Category: Sys Admin

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Sys Admin Systems Center 2012 Windows

Automatic Deployment Rules – Download Failed – System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

I have just started setting up a new System Center 2012 Configuration Manager server to test in my environment came up against an error that really didn’t make any sense at first.

After running the Automatic Deployment Rule it came up with the Error Code 0x87D20417 further investigation inside the logs in (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Logs) found the following entry in the ruleengine.log

Failed to download the update from internet. Error = 5

There was also a status message from SMS_RULE_ENGINE with Severity: Error

Content download failed.
Message: Failed to download one or more content files.
Source: SMS Rule Engine.

When I configured the the new Deployment Package in the “Select deployment package for this automatic deployment rule” section I created a new file share for the package. I set the NTFS permissions as specified in the documentation “Operations and Maintenance for Software Updates in Configuration Manager“.

What I failed to do was allow CHANGE permissions at the share level as I left that at the default READ ONLY setting.

Once I added the CHANGE permission the Automatic Deployment Rule ran and downloaded the software successfully.

Categories
Commvault Sys Admin VMWare

Commvault Simpana 9.0 with Granular File Recovery for Linux under VMWare

I am currently going through the process of installing a brand new Commvault installation. One thing I am evaluating is doing most of my backups via the Virtual Server iDataAgent, this will give me “bare metal” recovery of my VM’s as well as cover my individual file restore requirements. As at Simpana 8 granular file level recovery was only supported for NTFS volumes but with the release of Simpana 9 the documentation has been updated to remove the NTFS requirement. Also a nice little line that also says “Granular file-level recoveries are now supported for Linux-based VMware virtual machines.” under the new features in the documentation for Simpana 9.

So testing begins, and you would imagine given the above information that file-level recoveries for Linux would just work. Problem is it just doesn’t work out of the box, after hours of playing with settings and tick boxes and reading forum posts I finally found the solution I needed to get file-level recovery working.

Ok, so to get Linux backup working you need to add a registry entry on the Virtual Server iDataAgent proxy server (the documentation for which can be found here).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CommVault Systems\Galaxy\Instance001\VirtualServer

Then add the following DWORD value

LinuxMetadataSupport    REG_DWORD    0x00000001

Restart the Commvault agent on the VMWare server for good measure and now take your backup.

As for file system support it seems very limited. I have tested the following setups:

Ubuntu Host
sda1 /boot ext3
sda3 / reiserfs
sda4 /data ext4

Centos Host
LVM2 with partition formatted in ext3

The only file systems that backed up were the EXT3 file systems, LVM appears to be supported as well. One can only assume that EXT2 would be supported, but I haven’t tested this.

Overall this solution can only get better, as more file systems are supported and the option to backup the linux systems on a file level are brought into the GUI it can only get easier from here. Personally I plan on moving forward using the Virtual Server iDataAgent to backup all my VM’s that don’t have special applications on them (ie, database, AD, and Exchange).

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OpenSolaris Sys Admin

Updated snapadm.pl file for ZFS Snapshots

In my post OpenSolaris Backup Solution with Rsync and ZFS Snapshots I provided a link to a script from Sun – snapadm.pl. I found a bug where if you were using the recursive function then the old snapshots would never be destroyed as they were incorrectly named.

I have updated the snapadm.pl file contained in my post and have also provided a download link here.

Download:

Read on for more details:

Continue reading “Updated snapadm.pl file for ZFS Snapshots”
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OpenSolaris Sys Admin

OpenSolaris Backup Solution with Rsync and ZFS Snapshots

I have recently been forced to learn how to admin an OpenSolaris machine with ZFS filesystems. After doing some reading on ZFS, I realised how using snapshots with an rsync server would make an excellent backup solution.

Using several scripts to control rsync and the snapshots has allowed me to setup a system that has data retention periods applied and only uses the space on disk required to keep the changed files. Cloning a ZFS snapshot from a week ago (or even six months ago) allows you to create a synthetic full backup from the point in time the backup was taken.

Continue reading “OpenSolaris Backup Solution with Rsync and ZFS Snapshots”
Categories
Exchange Sys Admin Windows

Exchange System Manager Tools on Windows 7 – The Easy Way

Since my migration to Windows 7 there have still been a few things missing that would be nice to have. One of those is the Exchange System Manager tools. There are ways and methods out there to getting this to work but most will involve uninstalling outlook and reinstalling after you have installed ESM tools.

I have been waiting for the ESM tools for Exchange 2010 to hopefully work with Exchange 2003 but that hasn’t happened either. Although I did find a really quick and easy solution this morning after reading the following posts on TechNet (Exchange System Manager for exchange 2003)

You will need to download the Exchange System Manager for Windows Vista then use something like WinRAR to extract the contents.

You will also need to make sure you already have the RSAT tools installed (Remote Server Admin Tools)

Finally open up a Command Prompt as Administrator. Browse to the directory that contains the ESMVISTA.MSI file. Run the following:

ESMVISTA.MSI /q

Once this is done you should be able to open the “Active Directory and Computers” and edit an Exchange User with all the required email tabs.