PFSense Installation on XenServer

PFSense Installation notes, how to install from scratch on a XenServer:

To install Pfsense on Xenserver you have to disable all of the network interfaces, the boot from the ISO and enter install mode by typing 'I' during the 10 seconds it prompts you.  If you don't disable the NIC's it will hang at 38% on the install.  

Then finish the install and enable the 2 interfaces and removed the mounted CD and reboot.

NOTE: You will not be able to connect to the web configurator via the wan interface or ping it, it is disabled by default.   You will have to start by using the LAN interface.

Annoying Google Chrome Freezes Entire Machine

So I'm sure many other people are experiencing issues with Google Chrome freezing everything on your computer for a couple of seconds nearly every 5-10 seconds. This only happens when Chrome is open though. Well for awhile I just didn't use Chrome and stuck with Firefox but I finally researched it and found out that it is an application conflict with Airfoil. Apparently Airfoil has an issue with its latest version v3.3.2 as of 10/25/12. The issue is with the instant on function of Airfoil. If your like me and enable it you will have problems. So I have disabled the instant on function of Airfoil and I haven't had any problems since. This isn't the first time that I've had these types of issues with Airfoil. I think I have finally learned my lesson to stop upgrading Airfoil every time it alerts me of a new update. It is very apparent that the Airfoil developers do NOT do very good testing on there product before releasing it with issues to the public. I hope this helps others out there.

SBS 2008 Server Annoying Error

Event Details:  
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} to the user NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE SID (S-1-5-20) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

to NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE account as follows:

• In Administrative tools, open Component Services and expand Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config
• Look for the IIS WAMREG Admin Service
• Right click and select Properties and then select the Security tab
• Click Edit under Launch and Activation Permissions
• Add the Network Service user
• Add Local Activation rights
• Click OK twice
• Close Component Services

http://www.seasideit.com/2009/01/dcom-error-10016-on-sbs-2008.html

Android email app review and why I'm using the standard email application

Android email application review and why I'm using the Standard email application

I'm going to concentrate on the three major email applications that I know of for Android Standard Email, Enhanced Email, Touchdown by Nitrodesk.  

First I would like to explain this is only my quick thoughts about the product about my viewpoint, I may not be correct in all of my assumptions below.  

My setup consists of an HTC EVO 4G running on the Sprint network.  I'm currently running Cyanogen Mod Nightly's.  I'm also evaluating only the Active Sync Exchange Server connections for Exchange 2003 and 2007.  I'm not using any POP or IMAP connnections.

1. First I will start with NitroDesk Touchdown pro's and cons

Pro's:

• Sync's all content with many nice options.

•  Very reliable sync

• Has a tablet edition of the software

• Supports email encryption

Con's

• Costs $20

• Does not sync calendar with built in Android calendar application.  You have to use the touchdown application to view the calendar.

• Does not sync Outlook Notes

2. Second are the Enhanced Email pro's and cons

Pro's:

• Has a some nice options

• Will automatically download the pictures, but will only do it when you go into read it. 

? If you ask me it should download the pictures before I view it because by the time I get to reading the email and deleting it the pictures still haven't load… Junk if you ask me

Con's:

• Costs $10 (Amazon App store had it for the free app of the day in November)

• Does not sync contacts properly for the 6 months that I used it

• Does not sync when an email has been read to the server from the phone.

? Just a note that the Standard email app is free and does these two items above

• The speed of the application is very slow compared to the Standard email app and Touchdown

• Does not mark the emails as read after reading each email on mobile device.  So if I delete the item, I have to go into outlook and mark all items in my deleted items as read all of the time… ANNOYING!!!

• Does not sync Outlook Notes

• Sync is not as reliable as the standard email sync.

• Does not have a tablet edition of the software

3. Lastly hear are the Standard Email application pro's and cons

Pro's:

• Comes with the Android OS pre installed.

• Sync's all content with many nice options.

• Costs FREE!!!

• Very reliable sync

Con's:

• Does not automatically download pictures when using Exchange 2007 or 2003, I'm not sure about 2010.

• Does not sync Outlook Notes

• Does not have a tablet edition of the software

After you reading this you can probably understand why I am currently using the standard email application on my Android phone.

Thanks,

-Ben 

How to disable Sirius XM Timeout

If you're like me and listen to the Sirius XM online radio 24/7, then the 90 minute streaming timeout really gets annoying.  We'll I've got the solution for you.  I have done this in Chrome and Firefox and it works great.

In summary to disable the streaming timeout you need to disable the JavaScript (JS) on the page after you have started the streaming session.  It won't work if you disable JS before logging in because it requires JS to log in.

I recommend using Chrome because the Extension from this location does a great job of disabling the java only on the Sirius XM tab and other tabs can continue to use JS.

The other option if you don't like Chrome is to use the QuickJava add-on in Firefox.  Some downfalls I have seen with this is that it diables JavaScript in all tabs, and it goes on to disable JS in your other Firefox installations if you have the QuickJava Add-On installed there and enable Sync in your Firefox browser.  To use this plugin you have to make sure you go to View --> Toolbars --> Add-on Bar then you can click on the JS at the bottom of the Firefox page.

SBS 2003 OWA failures

So I was starting to have issues with a SBS 2003 server that I manage.  For some reason the OWA service would stop working for exactly an hour, and sometimes more, then all of the sudden it would come back online.  Because I knew the time it went down and came back on within a minute I thought I would see logs during that time but that was not the case.

Well I  have finally found what was causing the issue.  It is ISA server that is blocking the connection because of a timeout issue.  I didn't make any changes but this just started happening out of no where.

Here is the error log that I was receiving in the ISA Monitoring logs:

Failed Connection Attempt	SERVER 10/24/2011 8:16:40 AM
Log type: Web Proxy (Reverse)
Status: 10060 A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.
Rule: SBS Web Publishing Rule
Source: External ( 64.141.100.136:0)
Destination: ( 65.41.114.173:443)
Request: GET https://mail.server.com:443/Remote/logon.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fremote%2fDefault.aspx
Filter information: Req ID: 16e41712
Protocol: https
User: anonymous

I have fixed this issue by modifying this time out in the firewall policy under the SBS Web Publishing Rule, In the advance setting under the SBS Web Listener Properties, I change the Connection Timeout from 120 to 620:


Let me know if you have any questions,
-Spader

Exchange 2003 Errors SBS 2003

I found a warning message in the Application logs on my Exchange 2003 server and here is what I did to get rid of the error within the logs.

*****************************************************************************

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMU
Event Category: General
Event ID: 1040
Date: 10/19/2011
Time: 4:24:51 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER2011
Description:
Metabase Update failed replication 5 times with error 80070003 (The system cannot find the path specified.). Please change the diagnostic logging level of MSExchangeMU to 'minimum' or greater to find the source of the problem.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

*****************************************************************************

So I found some steps on the web which directed me us the MetaEdit tool to delete a key.  I ended up only deleting the DS2MB key and not touching the SMTPSVC/1/domain key.  This completely eliminated all of the warnings related to the issue and now OWA is working like a champ.

Download the tool here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301386

Follow these steps:
1) Backup the IIS metabase
2) Stop the Ms exchange System Attendant service
3) Using Meta Edit delete/rename the DS2MB key (Metaedit is a free tool)

4) Using Meta Edit delete/rename the key SMTPSVC/1/domain
5) Restart the Ms Exchange System Attendant service
6) The above keys will be recreated


Below shows the errors and how they stopped at 4:39pm when I executed the steps above:

Hope this helps others!
-Spader

BeyondPod Feed Update Disabled

I believe I have finally figured out why my Beyond Pod scheduled feed update keeps getting disabled.  I was thinking that it was Advanced Task Killer that was killing BeyondPod but that was not the case.  I already put BeyondPod on the ignore list so it wouldn't automatically kill that program.

I figured out that it was my Titanium Backup program that was doing a force kill on the program so it could back it up.  So if you have the same issue with BeyondPod feed update getting disabled all of the time, just go into your titanium backup program and either create a filter so it doesn't backup BeyondPod, or change the settings on Titanium Backup so it does not force kill applications.  I would suggest creating a filter because if Titainium Backup doesn't force kill the application it won't be able to back up many programs properly.

Later,

-Spader

Dyndns Standard SMTP Service not working

All,
I experienced an issue this morning with my dyndns service.  I use them to send all of my email from my exchange server to external recipients.  It appears they forgot to renew their certificate on the their receivers.  These are the errors that I'm receiving on both exchange servers that I manage.

451 4.4.0 Primary target IP address responded with: "454 4.7.5 Certificate validation failure."

I also so in my logs event 11005 that stated this: Unable to validate the TLS certificate of the smart host for the connector MailHop Outbound. The certificate validation error for the certificate is CertificateExpired. If the problem persists, contact the administrator of the smart host to resolve the problem.

So I came to the conclusion that DynDNS forgot to renew their cert. Oops!

I notified them and they stated this:
I have received and acknowledged your concern regarding messages not being able to be sent through our outbound.mailhop.org server or generating a certificate-related error message.
At this time, Dyn is aware of a couple of our servers experiencing issues with their certificates and we are working towards a resolution of this issue.

To temporarily alleviate the issue, we kindly ask that you retry sending your messages with TLS turned off in your mail client. We will post an update to our status.dyn-inc.com site as soon as the issue has been resolved.

That said, if you are managing SBS 2008 or Exchange 2007 here is how to disable TLS quickly:

Just uncheck the "Basic Authentication over TLS" and viola!

Let me know if  you  have any issues with this.

-Spader

UPDATE 10-07-11: I am still having issues with my Exchange 2007 server, but the other server that I support which is exchange 2003 started working at 8:46am on the same day that the issues started 10-3-11.

I definitely which they would figure out how to be compatiable with exchange 2007, I'm sure many people are running this and having issues.  Here is the error message that I'm receiving on my exchange 2007 server (SBS 2008):

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchangeTransport
Date:          10/7/2011 7:47:58 AM
Event ID:      11005
Task Category: MessageSecurity
Level:         Error
Description:
Unable to validate the TLS certificate of the smart host for the connector MailHop Outbound. The certificate validation error for the certificate is UntrustedRoot. If the problem persists, contact the administrator of the smart host to resolve the problem.

It looks like they are either using a self signed certificate or used a certificate authority that is not in the SBS 2008 trusted root CA list.

PLEASE fix DynDNS, I would like to enable my encryption!
-Spader

UPDATE 10-19-11: I randomly checked to see if DynDNS has fix their issue today and finally was able to send messages using encryption.  Thank you for finally fixing your issue DynDNS.  We are finally back to normal!
-Spader