Aaron's Little Corner of the World

What is up with MySQL

2009-07-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

So I am having this major issue with MySQL. I have a fresh install of CentOS on my system. I am trying to get MySQL to install and get configured properly so i can test some things like the new versions of Cacti and a couple other things.

For some reason, even though it is a fresh install of MySQL, i am unable to do anything. the minute i try and get into the system i get the wonderful message of
ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user ''@'localhost' to database 'mysql'

This is driving me nuts. I have tried following the steps to force a new password, and nothing seems to work. Can anyone offer any assistance.

I would love to get this up and running so i can get my testing done before everyone comes back to the office next week and things get busy again.

Thanks much

app

Exchange still hates me but now i may be getting somewhere

2009-05-07T14:50:00.001-07:00

Well, apparently we have some corruption somewhere in our Exchange organization. I ran this command:

Get-MailPublicFolder | Sort-Object -property Alias | Select-Object -property 'Alias', 'Identity' |fl

And the first thing i see is this wonderful error:

WARNING: Object corp.COMP.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Offline Address Book - First Administrative Group has been
corrupted and it is in an inconsistent state. The following validation errors have occurred:
WARNING: "Offline Address Book - First Administrative Group" is not valid for Alias. Valid values are: Strings formed with
characters from a to z (uppercase or lowercase), digits from 0 to 9, !, #, $, %, &, ', *, +, -, /, =, ?, ^, _, `, {, |, } or
~. One or more periods may be embedded in an alias, but each one of them should be preceded and followed by at least one of
the other characters. Unicode characters from U+00A1 to U+00FF are also valid in an alias, but they will be mapped to a
best-fit US-ASCII string in the email address which is generated from such an alias.

I guess i will be calling Microsoft in the morning and using one of those wonderful support incidents we have.

I will let people know what the results are.

app

Why Does Exchange Hate me...

2009-05-07T12:45:00.001-07:00

What the hell is going on with my exchange server!!! My Global Address List is showing two entries for the group Support. When I open the items to get the details for each entry it shows one has an email address of support@COMPANYNAME.com and the other has support2@COMPANYNAME.com. This is causing issues for my users when they try and send an email to Support, support2@COMPANYNAME.com shouldn't exist.

They both have the icon of being a public folder. Armed with this knowledge, I took the time to comb through my Public Folder structure (well over 500 mail enabled folders) and we couldn't find the culprit. Failing the manual process (don't ask me why I tried the hard way first, but I did) I turned to PowerShell. Using PowerGui, in conjunction with the Exchange Management shell, I browsed the Mail Enabled Public Folders using the command
get-mailPublicFolder |Sort-Object -Property 'Alias'

Using this command, I found the two entries. I see one located at
corp.COMP.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Support THIS IS THE GOOD ONE

and the other one is located at
corp.COMP.com/Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Support 76405063 THE BAD ONE.

Armed with this info, I turned to PowerShell and ran the following command:
Get-MailPublicFolder | where { $_.Name -eq 'Support 76405063'} | Remove-PublicFolder -Confirm
running that, i got this wonderful message:
# WARNING: There is no existing PublicFolder that matches the following Identity: '/O=COMPANY/OU=EXCHANGE ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=SUPPORT98FAB85E4D0DF6C75D9FF78950567A5F351BA6'. Please make sure that you specified the correct PublicFolder Identity and that you have the necessary permissions to view PublicFolder.
#

WTF!!!!

So i thought, OK, lets try and hide the folder from the GAL, so i ran:
Get-MailPublicFolder | where { $_.Name -eq 'Support 76405063'} | Set-MailPublicFolder -HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled $true

SAME PROBLEM.

Does anyone have any thoughts to what could be causing this?

Any help would be appreciated.

app

Exporting Physical Drive letters via PowerShell

2009-04-24T08:37:00.001-07:00

I am diving back into PowerShell today. I need to see if i can figure out a way to feed a list of Server names and IP addresses to PowerShell and have it export to CSV all of the available drive letters for the system. If anyone can assist, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks much

Is the monitoring system working when it isn't monitoring what it is supposed to?

2009-04-24T08:28:00.001-07:00

I found out something interesting today. The monitoring system we use (Nagios) is not monitoring everything that it is supposed to for any of my servers. When my networking/Linux team set the system up, they asked for a list of servers and their IP addresses that needed to be monitored. I provided the requested list and off they went to add my 130+ systems. I asked if they needed a list of drives etc to monitor, and they said no, they should be able to scan the systems and add all available drives. I would need to tweak things a little, in case there were USB drives attached that were temporary, but that is all.

So off we went along our merry way.

Yesterday, I found out the not so fun way, that apparently they didn't have the ability to scan the systems for all drive letters to monitor, and were only monitoring the C drives. I found this out because a user at one of my remote offices said he could save something to their network drive. I logged on and the 1.5TB drive had 15MB free. yes, 15MB free!!!!

I proceeded to get screamed at why aren't we monitoring these systems, this is a critical system, what would have happened if it crashed and we lost all the data, etc, etc, etc. I was still under the impression that it was being monitored, but when i went to look, only the C drive, none of the other 4 drives are being monitored.

So my question, if a monitoring system is not monitoring what it is supposed to, is it still working?

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Problems with PowerShell and Connect-VIServer

2009-03-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

I am running into a problem when trying to connect to a VMWare Infrastructure client that is listening on a non-standard TCP port. Due to other things that are installed on this server, port 443 is not available, so i have the Infrastructure client listening on 8843, but when I issue a connect-VIServer SSV-MGMT:8843, which has worked in the past, i get the following:

Connect-VIServer : Invalid URI: A port was expected because of there is a colon (':') present but the port could not be parsed.
At line:1 char:17
+ connect-VIServer <<<< ssv-mgmt:8843

This started happening after i updated my VMWare PowerShell tool kit to the latest version.

I can run that command against other VMWare servers that are listening on the standard port, but this one is giving me fits. Any thoughts?

app

Century Ride

2008-08-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I registered for my first Century ride. I guess that means that i need to start training. I will be doing a ride with the Davis Cycling club, called Foxy's Fall Century http://www.davisbikeclub.org/foxys/2008/index.htm . I used to ride all the time, but that was when I was 16 or 17. Now I have a family, and work full time. This is going to take some training, but now that I have registered, I have a goal to work towards.

Danielle and I are also going to register for the Napa mini-triathlon next year. It is a 1/2 mile swim, 15 mile bike ride, and a 4 mile run. Now that will require training, but I know that we can do it. http://www.envirosports.com/events/event.php?eventid=2566

I will keep you posted.

app