Running 3-4 node cluster on iSCSI

Clusters with more than 2 nodes using iSCSI storage are not officially supported by Microsoft or NetApp. Yet. Probably being tested in labs. Added 3rd node to my cluster. Failed over Cluster, MSDTC and Exchange groups successfully! Wolfpack (that’s what the cluster is called..) is now truly a pack of wolves! (The nodes are called […]

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Where did the Badmail go in Exchange 2003 SP1?

In previous versions of Exchange, all mail that cannot be delivered ends up in the Badmail directory. This folder grows infinitely till it runs out of disk space! E2K3 SP1 changes that. By default, SP1 will suck up all Badmail in a virtual blackhole – no bad mail accumulates. Would you rather keep your Badmail? […]

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How Premiere is Dell Premiere Support?

Recently one old cluster node failed – after being evicted from the cluster, luckily. A Dell PowerEdge. Went to Dell’s Premiere Support web site to get the phone numbers and the Service Tag of the server – having all Service Tag info stored on Dell’s personalized Premiere Support site is a great help – you’re […]

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Blackberry SIMs and PINs

(Some) Blackberry handheld devices have phones – which is a good thing, the GSM coverage is getting better. Things to keep in mind: the phone and the data communications use different services. The phone works with the SIM card – like any other GSM phone. For data communications, the Blackberries identify each other (and Blackberry […]

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Exchange 2000/2003 Mailbox Manager and msExchMailboxManagerAgeLimit.

Exchange 2000/2003 Mailbox Manager and msExchMailboxManagerAgeLimit.: “Mailbox manager policies may not process items as some administrators might expect. For example if you set up a mailbox manager policy to delete messages from the inbox after 30 days you may find that some of the messages are not deleted after the 30 day window has passed. […]

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Moving mailboxes and corrupted Calendar

Moving mailboxes from an Exchange 2000 virtual server (EVS) to an Exchange Server 2003 EVS – can’t seem to move 1 particular mailbox. User has a history of corrupted Calendar folder/items – Oultook hangs immediately when choosing the Calendar folder from the folder list. (Lot of 8217s – KB327864: Meetings visible in Outlook may not […]

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NetApp Volume Fails To Mount After Power Outage

A power outage (are rolling blackouts back in California??) earlier in the morning, and the resulting mess. The new cluster (Windows 2003/Exchange 2003) with NetApp’s iSCSI filer came up happily. The older one (that uses NetApp’s older VLD protocol) failed. Issues: L: drive (Storage Group 1, Logs) would not connect/map, so Exchange Group in cluster would […]

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Import user attributes from OpenLDAP

Recently I imported the employeeID (and a few other attributes) from an OpenLDAP directory into Active Directory. Problem was different distinguishedName attributes in both directories – the OpenLDAP directory had a different OU structure. The Problem We have a LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) dump from OpenLDAP in the following format : dn: distinguishedName not […]

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Where’s LDIFDE on XP Professional?

The Windows XP Professional docs tell you the LDIFDE utility is avaialble on that OS, but I haven’t been able to find it. Simply copy it from a Windows Server 2003 installation – it’s in %Systemroot%\System32.

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Adding IMAP4 Virtual Server to Cluster takes cluster group offline

You’ve just built a shiny new Windows Server 2003 cluster, installed Exchange Server 2003, created an Exchange Virtual Server (EVS) and tested MAPI, HTTP, Cluster Failover, et al – things look great! User calls, can’t access mail on new EVS using IMAP4. When you create the Exchange Virtual Server by creating the System Attendant resource […]

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