If you are considering giving your Active Directory name just a single level name, don't do it. Just stop and pick a new name. If your already stuck with a single level AD domain, I feel your pain. I see the warning now when I try to fix my problems after the fact.
So whats the big deal? Windows XP and Server 2003 do not update DNS records to a single level domain. They also have issues joining a domain cross subnet. Our biggest problems show up when dealing with more then one subnet.
The main problem is that DNS will be missing records. Domain controllers have lots of integration with DNS. So if one of those is not updating its DNS records, you have a huge mess. Domain controllers failing to replicate was our big issue. Every time we added a domain controller, we ended up rebuilding the DNS records by hand. Adding the new server keys where needed. Most of the time replication would work one way but not the other. Fixing DNS fixed replication.
Over time I have uncovered more documentation and most importantly this registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]"UpdateTopLevelDomainZones"=dword:00000001
I run this on every server just to make sure. Once you run this, you will have to reboot the server so the netlogon process can register the DNS.
You can run this on your workstations if you want them in your DNS too. we opted not to for most of ours.
I believe there is now a group policy setting that sets the same value. But I do not recall where it is. If I find it, I will update this post.
The second big issue we ran into was we could not join the domain from the other subnets. In XP and 2003, Microsoft changed them to use DNS more. The computer could see the domain and tell you that it exists. It would even point out that the SRV records in DNS are correct. But it would fail to join. At some point in the process it sees the single level domain name and used netbios instead of DNS. It would work fine if on the same subnet, but with out a wins server or lmhost file it would fail.
For the longest time, we used a lmhost file to point to the domain. We built it into the default ghost image and it worked great. Then came the network restructure that ended up changing our IP range. Evey one of those file we used in the last several years had to be updated. The symptom was a 10 min login on those computers for existing users on the computer.
Here is a sample of what we put in the lmhost file
10.0.0.1 servername1 #PRE #DOM:doaminname
10.0.0.2 servername2 #PRE #DOM:domainname
10.0.0.1 "domainname \0x1b" #PRE
10.0.0.2 "domainname \0x1b" #PRE
Inside the quotes on the bottom line must be exactly 20 characters or it won't work.After saving the changes to the LMHOSTS file you have to enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP and import theLMHOSTS file.
The correct way to do this would be to set up a wins server. One experiment that I tried was to put one of the domain controllers address as the wins server and it solved our import issue. The only thing we needed a wins server for was to join computers to the domain on a different subnet. By telling the computer that the domain controller is the wins server, it was able to find it and import just fine.
So our work around was to run a registry hack on every server so they update DNS and to put in a fake wins server address that points to our domain controller for workstation importing.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Ventrilo - Ranks and Mute/Queue Options
There are lots of reasons you may or may not want to give users their own accounts on your vent server. I use it to give me more control over a large group. Let me give you an example.
I play alot of World of Warcraft and our raid groups have 25 members. A few need to be able to talk all the time while others just talk all the time and don't stop. If you get alot of people telling everyone how to do something their special way, it just makes it more complicated for everyone else.
So I have a raid channel set up that mutes all guests to that channel. All guild members have an account so they can talk. New and random people to the group we keep silent. We want them to listen to our method. If they have a sugestion, they can send it silently to a raid leader in game to relay to the group. This option is in the channel options under "Disable Guest Account Transmitting". Checking this will keep all guests from broadcasting in that channel.
Another thing you can do is give each member a rank and mute low ranked members in a channel. I experimented with this but it does not work as smooth as I would like it to work. Im taling about the voice mode on the channel. The default option is normal that allows all ranks to talk. The other 2 options are Queued and Muted. The each act a little different but will keep ranks under a set level from broadcasting.
Queued: This one will mute everyone else while someone is talking. So only one person can broadcast at a time. It uses the Transmit Rank Level to only allow set ranks to broadcast at all. The person that gets the mic keeps it until he stops broadcasting. Once he stops, the next new broadcast gets it. The catch is if someone starts to broadcast just before they last person has released his mic, they will stay muted. I don't like this setting because someone could think they are eaying something important, but because they never got the green light it never broadcasted. I feel like I have to watch vent on a 2nd monitor to use this. The exception here is if you only have one person that will ever talk in this setting. You can adjust this setting on the fly.
I play alot of World of Warcraft and our raid groups have 25 members. A few need to be able to talk all the time while others just talk all the time and don't stop. If you get alot of people telling everyone how to do something their special way, it just makes it more complicated for everyone else.
So I have a raid channel set up that mutes all guests to that channel. All guild members have an account so they can talk. New and random people to the group we keep silent. We want them to listen to our method. If they have a sugestion, they can send it silently to a raid leader in game to relay to the group. This option is in the channel options under "Disable Guest Account Transmitting". Checking this will keep all guests from broadcasting in that channel.
Another thing you can do is give each member a rank and mute low ranked members in a channel. I experimented with this but it does not work as smooth as I would like it to work. Im taling about the voice mode on the channel. The default option is normal that allows all ranks to talk. The other 2 options are Queued and Muted. The each act a little different but will keep ranks under a set level from broadcasting.
Queued: This one will mute everyone else while someone is talking. So only one person can broadcast at a time. It uses the Transmit Rank Level to only allow set ranks to broadcast at all. The person that gets the mic keeps it until he stops broadcasting. Once he stops, the next new broadcast gets it. The catch is if someone starts to broadcast just before they last person has released his mic, they will stay muted. I don't like this setting because someone could think they are eaying something important, but because they never got the green light it never broadcasted. I feel like I have to watch vent on a 2nd monitor to use this. The exception here is if you only have one person that will ever talk in this setting. You can adjust this setting on the fly.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Ventrilo - How to connect?
Ventrilo is a very popular voice chat program. It is used with many games to cordinate the actions of many players at once. The first step to using Vent is to get connected.
First step is to create a user name. This is the name that everyone will see when you connect. You can create a phonetic for it so it will announce when you join or leave the channel to everyone there (that have not turned that annoying feature off). Be respectfull with that because it follows you from server to server and its easy to forget you have one set up.
If its a new connection, you will need to add the server before you can connect to it. You will usualy be provided a server/port/password to enter. If they do not provide a password, you prabably do not need one.
The server can be a port or an IP address. It can look like guild.typefrag.com or 10.120.34.4. You may see the port number attached to the server name with a colin. If the port number is 12345 its possible it can look like this; guild.typefrag.com:12345 or 10.120.34.4:12345. If you are not given a port number, look closer at the sever name.
Once you add the server you can click connect. If everything is correct, you should find yourself in the root channel. From here you can double click on a channel to join it.
First step is to create a user name. This is the name that everyone will see when you connect. You can create a phonetic for it so it will announce when you join or leave the channel to everyone there (that have not turned that annoying feature off). Be respectfull with that because it follows you from server to server and its easy to forget you have one set up.
If its a new connection, you will need to add the server before you can connect to it. You will usualy be provided a server/port/password to enter. If they do not provide a password, you prabably do not need one.
The server can be a port or an IP address. It can look like guild.typefrag.com or 10.120.34.4. You may see the port number attached to the server name with a colin. If the port number is 12345 its possible it can look like this; guild.typefrag.com:12345 or 10.120.34.4:12345. If you are not given a port number, look closer at the sever name.
Once you add the server you can click connect. If everything is correct, you should find yourself in the root channel. From here you can double click on a channel to join it.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Ventrilo Guide on its way
I am doing alot of work with Ventrilo and finding the information available on the features I wan't to use either don't exist or are hard to find. It's my plan to document some of these things to make it easier for others.
For now check out this guide: http://www.trap17.com/forums/Ventrilo-Gamers-Friends-t61530.html
For now check out this guide: http://www.trap17.com/forums/Ventrilo-Gamers-Friends-t61530.html
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
KTT: Damage Meter AoC Combat Log Processing
I wrote little mod to track damage stats for Age of Conan when I first started playing it. There was another damage meter at the time, but it didn't have the look and feel that I wanted. Over time I added more and more features and started several others. In the end I stoped playing Age of Conan and stoped maintaining the mod.
My core features were stable on my last release and I have watched it from a distance as people continue to download it. I can't it does not have bugs and many of my newer features are more proof of concept that show what can be done.
How did I gather dps stats?
The first big roadblock was the fact that Age of Conan did not have true mod support. It did however have a feature I could use to my advantage. AoC would generate a plain text file in realtime that contained the combat log. Every attack, heal, buff, debuff, and xp gain was recorded in that file. That one feature gave me a world of options and features that could be implemented.
Getting the correct file:
The log file was located in a sub folder within the AoC directory. During install, a registry key is set to the install path of AoC. The logs were named in such a way that an alpha sort would get me to the correct ime. On first scan of the directory, I grab the logical file and set a marker to the end of it. I start at the end of the file to exclude old stats. I assume that starting KTT is when stat collection should start.
I also add a watch on the folder for new files getting created. There are times when KTT will be running already before the logfile gets created. If I did not watch for new files it would be stuck on the old one and never collect any stats.
Processing the log:
Twice a second I reopen that file. From the marker to the end of the file, I add every plain text line into a queue. The marker is updated with the end of file and the file is closed. I had to open the file in a read only non locking stream so it did not cause issues with AoC writing to that same file. I used the queue so I could collect the data as fast as possible and get that file closed as fast as possible.
I would then work that queue with regular expression to pull out the various values and actions. I ended up with a fairly complicated regex query that did most of the work for me. I found 4 distinct sentence structures that indicate source, target, action, and a value. AoC made the combat log in sentences that were proper English that even reflected 2nd person when needed. While it sounds nice when read out loud, it creates a lot more work when writing a parser. So the regex ended up to be 4 page widths long but I didn't have to post process any of the values.
Once each line was processed into an action object, it was then placed on another queue. I used a queue her so I could multi thread the log reading/parsing away from the rest of the application. As I work this queue I would pass the object off to the plugin framework. The damage meter plugin would flatten that stats as it received them. When calculating total damage, I just add the damage on the fly so the reporting side can just report the precalculated total. (vs summing the damage every time I want to report it). I did this for any stat that I could think of.
Because I compressed the stats like this, I could keep the queue clear of actions. The point of this is my memory usage is only as wide as the number of stats I'm recording and not as large as the log file. During a large raid, the log file can grow to very large sizes very quickly. While KTT will jump in size very quickly as it sees a stat for the first time, as that stat is repeated over and over many times in the log, it will not take much additional memory.
In closing:
I may do little write ups on other features of my mod (or its potential) later. I wrote this for other mod writers. To show them that with very simple things and ideas you can do some very cool things. While I may not have described the best way to do something, it still worked very well for me. The mod is listed as KTT Damage Meter, KoS, Timers, & Sounds over at curse.com.
My core features were stable on my last release and I have watched it from a distance as people continue to download it. I can't it does not have bugs and many of my newer features are more proof of concept that show what can be done.
How did I gather dps stats?
The first big roadblock was the fact that Age of Conan did not have true mod support. It did however have a feature I could use to my advantage. AoC would generate a plain text file in realtime that contained the combat log. Every attack, heal, buff, debuff, and xp gain was recorded in that file. That one feature gave me a world of options and features that could be implemented.
Getting the correct file:
The log file was located in a sub folder within the AoC directory. During install, a registry key is set to the install path of AoC. The logs were named in such a way that an alpha sort would get me to the correct ime. On first scan of the directory, I grab the logical file and set a marker to the end of it. I start at the end of the file to exclude old stats. I assume that starting KTT is when stat collection should start.
I also add a watch on the folder for new files getting created. There are times when KTT will be running already before the logfile gets created. If I did not watch for new files it would be stuck on the old one and never collect any stats.
Processing the log:
Twice a second I reopen that file. From the marker to the end of the file, I add every plain text line into a queue. The marker is updated with the end of file and the file is closed. I had to open the file in a read only non locking stream so it did not cause issues with AoC writing to that same file. I used the queue so I could collect the data as fast as possible and get that file closed as fast as possible.
I would then work that queue with regular expression to pull out the various values and actions. I ended up with a fairly complicated regex query that did most of the work for me. I found 4 distinct sentence structures that indicate source, target, action, and a value. AoC made the combat log in sentences that were proper English that even reflected 2nd person when needed. While it sounds nice when read out loud, it creates a lot more work when writing a parser. So the regex ended up to be 4 page widths long but I didn't have to post process any of the values.
Once each line was processed into an action object, it was then placed on another queue. I used a queue her so I could multi thread the log reading/parsing away from the rest of the application. As I work this queue I would pass the object off to the plugin framework. The damage meter plugin would flatten that stats as it received them. When calculating total damage, I just add the damage on the fly so the reporting side can just report the precalculated total. (vs summing the damage every time I want to report it). I did this for any stat that I could think of.
Because I compressed the stats like this, I could keep the queue clear of actions. The point of this is my memory usage is only as wide as the number of stats I'm recording and not as large as the log file. During a large raid, the log file can grow to very large sizes very quickly. While KTT will jump in size very quickly as it sees a stat for the first time, as that stat is repeated over and over many times in the log, it will not take much additional memory.
In closing:
I may do little write ups on other features of my mod (or its potential) later. I wrote this for other mod writers. To show them that with very simple things and ideas you can do some very cool things. While I may not have described the best way to do something, it still worked very well for me. The mod is listed as KTT Damage Meter, KoS, Timers, & Sounds over at curse.com.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Antivirus 2009 Protection Scam pro-scan-online
Antivirus 2009 Protection Scam
I was on my work machine and I received this pop up warning me about spyware. This kind of shocked me because the sites I visit at work are few and are work related. Not the type of sites that usualy have this type of advertising. Now that I think about it, I may know the site. If I am right, its a 3rd party add doing it so any site you trust could be doing it.
I run several monitors and could see a session of IE running as small as it possibly could off to the right. A place that would be off screen for most people. Once I closed the pop up message, I saw it open a full window page that did a fake scan of my system. It indicated that several errors were found and even gave the names of a few viruses. As an IT security professional, I know how to keep my system clean and knew the report that it gave me was staged and false.
Clicking anywhere within the window (like the fake red X or cancel button) started downloading a file. On older web browsers it prabably would have just ran the program, but my version of IE gave me the option. You can either save it or run it. I pray that none of you ran it. Don't even save it. Your best bet is to close IE and end your session. Then log off or reboot.
I did not get infected by it, but I can easily see how the average person would. I work in IT and have a good eye for stuff like this. I also know the average user and this prays on them. I also know several people that have gotten trapped by this. I included some screen shots from the site and a few links where people were talking about it.
The URL for me was pro-scan-online.com but with a scam like this, I expect them to have lots of different sites set up. The file name was A9installertest_77024202.exe.
I was on my work machine and I received this pop up warning me about spyware. This kind of shocked me because the sites I visit at work are few and are work related. Not the type of sites that usualy have this type of advertising. Now that I think about it, I may know the site. If I am right, its a 3rd party add doing it so any site you trust could be doing it.
I run several monitors and could see a session of IE running as small as it possibly could off to the right. A place that would be off screen for most people. Once I closed the pop up message, I saw it open a full window page that did a fake scan of my system. It indicated that several errors were found and even gave the names of a few viruses. As an IT security professional, I know how to keep my system clean and knew the report that it gave me was staged and false.
Clicking anywhere within the window (like the fake red X or cancel button) started downloading a file. On older web browsers it prabably would have just ran the program, but my version of IE gave me the option. You can either save it or run it. I pray that none of you ran it. Don't even save it. Your best bet is to close IE and end your session. Then log off or reboot.
I did not get infected by it, but I can easily see how the average person would. I work in IT and have a good eye for stuff like this. I also know the average user and this prays on them. I also know several people that have gotten trapped by this. I included some screen shots from the site and a few links where people were talking about it.
The URL for me was pro-scan-online.com but with a scam like this, I expect them to have lots of different sites set up. The file name was A9installertest_77024202.exe.
Here are some other people running into this same thing:
http://forums.vnunet.com/thread.jspa?threadID=146114
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=267&p=1484262
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5473.0
From reading a bit, its called the A9 Installer virus. I think its more crapware than a virus, either way avoid it.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Windows cannot install required files. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x800703
I just built a new computer and ran into some issues installing Microsoft Windows Vista. I was getting this message: “Windows cannot install required files. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x800703E6”. I would get past all the install windows and even copy all the files. It was the expanding files part that would fail.
My first guess was to remove a stick of ram. I have heard that before and I was at 4G with the 2 sticks. That did not help this time. I ran the memory tests and everything was ok. I left that second stick out while doing the rest of my tests.
I looked for the error code and I found a KB article (KB930984) that described my exact problem. It indicated that my firmware on my DVD drive was causing the issue. Either update the firmware or copy the files to the disk. I copied all the files to my C: and rebooted. I let it boot from the hard drive and ran into the same issue. I saw another site suggest that the DVD drive needed to be the slave on the IDE cable. Changing the jumper didn’t fix that either. I disconnected the DVD drive and the installer required that I had one.
I thought that was odd. I had an old DVD drive that windows would see but could not see any disk inserted. I set it up and started the install over. It still complained about the DVD drive. After placing a copy of all the files and the main disk and booting from it, the install would still look for the install files on the DVD. I still had the install disk in the drive during some of my tests. That would explain me still getting the error when I thought I had ruled the DVD drive out.
After some more searching, I found the solution. Installing Vista from Hard Disk, USB Disk or Memory Stick. I selected the repair option instead of install after reading that. Ignored the drive selection and started the command prompt. I ran the fallowing commands:
The install went smooth after that. After the install finished, I reformated and installed Vista 64 bit. I was using my 32 bit disk because its a known good one. I was having issues so I wanted to eliminate variables as much as I could.
I copied all the CD files to the C: again but it failed to boot. I booted to the DVD but droped to a command line and ran the install off the hard disk. I did not have any other issues with the rest of the install. I even did that last install with both sticks of ram.
My first guess was to remove a stick of ram. I have heard that before and I was at 4G with the 2 sticks. That did not help this time. I ran the memory tests and everything was ok. I left that second stick out while doing the rest of my tests.
I looked for the error code and I found a KB article (KB930984) that described my exact problem. It indicated that my firmware on my DVD drive was causing the issue. Either update the firmware or copy the files to the disk. I copied all the files to my C: and rebooted. I let it boot from the hard drive and ran into the same issue. I saw another site suggest that the DVD drive needed to be the slave on the IDE cable. Changing the jumper didn’t fix that either. I disconnected the DVD drive and the installer required that I had one.
I thought that was odd. I had an old DVD drive that windows would see but could not see any disk inserted. I set it up and started the install over. It still complained about the DVD drive. After placing a copy of all the files and the main disk and booting from it, the install would still look for the install files on the DVD. I still had the install disk in the drive during some of my tests. That would explain me still getting the error when I thought I had ruled the DVD drive out.
After some more searching, I found the solution. Installing Vista from Hard Disk, USB Disk or Memory Stick. I selected the repair option instead of install after reading that. Ignored the drive selection and started the command prompt. I ran the fallowing commands:
c:
cd /boot
del bcd
bcdedit /createstore
cd ../sources
setup
The install went smooth after that. After the install finished, I reformated and installed Vista 64 bit. I was using my 32 bit disk because its a known good one. I was having issues so I wanted to eliminate variables as much as I could.
I copied all the CD files to the C: again but it failed to boot. I booted to the DVD but droped to a command line and ran the install off the hard disk. I did not have any other issues with the rest of the install. I even did that last install with both sticks of ram.
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