VSphere Web Cli: change the default language

If you had like me, the experience to work for multinacional companies and have several customers in different countries, you could have the need to support systems on foreign languages.

Recently I had to support a vSphere environment in Germany, and I got confused with the huge names on Web Cli. Here's how you workaround the language issue:


Append the localization parameter to the URL used for accessing the web client:

Note: Languages supported are English, German, French, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

• The default URL for the vSphere Web Client is:
  
  https://client-hostname:9443/vsphere-client
  
• To specify a language, append:
  
  
  • English: /?locale=en_US
  • German: /?locale=de_DE
  • French: /?locale=fr_FR
  • Japanese: /?locale=ja_JP
  • Korean: /?locale=ko_KR
  • Chinese: /?locale=zh_CN
    
• For example, to display the vSphere Web Client in French, use:
  
  https://client-hostname:9443/vsphere-client/?locale=fr_FR

Source: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016403

Install Hadoop 2.2.0 on Ubuntu 12.0.4 LTS

I am starting to learn and study harder on the Big Data and Analytics area. You may notice from now on a shift from this blog from a more Microsoft-centric approach to a more mixed use, Open Source snippets followed by hints on Microsoft services I work with for years.

Let's start with Hadoop!

I will here only post a great tutorial: http://codesfusion.blogspot.com.br/2013/10/setup-hadoop-2x-220-on-ubuntu.html?m=1

This tutorial was applied with a 100% accuracy on Ubuntu 12.0.4. Enjoy!

Change DFS-R default debug logs size and paths

The debug logs are usually left alone and unused... until you have a strange issue in your replication. If you have a contract with Microsoft, bet they will ask you for these logs, and they contain really valuable information, if you decrypt the not easy to understand format and messages.

According to your data size and amount of changes, the defaults are not suitable. If you have TBs of replicated data being modified quite intensely the default values will not be enough, and the 1000 logs retained will last for hours or max one or two days.

So, here the tricks:

1.  How to increase the number of DFS-R debug logs?

The answer is in the following kbarticle:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958893

SETTING: Debug Log Messages

Default: 200000

Range: 1000 to 4294967295 (FFFFFFFF)

WMIC syntax: wmic /namespace:\\root\microsoftdfs path dfsrmachineconfig set maxdebuglogmessages=1000000

How to change the path were they are saved?

SETTING: Debug Log File Path

Default: %windir%\debug

WMIC syntax: wmic /namespace:\\root\microsoftdfs path dfsrmachineconfig set debuglogfilepath="d:\dfsrlogs"

So, with this blog we start 2014! 

Recover a SSL Certificate lost private key on Windows Server 2008 R2

So you get the certificate, import it to the Computer Certificates store, and then you want to use it on IIS or other application which requires a certificate, like, Forefront TMG.

And you notice that your recently added certificate is not there. To recover it, just follow the steps provided by Entrust on this very easy to follow how to: http://www.entrust.net/knowledge-base/technote.cfm?tn=7905

Binding a SSL Certificate to Website Error: HRESULT: 0x80070520

Hello,

today I faced a problem with IIS and Certificates. The error was:

HRESULT: 0x80070520

I found a very good article here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kaushal/archive/2012/10/07/error-hresult-0x80070520-when-adding-ssl-binding-in-iis.aspx

In my specific case the problem was the permissions. I had to remove the certificate and set Administrators as Full Control to 'THIS FOLDER ONLY' and Everyone with Full Control over the entire folder.

After that imported the certificate again and it worked.

I am a bit worried with the Everyone permission, but this was the recommendation from this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee248638%28v=vs.100%29.aspx

And, another problem solved!

Export Installed Updates in Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2

There is a quick command to export in a nice CSV format all installed updates in a Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 system:

1. Open a command prompt

2. Type: wmic qfe get /format:csv >C:\updates.csv

What is the benefit of it? This is a way to build a Changelog to track the changes performed in the system. Each Month or Scheduled update 'day' export the changes, so you can see the history of applied patches.

Find the Shares from your DFS Namespace

DFS Namespace information can be easily exported to a nice XML file with the command:

dfsutil root export \\domain\namespacename C:\Export.xml

But now you have a XML file, which is not the best file type to work with and check important info. Basically what I will show you is a small script in Powershell that parses the XML and return the ONLINE targets sharename, but you can adapt to return the info you need.

# Parsing XML from Namespace
[xml]$dfs = Get-Content output.xml
$output = @()
foreach ($link in $dfs.Root.Link)
{
    if ($link.Name -match "DEEI\\Groups")
    {
        $user = $link.Name.Split("\")


        foreach ($target in $link.Target)
        {
            $shareName = $target.get_InnerXml()
            if ($target.state -eq "ONLINE")
            {       
                $output+=$sharename
            }
        }
    }
}       
$output | Out-File '.\OUTPUT-SHARE.TXT'

The small script above returns all shares which are ONLINE and output them to the OUTPUT-SHARE.TXT. It takes as input the file 'output.xml' which is the xml from the namespace.

Feel free to adapt it. Please let your comment.