Windows 2003 DNS search order error

I keep running into an issue in our environment where by changing the DNS search order I can get a machine to login to the domain. However, other machines are on the same domain and have no problem logging into the domain.

For example, I have machine1 with the following DNS search order:
DNS1
DNS2

At times, I won’t be able to login; it says the domain is not available. So I login as the local administrator, change the search order to:
DNS2
DNS1

Then I log out, and then log back in as my domain user. No problem. Except this is a stupid solution and even then it doesn’t always work.

I’ve looked at our DNS server and the Active Directory configuration, but I don’t see anything wrong…

On top of this issue, there are times where I can log in as my domain user, yet when I go into the User Groups I can not see the domain object, but instead only see the local computer objects. So at times I can’t add other users to the proper groups because its as if it can’t see the Active Directory….even though I’m logged into the domain with my domain user!

This is becoming a big issue since the Clustering service needs access to the domain account I created for it.

anybody got any ideas? (please refrain from the usual anti-Windows suggestions…you know who you are)

Update: EDL 4100 and NetWorker 7.4 sp2

So previously I mentioned that I chose a generic Medium Changer. I have since learned that this is not necessary; it was only the drives that needed to be generic.

EDL 4100 and NetWorker 7.4 sp2

So I was tasked with creating a Windows 2003 Enterprise server environment so that we could install EMC NetWorker. Since we don’t have a lot of reliable tape options I decided to use the EDL(EMC Disk Library). I like using the EDL when I can since I think its a great idea(its a Virtual Tape Library).

Anyway, I created an ADIC I2000 virtual library with 2 IBM Ultrium LTO3 drives. I added my SAN client and everything looked good from that perspective.

Now I log in to my Windows box and I am pleasantly surprised to see that it has detected the correct Medium Changer in the Device Manager. I then proceed to run the install.exe for the IBM drives that I found on the IBM ftp site. Everything completed ok. I rebooted for good measure.

Now, after the reboot, I open the Networker Management Console(7.4 sp2). I login, go to Devices and see the library, however the drives are not discovered. I run the “Scan for devices…” and then check the logs tab in the Monitoring view. There are several entries, one in particular says that it sees the drives, but that the wrong driver is installed. Weird. OK, now what? I check Device Manager again and make sure that there are no errors there. Everything looks good. hmmmm…..I open C:\Program Files\Legato\nsr\bin and type the inquire command:

scsidev@2.0.0:ADIC Scalar i2000 100A|Autochanger (Jukebox)
S/N: XXXXXXXXXX
ATNN=ADIC Scalar i2000 XXXXXXXXXX
Virtual device
scsidev@2.0.1:IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 54K1|Tape
S/N: XXXXXXXXXX
ATNN=IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 XXXXXXXXX
Virtual device
scsidev@2.0.2:IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 54K1|Tape
S/N: XXXXXXXXX
ATNN=IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 XXXXXXXXX

So from this I notice that it sees the drives, but there is no drive path. So after searching the web for a while, I did come across an idea which I tried. The suggestion was to use the most generic drivers that Windows has. So I tried this and it worked. In Device Manager for Medium Changers I now have “Unknown Medium Changer”. For the Tape Drives, I chose to update the driver by manually looking for the driver from the “Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install.” Within this menu I did not see an IBM entry for manufacturer, so I chose LTO. This gave me only one option: LTO Tape Drive. So I chose that, and proceeded. No errors occurred, so I rebooted for good measure.

After logging in, I went straight to the inquire command to see what it now saw:

scsidev@2.0.0:ADIC Scalar i2000 100A|Autochanger (Jukebox)
S/N: XXXXXXXXXX
ATNN=ADIC Scalar i2000 XXXXXXXXXX
Virtual device
scsidev@2.0.1:IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 54K1|Tape, \\.\Tape0
S/N: XXXXXXXXXX
ATNN=IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 XXXXXXXXX
Virtual device
scsidev@2.0.2:IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 54K1|Tape, \\.\Tape1
S/N: XXXXXXXXX
ATNN=IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 XXXXXXXXX

Notice the drive path, \\.\TapeX, is now listed. I opened up NetWorker and went to Devices. I opened the Libraries folder and now see the ADICI2k, as well as the drives. If I place the focus on the Library itself, I can see a list of the drives and the media available to those drives.

At this point I am pretty confident that this is going to work, so I’ll leave it here for now until the test team can take a look and see if this is going to work.

60 Days for 60 Years

On Monday we started reading this book, 60 Days for 60 Years: Israel A Commemoration and Celebration. Its a book that has 60 essays written by various authors. Each essay talks about different aspects of Jewish life, history and practice with respect to Israel.

Why 60 days? Well, we are approaching the 60th anniversary of the creation of the modern state of Israel, Yom Ha’atzma’ut, on May 8th, 2008.  After recently finishing The Arab-Israeli Wars by Chaim Herzog I have a new found understanding of what miracles were achieved to make the state a reality. Also I’ve been listening to the Crash Course in Jewish history by Rabbi Ken Spiro(http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/) which has also shed some light on how miraculous and unprecedented in history it is for a people to be exiled for 2000 years and then return to their land.

While reading the essays, we are suppose to have in mind all those who have fallen in defense of the state, as well as those innocent civilians murdered by brutal terrorists.

Artisans and Kings

A few weeks ago, we went to the Denver Art Museum to check out the gallery titled Artisans and Kings. It was only in town until January 6th, so if you didn’t go, too bad.

The gallery was jam packed from the moment it opened, and when we left there was a line out the door and crossing the nearby street.

I liked what was on display, although I was expecting more portraits. There seemed to be a lot of drawings that Louis XIV had “collected.” (I put this in quotes because he confiscated large collections from people). There was also quite a bit of furniture and tapestries. I don’t know too much about the period in question, so maybe this was to be expected.

Anyway, I learned more about this time period which helped me to understand the incredible amount of decadence. Apparently the kings fancied themselves as descendants of the Roman emperors, and therefore they were entitled to ridiculously disgusting levels of decadence.

It was nice to see the art museum bring this to Denver. The next big show I want to see will be the impressionists.

V-day

Last night Venessa and I went and saw the Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy at the Temple Buell Theater. Those people are amazing athletes. The show was very enjoyable and actually made me cringe at times due to the dangerous nature of what they were doing.

The costuming was great and the sense of wonder filled the air. It was truly a great show with a lot of theatrical elements. Parts of the show were infused with comedy and there was also some singing.  I wasn’t too impressed with the singing narrator, but thankfully those moments weren’t too long.

The venue was great as well. We had been there before to see the Nutcracker ballet. This time we were up higher in the seating, but this turned out to be a good thing so that we could see all the stage easily and not get too focused on one area(There are times  during the show when multiple performers are on stage performing different routines, yet somehow managing to look integrated.)

All in all, it was a great experience and I highly recommend it if you get a chance.

Book club

I’ve been reading several different books simultaneously because I get bored easily. The three I am currently reading are: The Arab-Israeli Wars by Chaim Herzog, The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder and The Path of the Just(Mesilat Yesharim) by Rabbi Chaim Moshe Luzatto.

Thus far they are all pretty good. The first book mentioned is an in depth look at the military strategy and tactics implemented by the Arabs and Israelis. Its really interesting to see how the battles unfolded and to also learn about the great Generals and how they became great. It also gives an interesting insight into how different each side operates. The Arabs always seemed to be influenced by the Soviet Union in their tactics. The defensive lines implemented were always textbook in application and once the Israelis had them scrambling, they were not able to adapt quickly enough. This is the essence of the Israeli tactics. The Israelis can not afford to be in a protracted war over a long period of time and as a result they have always decisively put their enemies on their heels as quickly as possible. Unfortunately it seems as if their enemies have learned and are now engaging the Israelis in a low-level war of attrition. The Israelis are not able to implement their usual tactics and are suffering now due to an ineffective plan derived from an incredibly inept leadership.

The second book mentioned is nice diversion for someone like me who has only recently(last five years or so) returned to religion, specifically Judaism. Having spent the majority of my adult life as a secular individual, I had all the common ideas of religion derived from science and “common sense.” But after immersing myself in different disciplines of Jewish study, I have learned that my previous thoughts were amateur at best. Most of us learn about religion as children and then grow up with these same childish lessons as our only exposure to religion. So as an adult if you hold beliefs based on the stories you learned as a child, it is no wonder that you will question religion as an adult. But if you spend time studying as an adult, you will learn so much more about religion, but also yourself and the society in which you live. This book is written by an MIT educated physicist. He analyzes many systems in the natural world and helps to understand how these systems work, but in the process you start to realize that none of it could have occurred randomly and on its own. He has written many books, like Genesis and the Big Bang. I also read The Hidden Face of God, which has a slightly less amount of scientific jargon. Anyway, for someone who likes science and theology, this author is a pretty good read.

The final book mentioned is turning out to be a favorite. It was written in the 1700’s by a prodigy of the times. Rabbi Luzatto was very accomplished at a young age. This book, The Path of the Just, is a book about character development. In the introduction he basically tells you that he is not teaching you anything you do not already know; instead he is reminding us that our pursuits should not overshadow our character development. Thus far, it is really interesting to see how insightful he really was about humanity. Another book of his, Derech Hashem(The Way of God), is a classic. One day I might read it again and be able to write about it more clearly than my current understanding of his works.

Anyway, I recommend all three at this time and will probably write some other comments related to all three as time goes on.

Gains eclipsed by SUN experience

I work on computers daily. Sometimes they cooperate, but I have noticed I get more resistance from SUN machines. Granted we have machines that were built 8 years ago, but I can’t imagine they were any easier to use back then. For instance upgrading the OS from Solaris 8 to 10 seems to be a feat that only superhumans can achieve or my co-worker….whom by the way dislikes inappropriate use of ellipses….but I digress.

I recently found a box of RAM in one of our storage rooms and decided to “upgrade” our junky (SUNky?) ancient machines. The installation was fairly painless. I also salvaged 2 CPU’s from a really dead machine and installed them into the machine. So now it has a whopping 4gb of memory and 4 Ultra-sparc II processors. Whoa, that sounds like a great improvement, the benefits must surely outweigh any faults during the install process, right? The time and effort saved with be incalculable. If only that were true….

What did my efforts buy me? I can now go from zero to really frustrated a lot faster than before. Thanks SUN.

sorry

ok ok ok, so I know its been a while since I last wrote, but I’m bored and was never really good at journaling unless I had to for an English class. I’ve got some ideas about having a weekly topic just to make sure that I get at least one entry in per week.

Estes Park snowshoeing

Endovalley, RMNPOriginally uploaded by bleffler

On Tuesday we drove into Rocky Mountain National Park over to the Bear Lake trailhead. We snowshoed up to Emerald lake, which was about 1.8 miles one way. It was a little more aggressive in some spots than what we were use to. Last year we went to the same trailhead, but went to Lake Bierstadt. That trail was nice and was downhill initially.

On Wednesday we drove back into the park and went to the Lawn Lake trailhead. We hiked up about 1.4 miles to where the trail splits. At that point you can go to either Ypsilon Lake or Lawn Lake. We didn’t go to either lake because they were a few more miles away. Lawn Lake has some interesting history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_Lake_Dam

At an early stage of this trail, we came across some blood drops that accompanied a set of tracks that belonged to a Mountain Lion. The tracks zig-zagged across the trail several times until we finally saw them leading to a small rock outcropping. We were really intrigued by this because the night before we were watching one of those nature programs on big cats of the world.