Recovering Domain Password/Domain Key on any .com.au, .net.au, .org.au Domain (regardless of registrar) // Crucial Paradigm

Also, be careful when you play around with the Windows registry files, while using Registry Editor. Its probably a good idea to take a backup of your registry.

STEP 1: Make sure you have you have ‘Microsoft SQL Server Setup Support Files component’ installed in the server.

Open ‘Add/Remove Programs’ and check whether Microsoft SQL Server Setup Support Files component is listed there, if it’s there you can proceed to Step 2.

Otherwise, you will have to install it from the MS SQL Server 2005 installation media.

STEP 2: Run “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\ARPWrapper.exe” /Remove - in the command prompt.

This will evoke the MS SQL Uninstall program and uninstall all the MS SQL server components one by one.

If you experience problems here and you are not able to remove ‘MS SQL Server 2005′ from the Server. The last hope is seeking the help of Window’s registry file.

Start the Window’s Registry Editor and look for the registry key: ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall’

On the left side of the Registry Editor, you will be able to see so many GUIDs, one after another. {26F1A218-3158-4107-B3A6-37FD61CEE969} - This is how a GUID looks like.

Click on each GUID, you will be able to see the details of each GUID on the right pane or side of the Registry Editor. Look out for the GUID that gives out ‘Microsoft SQL Server 2005′ in the ‘Display Name’ details.

For each GUID related to ‘Microsoft SQL Server 2005′, run this command in the command prompt.

start /wait msiexec /x {GUID} /l*v c:\sql_uninstall.log

For eg: start /wait msiexec /x {26F1A218-3158-4107-B3A6-37FD61CEE969} /l*v c:\sql_uninstall.log

(You can copy a GUID name by right clicking on the GUID on the left pane or side of Registry Editor)

c:\sql_uninstall.log - stores the uninstall logs

This should uninstall the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 without much problem.

STEP 3: Now it’s time to uninstall the support components.

Unistall them in the order specified below:

- MSXML 6.0 Parser
- SQLXML4
- Microsoft SQL Server VSS Writer
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility
- Anything else that is related to SQL Server 2005, except for the Microsoft SQL Server Native Client component and for the Microsoft SQL Server Setup Support Files component.

If any of the components fail to uninstall, you will have to seek the help of Registry Editor and uninstall them using the GUID for each component.

a. Start the Registry Editor and locate the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

b. Click on each GUID, you will be able to see the details of each GUID on the right pane or side of the Registry Editor. Look out for the details of MS SQL support components, listed above.

c. For each GUID, to uninstall, run the command below:

start /wait msiexec /x {GUID} SKIPREDISTPREREQS=1 /l*v c:\sqlredist_uninstall.log

STEP 4: Uninstall the Microsoft SQL Server Native Client component using Add/Remove Programs.

STEP 5: Uninstall the Microsoft SQL Server Setup Support Files component Add/Remove Programs.

All done!

Tags: microsoft, mssql, system administration

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 2:24 pm

February 25, 2008

How to block access from certain IPs in IIS - Windows

You can block access from certain IPs to IIS by going to:

IIS -> Website Properties -> Directory Security tab -> Edit IP Address restrictions

Tags: security, system administration, windows

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 6:42 pm

February 25, 2008

Disabling mod_security for a single account through .htaccess

Sometimes mod_security rules may cause problems for some sites, and give you 403 access denied messages. To disable mod_security on a single account, and prevent the 403 access denied error messages you can add the following to your .htaccess file:

SecFilterEngine Off

SecFilterScanPOST Off

Tags: security, system administration

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 6:38 pm

February 25, 2008

How to remove a user in Linux

To check if a user exists in Linux, you can go:

1. You want to remove any files owned by that user, so use the following command:

find / -user username

2. Remove all files belonging to the Linux user.

3. Remove the relevant lines from /etc/passwd and /etc/groups

For example:

cat /etc/passwd | grep username

This is the line you would want to remove if you are deleting the user ‘username’: username:x:503:503::/home/username:/bin/bash

Note: In some Linux distributions you can use the command userdel, or deluser

Tags: linux, ssh, system administration

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 5:31 pm

February 25, 2008

cPanel/WHM: quotacheck: Can’t find filesystem to check or filesystem not mounted with quota option.

When you receive this error message in cPanel/WHM:

/scripts/fixquotas
Installing Default Quota Databases…../aquota.user…./quota.user…./backup/aquota.user…./backup/quota.user…./boot/aquota.user…./boot/quota.user…./tmp/aquota.user…./tmp/quota.user…./var/tmp/aquota.user…./var/tmp/quota.user…..Done
Quotas are now on
Updating Quota Files……
quotacheck: Can’t find filesystem to check or filesystem not mounted with quota option.

quotacheck: Can’t find filesystem to check or filesystem not mounted with quota option.

….Done
Unable to read /etc/quota.conf at /scripts/resetquotas line 23.
You can try the following to resolve it:

First make sure you have the usrquota option for your / partition on /etc/fstab and then reboot the server.

If you are still having issues, make sure your kernel supports quotas.

Tags: cpanel, quotas, system administration

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 2:30 am

February 25, 2008

Configuring Network Interfaces on CentOS, Redhat, Fedora Core, and Debian

CentOS/Red Hat/Fedora Core:

The network configuration files are in the folder:
‘/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts’

The files for the interfaces will be ifcfg-eth0, ifcfg-eth1, ifcfg-eth0:0 (if there are sub-interfaces)

Static IP address configuration:
——————–
[root@sXXX network-scripts]# cat ifcfg-eth0
# Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
HWADDR=YY:YY:YY:YY:YY
BROADCAST=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX - specify the broadcast address here
IPADDR=xx.xx.xx.xx - specify the IP address here
NETMASK=255.255.255.0 - specify the netmask here
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
———————-

Please specify ‘ONBOOT=yes’ which will activate the interface upon system boot

Dynamic IP address configuration: Change BOOTPROTO value to dhcp
——————–
[root@sXXX network-scripts]# cat ifcfg-eth0
# Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
———————-

To bind a range of IP address, create a file called ifcfg-eth0-range0 (for example eth0:0, eth0:1, etc)

The entries should be:

——————————-
IPADDR_START=192.168.0.10
IPADDR_END=192.168.0.20
CLONENUM_START=0
NETMASK=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
——————————–

IPADDR_START: This is the first IP from the address range you want to bind to your ethernet device.
IPADDR_END: This is the last IP from that address range.
CLONENUM_START: This is the number that will be assigned to the first IP alias interface. For instance, if your Internet interface is eth0 and CLONENUM_START is 0, then this config file will create 10 interfaces starting with eth0:0 (eth0:0, eth0:1, eth0:2 etc) and ending with eth0:10.

The gateway for the network can be specified in the file ‘/etc/sysconfig/network’
——————————-
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=hostname
GATEWAY=”XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY”
———————————
Once you assign the IP addresses and configure the gateway please restart the service network ‘/etc/init.d/network restart’

You may also use ‘/usr/sbin/system-config-network-tui’ to configure the network interfaces

Debian:
In Debian the interface configuration file is ‘/etc/network/interfaces’

The entires are:
———————————
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
netmask yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
broadcast xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy
network xxx.xxx.xxx.xxz
gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxw
———————————

After you configure the network interfaces restart the network service using ‘/etc/init.d/networking restart’

Tags: centos, debian, fedora core, networking, system administration

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 12:01 am

February 21, 2008

How to view current configuration on a Cisco Pix 520-UR Firewall

First console into the switch, then do the following:

firewall> enable
Password: ************
firewall# configure terminal
firewall(config)# wr term
Building configuration…
: Saved
:
PIX Version 5.0(2)
nameif ethernet0 outside security0
nameif ethernet1 inside security100
nameif ethernet2 pix/intf2 security10
….

Tags: cisco, firewall, networking, security

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Filed under: Uncategorized by — aaron @ 1:11 am

February 21, 2008

Accessing a Cisco Switch or Router via Serial Port on Linux Using Minicom

If you need to access a Cisco swith or router on Linux (Redhat, CentOS, Debian, etc) then install minicom, and do the following.

Firstly you can check which serial ports on your computer are available:

dmesg | grep tty
ttyS0 at I/O 0×3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS1 at I/O 0×2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

Then run minicom:

minicom /dev/ttyS0

Type:

Ctrl + A Z

Then type ‘o’ (the letter, not number) and select ‘Serial port setup’ to configure minicom. Here is a sample configuration of what you want your configuration to look like:

A - Serial Device : /dev/ttyS0
B - Lockfile Location : /var/lock
C - Callin Program :
D - Callout Program :
E - Bps/Par/Bits : 9600 8N1
F - Hardware Flow Control : Yes
G - Software Flow Control : No

To get to here, please read the following:

Ensure the correct serial port is being utilized by pressing A, the port you will usually be using is /dev/ttyS0

Press E to configure bit rate, then select E again, and then Q and Enter.

Ensure Hardware Flow Control is on, and Software Flow Control is off.

If you are having issues, try exiting and re-opening minicom, or disconnecting and reconnecting your console cable.