams still live somewhere, deep down within their hearts, but they no longer believe that they are achievable.
First, their parents worked on them: questioning their abilities, doubting their chances and telling them that they once had the same dreams. Their parents told them they needed to grow-up, be more responsible and life would work out just great.
Then their teachers worked on them: saying that we all have such ambitions, but in the real-world, you needed a trade, a job, a career - and that life had so very few of these exciting opportunities. They ingrained the attitude of the 'scarcity mentality' into their charges - rather than the 'abundance mentality'. They told these children that there just wasn't enough good stuff to go around.
Finally, their friends worked on them as they also settled for the jobs on offer, they questioned: what was so wrong with being a sales-person, a
plumber, a secretary or a brick-layer? The world needed these trades-people (and so it does) and there was nothing wrong with making an honest living by providing these services. That was how, gradually, their beliefs about the world were changed - they no longer believed that it would be possible to reach the heights they had once dreamed of - and they made the decision to settle for less; much less.
After all this negative conditioning, only a few of those pilots-in-the-making believed they could still learn to fly aircraft; only a few of those singers still believed they were destined to sing for their supper. Many people had their dream literally strangled out of them. And when you are once again ready to pursue what is in your heart, you need to be aware that you are still not immune to this negative conditioning: there will still be very many people ready to tell you why what you are now doing, or about to do, is hopeless!
But, do you know of the work of Masaru Emoto - the scientist who freezes water and takes photographs of its crystal structure? Well, I don't think you could get a more powerful demonstration of the power of faith to impact our physical reality. He has tried a number of experiments which really challenge our conventional ideas about the power of our thoughts. Amongst other things, he found that water which was frozen when offered a prayer, formed better, more perfect crystals than water which was cursed before freezing.
It sounds bizarre doesn't it, but if our thoughts can do that to water, imagine what they can do to us - we are after all, 75% water! If your thoughts are positive, affirmative and full of faith, then they are transformational. You become literally changed and therefore better able to achieve your purpose - the goal that other people don't think you can possibly achieve.
That's why you need faith - a deep-down belief that, regardless of the evidence, you are going to make it! You are going to achieve what you have set out to accomplish. You are going to make a difference in this life.

Thankfulness
Thankfulness: a virtue and a dynamic - activates the Law of Attraction
Thankfulness: a positive emotion involving a feeling of indebtedness
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
Attitude affects so many things in life. Sales-people are told to maintain a positive mental attitude because it ultimately affects their sales, sports-people are told to cultivate a winner's attitude because it affects their performance. The laws of success tell us to cultivate a grateful attitude but why should thankfulness affect our success?
It may be difficult, at first, to see exactly how thankfulness, or gratitude, can be such an important key to your success, but by seeking to maintain an 'attitude of gratitude' you are indeed tapping into the timeless laws of success.
Thankfulness is fundamentally related to positivity and negativity. It is so much easier to be positive about your life and the things that are going on in it right now when you are grateful. As A. W. Tozer once commented, ‘a thankful heart cannot be cynical’.
The work-place is full of people who are cynical - ready to run the company down, run the boss down and run the industry down; and do you know something, they can, and do, actually produce the evidence that supports their beliefs. Such people are also employing the laws of success; but by talking about what they do not like, they are using the principles to attract what they don't want. Their reality simply reinforces their views about the company, the boss, the industry and whatever else has been the subject of their negativity.
On the other hand, having an attitude of gratitude impacts your countenance and your general outlook on life; and people generally will
prefer to work with happy, cheerful, grateful people than miserable, down-cast, merchants of doom and gloom. As a consequence truly grateful people, literally attract opportunities that others miss or even possibly repel.
To help acquire this positive attitude, consider the idea of keeping a Gratitude Journal. Would you, every day for a period of one month, be prepared to actually write down all the things for which you are grateful? You know: count your blessings, the way you were taught as a child. What do you think might be the result of engaging in such an exercise? Consider the results of this scientific study into the subject.
Two psychologists, McCollough and Emmons, conducted a study on the subject of gratitude and thanksgiving. In the study, three different groups of people were required to keep daily journals. The first group kept a simple diary of all the events that occurred during the day, the second group kept a record of only their unpleasant daily experiences. The final group made a daily list of everything for which they were grateful i.e. the kept a Gratitude Journal.
The results of this amazing study suggested that the exercise of daily gratitude resulted in higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. So let it really sink-in ...
• A Grateful Heart Cannot be Cynical.
• Gratitude is Fundamental to Maintaining an Optimistic Outlook.
• The Exercise of Thankfulness activates the Law of Attraction.
Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was much more likely to get involved in helping others. They also exercised more regularly and made more progress toward their personal goals. Isn't that amazing: just by keeping a Gratitude Journal, the study suggests they were able to positively impact their chances of achieving their goals!
Thankfulness is an attitude and an important key to success. It is an attitude we all need to learn to acquire - particularly when we feel we are in difficult circumstances.
So learn to be grateful.

Passion
Passion: strong, enthusiastic devotion to a cause, ideal, or goal
Passion: your heart's one true desire or the deepest desire of your heart
1. Commitment 2. An Open Mind 3. Persistence 4. Flexibility 5. Faith 6. Thankfulness 7. Passion
It is impossible to think about passion without reference to the heart. Deep within your heart, there is a desire, the pursuit of which will bring you all the happiness, success and fulfilment you really want. To find your passion is to identify your own unique purpose in life; to live your passion is to achieve the Deepest Desire of Your Heart.
You can achieve whatever you want. You can be the person you were meant to be; and you can really live the life of your dreams. Those are bold statements but they are true; and more and more people are discovering this wonderful truth for themselves. But if this is indeed true, then why is it that so many people - we think the figure is around 80% - are pursuing jobs and careers they don't really care about?
For our parents and grand-parents, growing up in a world with comparatively few opportunities, it is true to say that their lives were consumed with the whole business of 'making a living' - looking after what Abraham Maslow called their physiological and social needs. They worked hard and never really enjoyed the luxury of considering what might be termed the 'higher needs' of the human condition.
Many people in today's workplace are indeed seeking to reach higher and often people think they have reached their peak when they have started to meet their 'esteem' needs, that is, the basic human need for respect, recognition and responsibility. For many people, this means pursuing an interesting career; rather than just getting a job.
However, for very many people, there is still an inner emptiness. Often, this emptiness is experienced more starkly when they have actually
become successful in their chosen careers. They start to wonder exactly what life has been about. The trappings of success: promotion, automobile, house did not bring about the happiness they anticipated. This is a consequence, as Stephen Covey puts it, of climbing the ladder of success only to find when they reach the top that, all along, the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall.
To really achieve success in life, you must be bold enough to go even higher: to consider what Maslow called. Self Actualisation. This means becoming the person you were meant to be; and living the life you were meant to live. Only by doing this, can you possibly hope to find the true success you really desire.

Cloud Computing

2009-10-06T01:52:00.000-07:00

Key properties of cloud computing
§ User Centric
§ Powerful
§ Accessible
§ Intelligent
§ Programmable

Cloud Computing Types
§ Public Cloud
§ Private Cloud
§ Hybrid Cloud

Cloud Computing Participants

§ User environment
Consumer or Requestor
§ Business environment
Designers and Creators
§ N/W & IT Environment
Provider

Advantages

§ Minimizing startup costs
§ Improving Business Processes
§ Simpler, Cheaper to use applications
§ Any where, Any time

Challenges
§ Data Security
§ Latency
§ Application availability

Magic carpets hide objects in plain sight

2009-06-16T08:20:00.001-07:00

THE latest twist on invisibility cloaks won't hide Harry Potter in the middle of a room, but it might just let spies conceal microphones under the rug or the wallpaper.
So called "carpet cloaks" are the first technology to succeed in hiding objects by deflecting light across a range of wavelengths. Two groups described different cloaks last week at the International Quantum Electronics Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
Invisibility cloaks work by deflecting light waves so the light that reaches the eye shows no trace of the hidden object. Conventional optical materials can't do this, but a dozen years ago John Pendry of Imperial College London showed it was possible to bend light around objects by building materials made of components smaller than the wavelength of the light.
In theory, the principle will work across the electromagnetic spectrum, but early experiments with invisibility cloaks have been done at microwave frequencies, which have wavelengths in the centimetre range, meaning sub-wavelength components are relatively easy to make.
Both new carpet cloaks work in infrared light, which has a wavelength far shorter than microwaves, and provide the first demonstrations of optical cloaking. As they are not limited to a narrow range of wavelengths, in principle the cloaks could hide objects in normal light. Other cloaks, even if scaled down to the optical range, would work only in rooms lit with a single-colour lamp.
The cloaks were made at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Instead of deflecting light waves around an object, both set-ups involve hiding bumps on a thin layer of material. Illuminating the bump from the side would normally cast a dark shadow. But with the cloaks, the light is reflected uniformly so that there is no shadow, and the cloaked surface appears flat (see diagram).
At Berkeley, Jensen Li and colleagues made their invisibility cloak by drilling nanoscale holes into a micrometre-thick layer of silicon. At Cornell, Lucas Gabrielli and colleagues achieved a similar effect by embedding 50-nanometre silicon posts into silicon dioxide.
So far the carpet cloaks only work in two dimensions, but the results are encouraging because the cloaks use only well-known materials and production methods. The demonstrations are "very charming", says Georg von Freymann of the Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. "It looks like real-world applications may come from this."
In the short term, such materials could be used to create new optical devices such as super-lenses for concentrating sunlight. In principle the cloaks might one day hide objects on walls and floors or in satellite images.

Sony VGP-BMS10 Bluetooth Mouse: Knights With Laser Beams

2009-06-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

To protect the meek scrollwheel, the honorable Sony VGP-BMS10 Bluetooth mouse took an oath of loyalty and drew its metal shield. Then a laser was placed in its underbelly to track foe and friend alike.
We can only hope that the VGP-BMS10 is as trustworthy as it looks.
Otherwise, the mouse is just another premium mouse. Featuring an 800dpi sensor, 30-foot range and PC-only compatibility (which seems odd), Sony's optical knight is available now in Japan for $70. And in other news, I must be Jonesing for my first trip to Medieval Times.

Samsung launches solar-powered phone

2009-06-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

Leading mobile handset manufacturer Samsung launched a low-cost solar-powered mobile phone, and said it was planning to introduce about 20 more models by year-end. The new handset, launched under its low-cost line of products -- "Guru" -- at a price of Rs 2,799, has a solar panel on the back, which can be used to charge the battery anywhere the sun is shining. "We have developed this phone keeping in minds the needs of the consumers, especially for people in areas where the electric supply is unstable," said J S Shin, president and chief executive of Samsung, Southwest Asia. The phone, christened the "Guru E1107", can provide around 5-10 minutes of talk-time with one-hour of solar charging when the handset is turned off and sunlight has adequate intensity. "Solar charging can give you enough time to make few important calls when there is no electricity or you are not close to a plug point," said Sunil Dutt, country head of Samsung India. The battery will attain full power with about 40 hours of solar charging. "But that is really not the intention behind the launch of this phone. It is to enable customers to make a call when there is no electricity," said Dutt. The handset, the 11th model in the Guru series, will be in shops by month-end. The first few batches of Guru E1107 will be imported from South Korea. Samsung has already launched about 20 models this year and plans to take this number to about 40 across categories. Asked whether the company would consider introducing solar charging features in high-end phones, Dutt said, "We would definitely consider doing so." Samsung, which has invested about $44 million in developing its mobile manufacturing facility in Noida, also has ambitious plans for the huge Indian mobile market. "Our market share is in the early double digits currently. We plan to increase it by about 5-6 per cent this year," said a company official. The company is also planning to introduce in India its solar-powered touchscreen mobile handset, Blue Earth - unveiled at a technology conference in Barcelona, Spain early this year.

New iPhone IN $199

2009-06-13T03:35:00.000-07:00

New iPhone is here, iPhone 3G S. iPhone 3G S offers as many as 100 new features and more than double the speed of the earliest version. Plus, it comes with a price cut. Seems like users have got all they wanted and wished for in the new gadget. Not really! iPhone 3G S though offers a lot, still leaves a lot wanting. The revamped iPhone disappoints users on many counts, some which were on top of their wishlist for the new iPhone. Here are the 9 things that disappoint many users in iPhone 3G S.

Apple products are known for their design. Apple iPhone too scores high on looks. But a change is always refreshing. So, a change in looks was high on users' wishlist. However, the new iPhone 3G S disappoints with almost nothing new in terms of appearance. The phone looks exactly same like its predecessors with same dimensions and screen display. iPhone 3G S, in both 16GB or 32GB variants, will be available in black and white colour options.

Apple finally upgraded iPhone's camera megapixel. iPhone 3G S offers 3 megapixel camera over 2 megapixel in the previous version. However, 3 megapixel looks pale in front of the higher megapixel camera smartphones that are flooding the market. Recently, world's top cellphone maker Nokia unveiled its second touchscreen phone with 5 megapixel camera (with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash). Other iPhone rivals including Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson boast of a portfolio of higher megapixel camera phones.

Another big miss in the new iPhone is the absence of a standard USB port. iPhone 3G S comes with a proprietary USB connector rather than a microUSB. This means users have to shell out extra money to buy separate cables to use phone's USB features.

Like the all earlier versions iPhone 3G S too does not come with user-replaceable battery. Apple has increased the battery life but it does not still allow users to replace battery when it runs out of juice. Apple had earlier reportedly said that it left out the user-replaceable battery because it adds bulk and weight, but users can't help comparing it with other smartphones.

Though Apple has fulfilled a long time wish by enabling the device to record videos, however, iPhone 3G S still lacks front-facing camera for video conferencing. This means the device is not capable of sending videos across a Wi-Fi or cellular network in real time.
Another disappointment is no upgrade in screen resolution. Apple has made no enhancement in the iPhone 3G S screen resolution, which is same as its 2007 and 2008 predecessors. It has 480 x 320 pixel resolution at 163 ppi, same as the iPhone 3G's. Recently-launched Nokia N97 boast of a wide touchscreen that has a 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels.

As speculated, iPhone 3G S does not support HD (high-definition) content. iPhone 3G S supports 640 x 480 videos as its predecessors and is not capable of playing higher-resolution videos. The phone supports video formats: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480 pixels, 30 frames per second. HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition (SD) video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1280 720 pixels (720p) or 1920 1080 pixels (1080i/1080p).

Another big rumour doing rounds was an iPhone FM transmitter chip. However, it remained a rumour only. iPhone's new model does not offer support for FM Transmitter. Some reports claim that the chip would have enabled faster wireless connection and FM transmission.

Taga Stroller/Bike Combo Might Launch Your Tots Into the Stratosphere

2009-05-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

Bike, stroller or wheeled trebuchet? Whatever it is, the Taga takes kid-carrying in a new direction. I just can't help thinking those two smiling kids are one wheelie away from joining the ISS.
Luckily for the kids, the Taga trike stroller comes with a range of custom safety options and accessories, like the pictured double child seat, car seat, basket, and wooden double-seat trailer. Oh, and it transforms from trike to stroller in a few seconds, which is actually incredibly innovative and convenient. I'm going to go ahead and assume you take little Timmy out first.
The 44 to 64-lb. Taga kit tops off with a Shimano gear system (found on most mid-range bicycles), as well as front, rear, and parking brakes. The whole kit folds down to car trunk size. Again, take Timmy out first.
Europe only for now with a sky-high $2,500 base price.

Comfort Keyboard

2009-05-10T02:45:00.000-07:00

Keyboard Fit into your hand position. Looks very futuristic, looks great. Keyboard can do tri-dimensional swivel and yaw allow literally infinite positioning options for each of the three sections: tilt, rotate, bend, flex, twist, flatten.

LumiGram Bed Cover

2009-05-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

This next product is for those who want one of those “sexy” bedrooms. You know, the type with the silk sheets, the bearskin rugs and the tiger and leopard print blankets.
Yeah, the Luminex Fiber Optic Bed Covers would make a lovely edition to a “love bedroom”. Who wouldn’t be dazzled by bed covers that glow in the dark? Now all that is missing is the Barry White music. “Ooh baby baby, your love’s so good it makes the sheets glow”.
The glow effect is produced by fiber optics sewn directly into the covers themselves, and it has to be plugged into the wall for power. In case you are wondering, this doesn’t work as an electric blanket in the sense that it raises the temperature.
As for how to wash these covers, I believe they are hand washable with natural soap. It doesn’t look like you have to worry about getting these bed covers wet. So if you or your partner spill the champagne, no problem!
You realize that this lightshow will cost you. A 63 x 78.8 inch (160 x 200 cm) cover costs about $660. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t spend that much on my whole honeymoon, and a honeymoon suite is where these sheets belong.
By the way, what is that thing to the left of the pillow in this picture? Is it someone’s leg, or is my imagination playing tricks on me?

GameGrip for the iPhone

2009-05-02T23:19:00.000-07:00

have seen this GameGrip on another blogs, and one of them called it “the world’s most absurd iPhone accessory”. Personally, I think that is a little too harsh.
After all, there are a lot of game apps available for the iPhone right now, so why not create something that makes the iPhone like a SIXAXIS in its shape?
Maybe it’s because we all know that the iPhone may be good, but it hasn’t replaced handhelds like the DS or the PSP. Perhaps I should say that it hasn’t replaced them yet.
After all, Apple has recently announced the downloading of its one billionth app. I’m sure that a high percentage of those downloads were Super Monkey Ball or other gaming programs. If more apps come out that are as good (if not better than) the action games on most handhelds, then the GameGrip should come with some buttons.
As you can see, the GameGrip is hardly portable, unless you got a deep pocket. You can also see how to connect it to the iPhone itself, and it will allow for use of the headphones.
If you are looking for a grip for your iPhone with bright blue silicon grips that are completely sweat-proof, then this is a very useful iPhone accessory. It will cost about $51.

Difference between http & https

2009-02-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

FIRST, MANY PEOPLE ARE UNAWARE OF:
**The main difference between http:// and https:// <HTTPS:///> is.
It's all about keeping you secure**

HTTP stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, which is just a fancy way of saying it's a protocol (a language, in a manner of speaking) for information to be passed back and forth between web servers and clients.

The important thing is the letter S which makes the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.

The S (big surprise) stands for "Secure". If you visit a website or webpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following: http://.

This means that the website is talking to your browser using the regular 'unsecure' language.

In other words, it is possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website.

If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site.

This is why you never ever enter your credit card number in an http website!

But, if the web address begins with https:// <HTTPS:///> , that basically means your computer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on.

You understand why this is so important, right?

If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, you should automatically look to see if the web address begins with https:// <HTTPS:///> .

If it doesn't, there's no way you're going to enter sensitive information like a credit card number.

To re-create the Show desktop icon

2009-02-07T19:49:00.000-08:00

To re-create the Show desktop icon yourself, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type notepad in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. Carefully copy and then paste the following text into the Notepad window:

[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

3. On the File menu, click Save As, and then save the file to your desktop as "Show desktop.scf". The Show desktop icon is created on your desktop.

4. Click and then drag the Show desktop icon to your Quick Launch toolbar.

e-skin

2009-02-07T19:45:00.001-08:00

Researchers from Japan have developed a rubber that is able to conduct electricity well, paving the way for robots with stretchable "e-skin" that can feel heat and pressure like humans.

The material overcomes the problems faced by metals -- which are conductive but do not stretch – which is the first in the world to overcome the problem and rubber, which hardly transmits electricity, according to the team at the University of Tokyo. The new technology is flexible like ordinary rubber but boasts conductivity some 570 times as high as commercially available rubbers filled with carbon particles. If used as wiring, the material can make elastic integrated circuits (ICs), which can be stretched to up to 1.7 times their original size.

One application of the material would be artificial skin on robots as robots enter our everyday life; they need to have sensors everywhere on their bodies like humans. Imagine they bump into babies. Robots need to feel temperatures, heat and pressure like we do to co-exist. Otherwise it would be dangerous. It was also said that the new material could be used on the surface of steering wheels, which would analyze perspiration, body temperature and other data of the driver and judge whether he or she is fit enough to drive or it could be used on top of a mattress for bed-ridden people, watching if some parts of the body were under constant pressure and tilting the bed to change the patient's posture to prevent bedsores

Waseem Khan

Mac Vs. PC: Who's the More Considerate BitTorrent Software Thief?

2009-02-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

TorrentFreak checked some seed and leech numbers of Mac, Windows, and Linux software to see who's got the nicer ratio. The results aren't without issues, but do suggest that Windows users/thieves are more polite.

First, the caveat, and it's definitely a biggie. These numbers don't necessarily point to specifically Mac, Windows, or Linux users: Windows users may download Linux software, Mac users may download Windows software, and so forth. So this is not any kind of ironclad test. But it is a fair assumption that there is a strong correlation between platform and software downloaded, and these numbers are different enough to at least suggest that Windows users do indeed share more than either Mac or Linux users.

The Pirate Bay, the web's largest tracker, was the source used for these numbers, and showed clearly that Windows software share ratio is more than twice that of Mac or Linux, at 2.55. Mac software clocked in at 1.19 and Linux at 1.39.

This information doesn't say anything more than that Windows software is both more popular to pirate (duh, more users and all) and also has a much higher average share ratio. Any conclusions you folks want to draw from that is up to you, but here are a few ready-made conclusions I've composed.

1. Windoze sux.
2. Linux pwns.
3. Mactards are greedy little punks with no consideration for their fellow petty crooks.
4. A test conducted by comparing clients used to download the software would be way more interesting and accurate.
5. Battlestar Galactica was really good this week.

A S K

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