Server upgrade

I had planned to start a server upgrade this holiday - however due to the NTLDR is missing error message appearing during a server reboot, the upgrade was rushed forward to this afternoon.

After attempting a repair from the Server 2003 install CD (which failed), I decided to swap out the 120GB main drive for another I had lying around. Then whilst the fileserver was re-installing Server 2003, I put the dead drive into an external enclosure and attached it to the new server. Luckily the drive was still alive and I was able to copy the 50GB+ of Virtual Machines to the new server.

To cut a long story short, everything is up and running now, with my setup split across 4 servers now instead of the previous 3. You'll notice a slight speed increase from the upgrade - as the slickhouse homepage now takes around 0.5 seconds to generate, rather than the previous 0.7. I'll look into moving MS SQL Server to a new virtual server, leaving MySQL on its own to occupy the full allocated RAM, in the near future - which may reduce that time even further. The new setup is as follows:

Router:

Backupserver (not always on): Fileserver: Virtualserver: The Virtualserver itself still uses Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005, though I tried installing VMWare's ESXi, but it doesn't support the motherboard's onboard SATA controller (AMD 780G Southbridge). The point to mention is that it can support up to 16GB RAM, using 4 x 4GB modules - however 4GB DDR2 modules are still a rarity. At the moment it's using about 1/2 of the 6GB RAM running 7 virtual machines (all Server 2003 at 256/512 RAM allocation).

I've decided to stick to Virtual Server 2005 for the forseeable future, as it's very quick to get a Virtual Machine back up and running if I encounter another problem like today's. It's simply a case of copying across the vhd and either creating a new machine (pointing to said vhd), or also copying across the vmc file to keep the existing machine's settings.

Separating the 1TB storage from the virtual servers should make storage upgrades easier in the future and also allow for less downtime when carrying out maintenance. Let's see?

comments Posted: Sunday 28th December 2008, 05:16pm
Categories: Computers and Technology, Slickhouse, Web
Tags: microsoft, server-2003, virtual-server

XBOX 360 crashes

Back in June this year, my XBOX displayed the 3 red lights of death in all their glory. Luckily Microsoft repaired the console for free, collecting it from the house and returning it via UPS - all within a week. According to the piece of paper returned with the console, the motherboard was faulty and required a replacement to be installed.

Since then, the XBOX appeared to be fine and also slightly quieter in operation. That was, until about  3 weeks ago. Anneka started watching one of her DVDs - Mamma Mia or something and the XBOX 360 decided to red light once more. However, when I returned that evening and played on a few games the XBOX was absolutely fine, so I thought nothing of it.

Then progressively over the following weeks until today, the XBOX started crashing at different intervals. To begin with, I had started GTA IV all over again, only to have it crash a few missions in. It then crashed again and again - with the time between switching the 360 on and it freezing reduced each time.

Last Friday, I received my Secret Santa present - Mass Effect for the 360! So over the weekend I sat down once Lily was fast asleep to begin a new game. Unfortunately after spending 10 minutes adjusting Shepard's features and skills I was met with yet another frozen screen. I didn't give up though and after a reset I started all over again. However, it crashed another time one I'd decided upon the eye shape. I think in total I tried 10 times, hoping it would improve - but alas, it crashes on demand now.

To prove it wasn't just a dodgy game, today I tried a DVD (which originally displayed the red lights) - and that produced a different result, as the screen became all pixelated prior to the crash - whereas previous crashes displayed a perfect picture, albeit frozen. So, it definately appears to be broken as nothing is playable for more than a couple of minutes.

I went onto the XBOX site and signed in to check my previous repair. Unfortunately the warranty had expired and after reading through their FAQs it appeared that I would have to pay for a repair, unless the red lights appeared.

So, I phoned their support line to argue my case - that they didn't accept anything other than VISA/Mastercard and that I would have to pay, even though the XBOX was clearly faulty. The friendly chap on the other end of the line was on my side and went through multiple different things to try to get the 360 to red light once more. But it just wouldn't budge. I can report that it crashed constantly during the tests, but each one only resulted in a pixelated or frozen screen.

Here I am, with a faulty XBOX 360 a couple of days before Christmas - when I know we'll be needing to watch DVDs, or I'll want to play on a game. Thankfully though, I didn't renew my subscription to Live as it ran out last week. But I know I'll have a game or two from Christmas itching to be played.

Now, I either need to locate a VISA/Mastercard and pay up the £60 repair fee, or look to purchasing a 2nd hand/new XBOX to replace my faulty one. Looking around the 'net an arcade can be picked up for a mere £124.99 and the premium (60GB) for £159.99. Unfortunately, the Elite is still at an Elite price of £225 or so, which makes the repair cost more appealing. What would you opt for?

  1. £60 repair, on an already repaired XBOX?
  2. Another £64.99 for a new replacement?
  3. A further £35 for an upgrade (60GB)?
  4. Or even more for an Elite (120GB/HDMI)?
Choices choices - ones that I don't want to make this side of Christmas...

comments Posted: Tuesday 23rd December 2008, 05:16pm
Categories: Games
Tags: microsoft, xbox-360

Update WordPress author

Like me, many of you may have installed WordPress and begun using it as the default administrator account - admin.

The problem is, you'll later wish you'd created your own user account, which would have been tied in with each of your posts and comments. Up until 2 minutes ago, all my posts were created by admin and all comments written by me had the name admin assigned to them.

There are several options if you're in this scenario - including creating a new account and ensuring all future posts/comments use it or updating all existing records with your new account details. I opted for the 2nd option and began by working out what users were currently in the slickhouse WordPress database:

SELECT ID, user_login FROM wp_users

This will return a list of all IDs and user_logins from the wp_users table within the database. In my case, slickhouse has just the one user - admin. It's then a case of updating the user as necessary. Start by selecting all columns for the previously returned record (which had an ID of 1):

SELECT * FROM wp_users WHERE ID = 1

This returns all columns for the user admin in my case. From the results, I chose to update the following columns:

To do this, you'd run the following SQL command:

UPDATE wp_users SET user_login = 'example', display_name = 'example', user_firstname = 'example', user_lastname = 'example', user_nickname = 'example' WHERE ID = 1

Replace example with what you'd like each column to be updated to. As we've just updated the existing user, there's less work to do - the wp_posts table doesn't need to be touched, as it references the wp_users by the ID field, that hasn't changed. However, wp_comments is a different story and does need updating:

UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_author = 'Example', comment_author_email = 'example@example.com', comment_author_url = 'http://example.com' WHERE user_id = 1

This will update all comments that are associated with your admin account, to the new details. Replace example in the above with all of the information you updated the admin user to previously.

And that should be it! I carried out all of the above using the MySQL Query Browser, which can be downloaded from the MySQL site. One word of warning - ensure you've got a backup of your database prior to carrying out any of the above. Make a note of what you update, so that if you do run into difficulties you can update the records back to what they were originally - or if all else fails, restore from your backup. Again, a backup can be accomplished using the MySQL Administrator.

comments Posted: Monday 22nd December 2008, 05:16pm
Categories: Slickhouse, Web
Tags: mysql, sql, wordpress

Server 2003 permissions issue

Over the last few months I've received the following error message when trying to execute, well, executables stored on my fileserver:

Permissions1

"Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."

As the message suggests, I thought it was to do with permissions, so began trying to solve it by amending permissions on the fileserver, the active directory domain server and the mailserver that this error message was appearing on. I tried everything, from logging on as different active directory users, leaving/joining the domain and re-creating the shares/permissions too. The thing that completely confused my testing was that the non-active directory users didn't see the message (such as the local administrator). Also, logging on as the same user, but on a different server yielded different results - as I was able to execute the .exe without any issues.

After several hours of trawling forum posts with similar issues, I read that some people uninstalled the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration, which seemed to solve things:

Permissions2

This is found within control panel > add/remove programs > windows components. After removing it, the error message still appeared, but I had previously read that executable files are blocked if moved from one location to another, preventing them from being used until unblocked:

Permissions3

If you right-click on the .exe and choose properties - you'll see something similar to the above. Click on unblock and you'll be able to execute the file once again!

So, what originally appeared to be a permissions error, limited to the active directory domain - turned out to be linked to Internet Explorer's Enhanced Security Configuration. I suppose in a production environment you'd trust the share(s) prior to trying to execute files on them, but even so - it just goes to show how unrelated error messages can be!

comments Posted: Sunday 21st December 2008, 05:16pm
Categories: Computers and Technology
Tags: microsoft, permissions, server-2003

Virgin Media 50mb Broadband

Virgin Media has announced their new 50mb Broadband service.

I've checked myself and unfortunately Lincoln isn't able to currently get the increased speed, but Virgin have confirmed that all customers will be able to receive it by Summer 2009!

Price wise, it's £50 standalone, with the price reducing depending on other packages. Our existing 20mb XL package, which also includes V+ and their telephone line comes in at £56, so it's a big price to pay - but could be worth it.

To see if you're able to receive the 50mb broadband in your area, visit Virgin Media.

comments Posted: Monday 15th December 2008, 05:16pm
Categories: Computers and Technology, Links, Web
Tags: broadband, virgin-media