In this tutorial I am going to explain how to install and setup Windows Server 2008 Domain Controller and DNS server which can be used as centralized server to keep user information, OU, setting up group policies etc.

1) Go to Start >> Run and type “dcpromo” and press enter.
Server will now start checking if Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) binaries are installed or not; if not, then it will install it. After running “dcpromo” you will get popup like below which will scan the server

2) Once the AD DS binaries are installed, you will get “Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard” like below

Here you will find a option “Use Advance Mode installation” which will show you more options (basically for advance user). You can keep the checkbox unchecked and press Next

3) Next Windows will show some basic information about Microsoft Windows 2008 Active Directory Services. Press Next to continue

4) Choose Deployment Configuration: This windows will allow to add the server to an existing Forest Or to Create a new Domain forest.

Select Create a new domain in a new forest and press Next.

5) Name the Forest Root Domain: Enter the name of the domain (Fully Qualified domain name) which will act as root domain for the AD DS and press Next..

It will take some time to check if the domain is already in use or not.

6) Set Forect Function Level: We would suggest you to read the description of every OS before selecting the option

7) Set Domain Function Level: We would suggest you to read the description of every OS before selecting the option

8) Additional Domain Controller Option: On this window you can select DNS service here. Also as this server is First domain controller in a forest it must have Global Catalog due to which it doesn’t allow you to enable or disable this feature. I want to set this Domain Controller Server as a DNS Server as well, so I have kept the check box beside DNS server selected. Press Next to continue.

Please allow sometime to for DNS configurations and if any DNS warning Pop-Up’s Press Yes to continue

9) Location for Database, Log Files and SYSVOL: In this window you can set the Path for database, log and SYSVOL files. If you don’t want to change it keep them default and Press Next.

10) Directory Services Restore Mode Administrator Password: Enter the Password (& confirm it) which you will use login into Domain Controller.

11) Summary: It will Show you the Summary of all configuration which you have selected. Here you can export the current configuratino whch can be used for any other setup.

12) Installation wizard will install/configure everything on your Server now

13) Reboot: Once the above process gets completed press Finish and reboot the Server.

By default First name of the domain is NETBIOS name. E.g. here I have used domain adtesting.com so that NETBIOS name will be ADTESTING. So, after reboot I have to login into the server I will use “ADTESTING\Administrator” as user and the password which I have used on Step 10.

Proxy server is a computer system or application which is installed on computer system that works as a  acts as an agent or channel for requests from clients looking for resources from other servers. You can check see this post for more information about installation and configuration of Squid Proxy.

Now after installation when you try to check your IP in any site like whatismyip.com it will show that you are using proxy along with the hostname and version of Squid proxy server which is a security concern.

1) Hide Proxy version & server hostname

a) Hide Squid Version

open “/etc/squid/squid.conf” in a editor like vim and search for “httpd_suppress_version_string” and enable it.

Change FROM:

TO:

b) Hide Hostname

Search for “visible_hostname” and change FROM:

TO:

<your desired hostname> will be the name you want to show to world

2) Configure Multiple IP for Squid

Sometime it happens that the Proxy server which you have setup have multiple IP address and you want to configure squid server to use multiple IP addresses (i.e. Systems will show the secondary IP of the server instead of primary). Open squid configuration file; search for “tcp_outgoing_address” and add following

Replace <IP Address> with the IP assigned to your Proxy Server.

Restart Squid Server with command “service squid restart“

Atmail webmail system offers a webmail client, email server platform and mailserver appliance for Linux, Unix and Windows. Plesk 9.x supports Atmail and while sending emails using Atmail every email shows following message in the footer of the email sent.

Msg sent via @Mail - http://atmail.com/

This message is quite irritating and look un-proffestional. This message can be removed by editing AtMail Configuration file which can be located at following location

Plesk Windows: C:\Inetpub\vhosts\webmail\atmail\libs\Atmail\config.php for Win
Plesk Linux: /var/www/atmail/libs/Atmail/Config.php
Normal Location: [Atmail installtion location]/libs/Atmail/Config.php

Search for ‘footer_msg’ option and change the message you want to set OR keep it blank

FROM:
'footer_msg' => 'Msg sent via @Mail - http://atmail.com/',

TO:
'footer_msg' => 'YOUR COMPANY NAME OR ANY TEXT',
OR
'footer_msg' => '',

Restart the webserver.

“QaasWall” is an open-source Firewall for windows which uses IP security policy (IPSec) to block IP address automatically that means users does not need to make any efforts other than running the setup on the server. The word “Qaas” in Arabic means Tough which spells it as ToughWall. After installation all your previous rules (IPSec or Firewall rules) would get disabled and it works in layers which are mentioned below:

1. It will scan all the standard ports DNS, MSSQL, MySQL, SMTP, POP3, HTTP, SSL and Sharing on the server and save its out put in a file, which is saved in the /temp directory, with the info on how many connections does each IP address have on them.

2. Any IP that has more than 100 connection at the time of scan will be blocked using Windows IP security Policy, named “Qaas Policy”. Any IP address that has been already blocked, added in white list file or belong to the server will be ignored.

3. Currently QaasWall creates 2 schedule tasks, QassWall and Qaas Empty, one of it is to scan services every 5 mins and other to delist IP addresses after 24 hours.

4. The IP will remain blocked for 24 hours (max) and Qaas will release the IP address then.. These setting can be changed by rescheduling the Task.

QaasWall also has a white list file where you can add IP that you want to be safe. Any IP that belong to the server or is already blocked or is added in the white list, will be ignored.

This firewall is developed by Eukhost Windows System Administrator Martin to overcome the limitations of Windows Default firewall. He said, “I have been working on how to block IP Addresses on Windows server for 2 years due to the fact that Windows 2003 Server did not have any option in the default firewall to block a single IP address and these is the reason I was curious to create something that would allow us to block a single IP address on the server. Then we found IP security policy which looked a bit complicated and difficult to configure however we managed to master it in no time. We have always faced numerous attack on our Windows server specially a brute force attack on the MSSQL master login “sa” and it use to be a pain in back side to block single IP address every time. This was the only reason (or you can call it a desperate need) why QaasWall was brought to life.”

QaasWall Firewall can be downloaded from source forge.

Sometime while connecting MSSQL 2005 Remotely OR locally using MSSQL Management Studio (using user as SA) it throw following Error

Login failed for user 'sa'. The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18452)

For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&EvtSrc=MSSQLServer&EvtID=18452&LinkId=20476

This Error occurs when SQL Server doesn’t support SQL Server Authentication Mode (Mixed Mode for MSSQL 2000). This issue can be fixed using following Steps:

1) Connect the MSSQL server using Windows Authentication of the server.

2) Right Click on the server name in the tree on the left and go to properties.

3) Click the Security Option. Now under Server authentication Select “SQL Server and Windows Authentication Mode” and press OK.

Now try to connect MSSQL using SA user. Please refer Microsoft KB Article 840219 for more information

In Windows 2008 Components like IIS, DNS etc. are called as Roles and you can add these Roles from Server Manager >> Roles >> Add Roles and then you have to follow the steps to install the desire components. This process is a bit lengthly as you will have to go through the steps. You can automate and eliminate these steps by using Command Line utility called “ServerManagerCmd.exe”.

ServerManagerCmd.exe is a tool or command which Installs and removes roles, role services and features. Also displays the list of all roles, role services, and features available, and shows which are installed on this computer.

Query ROLES

“-query” parameter is used to see all the available and installed ROLES of components on the server. The installed modules are are shown in Green Color (which can bee seen in below image)

Install ROLES

To add additional roles to the server, “-install” or “-i” parameter is used. You can install a ROLE by using “-i” which will install all the components which are required by the component.

Also you can mentioned all the Components separating them with SPACE which will install all the modules you have listed (it will save time)

You can find more information about the ROLES and “Command value” (Component name) on Microsoft Technet Website

Remove ROLES

Roles which are already installed on the server can be removed with the help of “-remove” parameter. Using this, complete ROLE and it’s dependencies will be un-installed from the server.

Additional Options

-version
This parameter is used to check the ServerManager version

-help or -?
Display Help for ServerManagerCmd.exe in the command window.

NOTE: There are some roles which requires Reboot after installation or removal, in such cases you can add “-restart” at the end of install or remove option. This will reboot the server after completion of task if required.

You have prepared a Word Document it might be anything a proposal, quotation, or any writeup for your company and sent it to your seniors for review. They review it and send the updated one to you but now you want to findout the changes or modification they have made OR you are running a Software development company and Business Analyists keep updating documents and you need to find the changes or modification they have made.

Every person who use word documents face such situation when he/she want to compare two documents to check the changes, deletion or modification made. There are many tools available on internet to do the comparision but Micorsoft Word 2007 provides a “compare” feature which will allow the users to compare the two documents and check the modifications.

Following are the steps to compare two documents using MS Word 2007

1) Open MS Word 2007 and go to “Review” Tab >> Click on “Compare” >> “Compare…” (Compare two version of a document)

2) A window asking “Original document” and “Revised Document” (like below)

Browse the Orignal File and Modified file in respective Text boxes and Press “OK“

3) Microsoft Word will show something like

Following windows will be shown

1. Revisions Window: This will show total number of revisions made (including font, alginment, header footer etc.
2. Compared Document: This window will show compared document which will include the changes (dependind upon changes) in different color.
3. Original Document: It will preview the document you have written or prepared
4. Revised Document: This will show the modified or revised document.

Recently I have worked on a project where I have to stream a video on Internet which will be then accessed by the Servers on different locations and those servers will then stream the same video to the sub-ordinate systems simultaneously. Using this we can reduce the Load on Main Streaming Server as well as we can save lot of bandwidth as if all the server/systems connect to the Main server directly bandwidth usage of both the server and the client will be very high.

Scenario:
1) Video will be streamed from a Server on Internet.
2) Many other Servers will connect to the Server.
3) These servers will then stream the same video on their network (e.g. on LAN).
4) Users of local system will access the video from secondary servers.

Following image can explain the Scenario in a better way

Step to Stream Video on Primary Server

Following are the steps to stream a video on Primary Server which can be located on remoter location.

1) Login to the Server and install VLC on it.
2) Open VLC Media Player

3) Go to Media >> Streaming

4) Now add the file which you want to stream and Press Stream

5) Source: On Stream Output screen it will show the Source file; press Next to continue

6) Destination: Add HTTP as new destination which will automatically run on port 8080 and you can activate trans-coding as well. Press Next to continue.

7) Others: You will see miscellaneous options which you can select as per your requirement. Press Stream to start Streaming.

8) VLC will start streaming the Video which you have mentioned.

In Next Article I will explain How to setup Secondary Server and clients to watch live streaming

Sometime due to some technical problems or uncleaned shutdown master database of MSSQL gets corrupted and while starting MSSQL service it throws following Error

Application Log in Event Viewer shows following Error

Cannot recover the master database. SQL Server is unable to run. Restore master from a full backup, repair it, or rebuild it.

The above error shows that the System Database like Master has been corrupted. To fix this issue we need to rebuild the MSSQL system databases from Installation Disk.

1) Insert MSSQL Installation Disk in Optical Disk Drive

2) Go to Command Prompt (Start >> run >> cmd >> Enter)

3) Execute Following Command:

Here, [Instance Name] will be the name of the MSSQL instance you want to set like MSSQLSERVER and [Password] will be the sa password for MSSQL.

Now try to start MSSQL service.

Sometime while connecting to MSSQL Server Configuration Manager it throws following Error

Cannot Connect to WMI Provider. You do not have permissions of the server is unreachable. Note that you can only manage SQL Server 2005 servers with the SQL Server Configuration Manager.
Invalid namespace[0x8004100e]

I have searched on Google and found that it happens when 32bit MSSSQL application is installed on 64bit Server and they suggested to execute the following command to fix the issue.

mofcomp "%programfiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof"

MOF files are appropriate for static management data or dynamic management data. Static data includes details such as the computer user’s phone number, office number, and name. Dynamic data includes details such as Microsoft SQL Server(tm) database sizes and applications installed with Windows Installer.