Posts made by Harry Lui

Right Click, select offline. Then remove it on the VM host.

Zero issue here. We also have port 445 and 139 closed at our firewall way before last Friday.

So, I backed up the DHCP on DC1, save it on the virtual drive, then add that virtual drive on DC2, authorized DC2 to be the DHCP server and then restored the DCHP. DCHP is working again!

Will work on DC0 and DC1 tomorrow.

@Dashrender
Only a few pc is still on the old lease. I had to set static IP to most pc that had restarted.

All Site1 and Site2 users are using DC2 for DNS. Site 1 and Site 2 are VPN together.

All users were using DC1 for DNS before.

Ignorance would be the answer to your last question.

All users and exchange inbox are working fine.

I had three locations with three DCs, all are VM guest, and all are server 2008 R2.Site A, DC1. Primary DC, runs DNS, DHCP, and whatever else DC runs.Site B, DC2. Secondary DC, runs DNS, DHCP, File Server, and Printer Server for site B, three employees.Site C, DC3. I'm not sure what it runs, there is no employee working there, so I have not spend any time to look into this.Due to the incident on Tuesday, https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1993055-need-advise-restoring-domain-controller-and-email-ser... , I am left with an
orphaned DC1 that I have kept offline, but I still have access to it and can view DHCP configurations. I made DC2 seize all 5 roles of FSMO, and it is running DNS. DHCP is currently not working on DC2, event 1046 about not authorized to start. The DHCP scope is not setup. I can see the scope on DC1. I didn't touch DC3 at all.

Questions, do I just want to fix the DCHP on DC2 or just build a new DC and run DHCP from there instead?

I plan to:Build a DC0 using DC1's old IP addressAdd DC0 to domain and make it a DC, setup DNS and DCHP scopes

Once DC0 is running good, then delete DC1 from the AD.

Do I have this right? I'm sure I'm missing a few steps. Thanks for your comment.

@Dashrender

On the first call, I was trying to get the Active Directory permission restored from the VM image base backup, then I though I can bring the restored exchange back online. It is just not possible. I tried it, and AD failed immediately with just the restored DC1 being on. It's not the tech's fault for my screw ups.

Second call was to only focusing on Exchange Server, and that ended well.

The conclusion was to abandon Site A's DC1. Make Site B's DC2 a primary DC and seize the FSMO since I screwed up by changing permission, screwed up even more by taking out DC1 and restore it from a VM image backup and MS couldn't help.

Then, I talked to my old boss and an idea came to me, "What if I just call MS for help with Exchange and nothing else." So I spent just over 3 hours on the phone with the support guy from India, Neel Kamal Sharma Engineer -Microsoft Enterprise Communication Support. He was VERY knowledgeable about Exchange. Then we found out the Exchange 2010 we have is only a SP2, which is not supported by MS. He upgrade it to SP3, which took over 90 minutes, then he reconnected the lost mailboxes, set the permissions, and Exchange was running fully again. I restored what I can from GFI archiver so minimal lost on emails.

Though this incident, I learned

1. All our VM guest servers are backed thru Barracuda, which takes snap shot then backup the server. Great for an application server. It does NOT work for DC because once you restore the DC, the GUID changes, and AD on that DC will be broken.

2. Our way of backing up Exchange created logs that continue to take up storage space since the backup does not delete the logs.

3. Hosting internal Exchange can be very dangerous thing, since one wrong permission change can wipe out your entire mailboxes.

and many other things.

I still got a few things I need to fix, but at least email is working now.

Then, I will be proposing some new recommendations to management from what I learn.
Thanks for all those who helped.

Contact Microsoft, even at the worst paying $500 will help you out immensely when you need to do some more advanced AD stuff to restore.

I spent 90 minutes on the phone and for just Microsoft so say setup is unsupported.

@Dashrender said in Need advise, restoring domain controller and email server.:

Well this is a pretty bad situation.
Personally I would open up a ticket with Microsoft for $250 and see what their recommendations are.

New price is now at $499.

@Dashrender said in Need advise, restoring domain controller and email server.:

Well this is a pretty bad situation.
Personally I would open up a ticket with Microsoft for $250 and see what their recommendations are.

URL ?

Would it be a better idea to make DC2 seize the FSMO roles, then copy the security settings from the offline DC1 to DC2, then bring up the Exchange. Once Exchange is verify working, create another server and join it to the domain then promote it to DC. Then use DC2 to do a Force demote on a the offline DC1?

I screwed up and need help!

We have two locations, each have its own domain controller and they are in the same forest. Site A DC just host DC's stuff, DHCP, DNS, and etc. Site B's DC is also a file server, print server, as well as all the dc server's stuff. We have an in house exchange 2010 server at Site A. All three servers are virtual ESXi guest running Server 2008R2, and we also have other servers join to the domains, but they are application servers.

This morning, I noticed the exchange server have only 5% of free space left, I tried to free up some space by deleting old administrators users inbox, but exchange will not let me saying I don't have the permission to do so. Following https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/386021-cannot-delete-ad-user-insufficent-rights-or-protected-from-accidental-deletion

"Tommy6473 Jan 14, 2014 at 4:11 PM 1ST POST
I had the same issue where "Protect object from accidental deletion" was NOT checked, and I still couldn't delete.

Here was the fix I found: In AD Users and Computers, Go to the object's properties > security tab > click Advanced > click "Restore Defaults".

Close out the windows, then try deleting again."

It says to go to the AD, then the object, then security page and reset the security to default, then delete the users. I somehow went the AD security for the object's folder and change the security to "default". Suddenly, 90% of the exchange email inbox were gone from the exchange server.

After tracing my steps to figure out what happened, I restored DC1 to yesterday 7pm backup, then left it off. Use DC2 for DNS so users have at least have internet. I'm in the process of restoring Exchange to the yesterday's 7pm backup now, which will take several more hours before it finish.

My plan is to bring up DC1, then bring up Exchange, make sure they are good to go and have no issue, then I will probably have to rejoin all users computers and applications server to the domain.

Questions I have are,

Does my plan of action sounds alright? We only have 35 users, so rejoin domain won't be too bad.
What do I do with DC2?
How would DC2 react to this restore DC1?
How do I prevent the AD security settings on DC2 to go to DC1? Would they even sync?
How do I keep the file share settings on DC2?
Any things I am missing?

Any and all advise are welcome.
Thank you

I see a lot of mention of diet, but none mentioned life style change.

Diet can only get you so far, once you drop out of that particular diet, the weight comes right, sometimes even more weight is added back on. Weight loss should not be the final goal, the final goal should be maintaining whatever weight that you feel comfortable with, and most need life style change to help you get there, not just a diet here, diet there.

Watch what you eat! Read those nutrition labels! Take a day, add up all the calories you eat that day and see what the number is at! It will be very eye opening, I promise. Try to stay away from processed food, they are filled with sugar, salt, MSG, preservatives, & etc. I try hard not to buy food with ingredients that I can't pronounce.

Stay away places like buffet, or eating out entirely if you can. American restaurant servings are TOO big. Watch these videos. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2809810/Just-large-large-soda-McDonald-s-cup-sizes-vary-globe-biggest-U-S-30oz.html

Stop buying large or even medium size drinks. Get small instead or drink water. No, diet drinks will not help you. You need to cut out your sweet tooth out. Once your taste is back to "normal" instead of "sweet hungry", you will taste a lot more out of life.

DO NOT DRINK fruit juice, EAT the fruit instead. Fruit juice is actually full of sugar, and you do not feel full drinking it, and people usually end up drinking too much.
12 oz
Coca Cola: 140 calories and 40 grams of sugar (10 teaspoons).
Apple juice: 165 calories and 39 grams of sugar (9.8 teaspoons).

https://authoritynutrition.com/fruit-juice-is-just-as-bad-as-soda/

@scottalanmiller said in Verizon's $70 Gig Internet Plan is Actually $200, Oops:

@Harry-Lui said in Verizon's $70 Gig Internet Plan is Actually $200, Oops:

@StrongBad said in Verizon's $70 Gig Internet Plan is Actually $200, Oops:

@scottalanmiller said in Verizon's $70 Gig Internet Plan is Actually $200, Oops:

Good Internet here I'm told is around $6.

What?

Sure not where SAM is.

But

"South Korean homes and the country is rapidly rolling out 1Gbit/s connections or 1,000 Mbit/s, at $20 per month"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_South_Korea

I'm in Kiev.

Would have never guess there.

@StrongBad said in Verizon's $70 Gig Internet Plan is Actually $200, Oops:

@scottalanmiller said in Verizon's $70 Gig Internet Plan is Actually $200, Oops:

Good Internet here I'm told is around $6.

What?

Sure not where SAM is.

But

"South Korean homes and the country is rapidly rolling out 1Gbit/s connections or 1,000 Mbit/s, at $20 per month"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_South_Korea

I never had any luck with WiFi extender. Run the cable would be my first choice.

New or used?

New, whatever with the best warranty that you don't have to support it.

Used, Business laptop with good battery life.

I'd call Synology and see what they say.

@dafyre

Windows 98 boot disk creates a RAM disk to store all its files which also happens to be my first experience with RAM disk. You can also copy the need files off the boot disk to create your own RAM disk in windows.