paraDisE beyond the eArTH

I attained the below infrastructure from scratch (a mix of windows 2003 R2 Ent 32bit and 64bit) for our team during mid of 2010

2 Tier MOSS2007 Architecture for both development and production environment

recent: refer also 3Tier Architecture for SP2010

22:23

How to Create Hidden User Account (Hide User Account from Welcome Screen) in Windows

Windows operating system including Windows7, Windows Vista and Windows XP allows multiple user accounts to be created on the computer, be it administrators or standard users. When there is more than one user accounts been defined and created on the PC, Windows will display Welcome Screen, with all available user accounts listed so that user can click and login.

However, showing and displaying of user accounts on the Welcome Screen is probably a weakness in the security point of view, more so if the user account is intended to be a hidden or backup user account. In fact, there is trick to make user account or administrator account that normally been listed on the Welcome Screen to be hidden from view.

In order to hide a user account (which also means create a hidden user account) in Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7, just go to Control Panel User module and create an additional user as usually do (Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Accounts in Windows 7 and Windows Vista). If you already have an existing user that wants to be made hidden, invisible or disappeared from Welcome Screen, then go straight to guide below.

1. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe).
2. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon \SpecialAccounts\UserList

Note: If SpecialAccounts and UserList is not found, create new sub-key and name them accordingly.

3. Select UserList, and in the right pane, right click any blank space, and point to New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

4. Name the new DWORD registry value name as the exact same name that match the name of the user account to be hidden.

For example, if the user ID of the user account is John, the name the registry value as John.

5. Double click on DWORD registry value, and set the value data to 0 in oder to hide the account from Welcome Screen.

Tip: To display the user account on Welcome Screen again so that it's visible again, delete the

registry entry, or set the value data to 1.

6. Exit Registry Editor.

7. Log off or restart computer to make the change effective.

Tip: In order to login into Windows using an user account that has made hidden and invisible, just press Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up Windows Logon dialog, and then type in the user name and password manually.

SQL 2008 R2 'Cluster Name' registration failure .. event ID 1196 and Event ID 1119

this is important for setting up SQL 2008 fail-over cluster.

Check evenlog for the event id 1196 or 1119.

cause :

while creating static record the option "allow any authenticated user to update DNS records with the same owner" was not selected. So, cluster nodes (active node) who will own the cluster name resource won't be able to register this resource record to the DNS database.

Solution:

Go to DNS, find the record ( A & Pointer record) for the cluster name resource.

-right click

-go to properties

-select security make sure the "Authenticated users" are included

-make sure it has "Write: rights and Special permissions

-click Advance, locate authenticated users, and click edit

-make sure, Write all properties, Read permissions, All Validated Writes are selected

-click okay three times to exit

The below script may be helpful in checking the status of huge database activity. The below script will work for any backup or restore that is currently running regardless of which method was used to run the backup or restore.

SELECT session_id as SPID, command, a.text AS Query, start_time, percent_complete, dateadd(second,estimated_completion_time/1000, getdate()) as estimated_completion_time

FROM sys.dm_exec_requests r CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(r.sql_handle) a

WHERE r.command in ('BACKUP DATABASE','RESTORE DATABASE')

percentage of database activity completion and estimated time taken to complete.

Move the citrix access gateway server to a different farm retaining the same database:

simplified..

Step 1: Migrate citrix (CAG) database from SQL 2005 version to SQL 2008 R2

Step 2:
check the farm database server and database name.. in this case database name is qdc-ctx-aac

we need to delete an entry from registry. so go to registry (regedit)

and delete the selected citrixAGEServer registry folder.

IMP: before deleting CitrixAGEServer foler from registry, select citrixAGEServer registry folder and export the file to a safe location.

now we need to chage the server configured value to 0 from 1

before changing MSAM value from registry, take a backup; export the file to a safe location.

double click serverconfigured name change the existing value from 1 to 0.

close registry.

Now its time to move the database to a new server.

Select Programs>>Citrix>>Access Gateway>>Server Configuration

at this instance you will be taken to CAG advanced edition server configuration wizard..

select join an existing access server farm

enter the credentials who has permission to the citrix database server.

enter the new FARM database server name followed by database name.

if you have a separate database server instance, mention for ex.: XYZ-SVR\instance name

access server farm name is the database name itself.

click next

click Next >> Next and Finish the server configuration wizard.

now select Citrix>>Access Gateway>>Server Configuration

you will now see that the farm database server name is joined to the specified new farm.

Move the citrix access gateway server to a NEW access server farm

GUI simplified and short.....

Backup Database:

in this example citrix CAG database (qdc-ctx-aac) is explained.

Rt. click from the DB name to be backed up. select tasks>>backup

select destination disk. click Add button to select destination on disk.

(location C:\CitrixLive\BKP\QDC-CTX-AAC.bak)

under options verify the required selections. under general selection make sure the backup type is Full. and then click ok.

Restoration to a different SQL Server from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 or Denali (SQL 2012)

(same or different OS versions- 32 or 64bit doesn't really matter)

select source for restore.. from device.. click add.. select the location.. (in our case it is C:\CitrixLive\BKP\QDC-CTX-AAC.bak) and click ok.

select restore backup set

select the auto-listed database or provide a new name of the database you need to restore with.. in our case qdc-ctx-aac.

select options page

select restore options

and check the box Overwrite the existing database (with replace) just to make sure you are overwriting a database if that exists, if not no need to select the check box.

restore the database file as:

make sure the data is restored to the write folder; the volume where you actual have space.. can any other drive where you have space. avoid keeping database in C Drive (OS drive). for better performance make Data (.mdf) and Log file (.ldf) in independent drives (if you have more partitioned volumes).

click ok.

migration of database part is almost done from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 or to SQL 2012.

finally Rt. click and select properties of the particular DB.

select Options page.. make sure recovery model is set to Full... and select the compatibility level is set to SQL Server 2008(100)

and then click OK.

setting the permissions is important for the restored database. Existing authorized user will be automatically inherited. if you need to change the permission to a different user, at this instance you need to do it to avoid CAG communication errors.

in our case we gave dB ownership privilege.

that's it.

now you can go back to reconfigure CAG DB move.