28 dic 2011

Network Setting Manager

In OSX Network Positions are very useful. Unfortunately in Windows is not possibile.

Network Setting Manager is able to add this feature.

Are you tired of changing your network configuration on your
laptop or computer every day? Always the same procedure?

On the go: changing...
At home: changing...
In the office: changing...

Then NetSetMan is your solution. It will do the work for you.
Switch between network profiles for different locations instantly!

http://www.netsetman.com/index.php?s=nsm

Thanks to S_Net for reporting

Windows Server Core, Hyper-V core: How to turn off NIC DNS register

netsh interface ipv4 set dnsserver name="Local Area Connection" source=static address="10.10.10.1" register=none

Windows Server Core, Hyper-V Core: Modifying network bindings from the command line.

nvspbind is a tool for modifying network bindings from the command line. It is especially useful in Server Core environments with the Hyper-V role enabled.

It can be used to set the correct bindings for NICs used in Virtual Networks.
It can also be used to enable or disable specific bindings on any NIC and to query and change the NIC connection order.
It utilizes the INetCfg APIs documented on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms805265.aspx).

Most options are documented in the readme and nvpsbind.txt which download with the install.

To get help run “nvspbind.exe /?”

C:\>nvspbind /?
Hyper-V Network VSP Bind Application 6.1.7690.0.
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Usage: nvspbind option NIC protocol
Options:
/n display NIC information only
/u unbind switch protocol from specified nic(s)
/b bind switch protocol to specified nic(s)
/d disable binding of specified protocol from specified nic(s)
/e enable binding of specified protocol to specified nic(s)
/r repair bindings on specified nic(s)
/o show NIC order for specified protocol
/+ move specified NIC up in binding order for specified protocol
/- move specified NIC down in binding order for specified protocol
/++ move specified NIC up to top of binding order for specified protocol
/-- move specified NIC down to bottom of binding order for specified protocol

http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/nvspbind

Hyper-V Cluster: Network Configuration

Management Network(Parent Partition)
1 Network Card

  • Make sure this card is listed first in the Adapter and Bindings connection order.
  • In Failover Cluster Manager make sure that the NIC is configured to allow cluster network communication on this network. This will act as a secondary connection for the Heartbeat.

Storage ISCSI
2 Network Cards – Not Teamed

  • Enable MPIO.
  • Disable NetBIOS on these interfaces
  • Do not configure a Gateway
  • Do not configure a DNS server
  • Make sure that each NIC is NOT set to register its connection in DNS
  • Remove File and Printer sharing
  • Do not remove Client from Microsoft networks if using Netapp Snapdrive with RPC authentication
  • In Failover Cluster Manager select- Do not allow cluster network communication on this network

VM Network
(Parent Partition)
2 Network cards :
1 for Dynamic IP’s
1 for Reserved IP’s

  • Disable NetBIOS on these interfaces
  • Do not configure a Gateway
  • Do not configure a DNS server
  • Make sure that each NIC is NOT set to register its connection in DNS
  • Remove File and Printer sharing and Client from Microsoft networks
  • In Failover Cluster Manager select – Do not allow cluster network communication on this network.

Cluster Heartbeat
1 Network Card

  • Disable NetBIOS on this interface
  • Do not configure a Gateway
  • Do not configure a DNS server
  • Make sure that this NIC is NOT set to register its connection in DNS
  • Make sure that Client for Microsoft Networks and File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks are enabled to support Server Message Block (SMB), which is required for CSV.
  • In Failover Cluster Manager make sure that the NIC is configured to allow cluster network communication on this network.
  • In Failover Cluster Manager remove the tick box for Allow Clients Connect through this network. This setting has nothing to do with the host/parent partition. This setting is used to control over what NICs the Cluster Resources can be accessed.

Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)
1 Network Card

  • Disable NetBIOS on this interface
  • Make sure that this NIC is NOT set to register its connection in DNS
  • Make sure that Client for Microsoft Networks and File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks are enabled to support Server Message Block (SMB), which is required for CSV.
  • In Failover Cluster Manager remove the tick box for Allow Clients Connect through this network. This setting has nothing to do with the host/parent partition. This setting is used to control over what NICs the Cluster Resources can be accessed. This is more relevant for other workloads e.g. File Cluster. It has no impact on the communication with the host partition or for the VM’s themselves.
  • By default the cluster will automatically choose the NIC to be used for CSV communication. We will change this later.
  • This traffic is not routable and has to be on the same subnet for all nodes.

Live Migration
1 Network Card

  • Disable NetBIOS on this interface
  • Make sure that this NIC is NOT set to register its connection in DNS.
  • In Failover Cluster Manager remove the tick box for Allow Clients Connect through this network. This setting has nothing to do with the host/parent partition. This setting is used to control over what NICs the Cluster Resources can be accessed. This is more relevant for other workloads e.g. File Cluster. It has no impact on the communication with the host partition or for the VM’s themselves.
  • By default the cluster will automatically choose the NIC to be used for Live-Migration. You can select multiple networks for LM and give them a preference.

22 dic 2011

How to enable Jumbo Frames on Hyper-V Server

Attention: I reported the following "good" article only for redundancy. The original source is here: http://mrshannon.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/jumbo-frames-on-hyper-v-server/

Enabling Jumbo Frame support in Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (or Windows Server Core) has proven to be a bit of an adventure. It really just involves setting the MTU size, but it has to be done in the OS (to affect the TCP/IP stack) as well as the network cards’ driver. Since Core versions of Windows do not have a network control, setting the MTU on the cards proves to be a bit of a trick. This is what I had to do to enable Jumbo Frames on several iSCSI nics, and since it differs for Intel vs Broadcom adapters, there are two procedures.

I should point out that this does not address configuring the network switch that these nics are attached to. That is a whole ‘nother can of worms, but suffice it to say that the switch must not only support Jumbo Frames but have that support enabled, along with a whole host of other settings.

Enable Jumbo Frames on the OS

The first thing you need to do is make sure that your server will allow jumbo frames. You do this by setting the MTU on your adapters to 9000. The easiest way to do this is by running a netsh command on each adapter you want to use Jumbo Frames.

Get a list of interface names by running “netsh int show int

Admin State State Type Interface Name

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enabled Disconnected Dedicated Local Area Connection 2

Enabled Connected Dedicated Bcom-GB3-iSCSI-A

Enabled Connected Dedicated Local Area Connection

Enabled Connected Dedicated Local Area Connection 3

Enabled Connected Dedicated Local Area Connection 4

Enabled Connected Dedicated Bcom-GB4-iSCSI-B

Enabled Connected Dedicated Intel-GB1-Guest-B

Enabled Connected Dedicated Bcom-GB2-Guest-A

Enabled Connected Dedicated Intel-GB2-Guest-C

Enabled Connected Dedicated Bcom-GB1-Mgmnt

Enabled Connected Dedicated Intel-GB3-iSCSI-C

Enabled Connected Dedicated Intel-GB4-Migration

In this case I have already re-named the Interfaces that I intend to use for iSCSI. You might just see a whole list of “Local Area Connection” interfaces. You can use ipconfig or netsh to further identify which ones you want to use.

Now for each interface you want jumbo frames enabled, run this command:

netsh int ipv4 set subint “<Interface Name Goes Here>” mtu=9000 store=persistent

Now you have to configure Jumbo Frames in the driver for each interface.

Enable Jumbo Frames on Intel cards

The Intel driver stores it’s “Jumbo Frame” settings in the registry. Thankfully, Hyper-V Server (and Windows Core) comes with Regedit, so you can just launch that from command line (regedit.exe) and browse to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

Here you will see all the network interfaces listed by GUID. I have found that the easiest way to determine which GUID is which adapter is by finding the IP address and being able to correlate it to the right Interface name.

At this point you should start making a list to help keep things straight. Copy the GUID into notepad and list the IP address next to it and do this for each card you want to configure. So for this server, my list looks like this:

SERVERNAME {7A310D71-217C-4E4A-9DA7-43299A76CBD5} 172.16.0.9

SERVERNAME {7BC7F3B9-B245-4579-82CB-C94161BFDBC1} 172.16.0.7

SERVERNAME {8BA5076E-0FC3-4D20-9609-654F228EE6BD} 172.16.0.6

SERVERNAME {98ABBECA-B8A2-41D2-9550-8B571E50F49A} 172.16.0.8

Now we have to navigate to a new registry key to configure the driver. Go here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Here you will again see a list of all network interfaces, only this time they are under 4 digit identifiers. From here, search for the GUID that you copied to your list and you should find it as the “NetCfgInstanceId” key of one of the adapters. Once found, it’s not a bad idea to update your list to keep track of what’s what. Mine looks like this now:

SERVERNAME {7A310D71-217C-4E4A-9DA7-43299A76CBD5} 172.16.0.9 0009 Intel

SERVERNAME {7BC7F3B9-B245-4579-82CB-C94161BFDBC1} 172.16.0.7 0005 Broadcom

SERVERNAME {8BA5076E-0FC3-4D20-9609-654F228EE6BD} 172.16.0.6 0004 Broadcom

SERVERNAME {98ABBECA-B8A2-41D2-9550-8B571E50F49A} 172.16.0.8 0008 Intel

Scroll up to find the “*JumboPacket” key and double click it to change the default value of 1514 to 9014. Note the extra 14 bytes here represents packet headers that normally are not counted in MTU size.

Repeat this for each Intel adapter you need to configure, and then reboot the server for the setting to take effect.

Enable Jumbo Frames on Broadcom cards

First make sure you have the latest Broadcom drivers. Make sure you get the 2008 R2 x64 set.

If you haven’t already, then download and install the driver and then reboot the host. Note: Make sure you migrate any existing guest servers off the host before you install the drivers. The temporary outage of the card due to the update seems to make a failover cluster angry.

Now get the Broadcom Management Application suite. Again, get the x64 set from the same page.

Install the management app. I opt’d not to install the BASP component (see screenshot below) since we do not want failover or teaming in this scenario. It’ll likely warn you that you need the dotNet Framework 2.0 and you should be able to ignore this because the installer just does not recognize the “Core” framework, but the application still runs. To make sure you do in fact have the framework installed, run “oclist | findstr /i netfx” and look for a line stating that NetFx is installed. For example, “Installed:NetFx2-ServerCore”. If not, you can install it by running “start /w ocsetup NetFx2-ServerCore” or instead you can install dotNet 3.0 and 3.5 by running “start /w ocsetup NetFx3-ServerCore”.

From C:\Program Files\Broadcom\BACS run “BACSCLi” to run in interactive mode. It will show you a list of all network adapter drivers installed. You only care about the “NDIS” adapters so enter “list ndis” and you’ll see something like this:

C MAC Dev Type Name

- ------------ -------- ----------------------------------------------------

0 001B214285B8 NDIS [0000] Intel(R) Gigabit ET Quad Port Server Adapter

1 001B214285B9 NDIS [0007] Intel(R) Gigabit ET Quad Port Server Adapter #2

2 001B214285BC NDIS [0008] Intel(R) Gigabit ET Quad Port Server Adapter #3

3 001B214285BD NDIS [0009] Intel(R) Gigabit ET Quad Port Server Adapter #4

4 0026B9429866 NDIS [0002] Broadcom BCM5709C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBDClient)

5 0026B9429868 NDIS [0003] Broadcom BCM5709C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBDClient) #2

6 0026B942986A NDIS [0004] Broadcom BCM5709C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBDClient) #3

7 0026B942986C NDIS [0005] Broadcom BCM5709C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBDClient) #4

If you did the Intel configuration you’ll notice the four digit number in square braces of the Name field matches the Control\Class registry key.

Use some combination of “ipconfig /all” in another window or CtxAdmTools’ Visual Core Configurator 2008 or the four digit registry code to identify the adapter that you want to configure. In this example we want Connection #6. Select it by using “select 6” or whatever number is in the “C” column that matches your adapter. Now validate that you have selected the correct adapter by reviewing some of its details. Run “info” to see it’s MAC/IP, etc.

Vital Signs

-----------

MAC Address: : 00-26-B9-42-98-6A

Permanent MAC Address: : 00-26-B9-42-98-6A

IPV4 Address : 172.16.0.6

Link Status : UP

Duplex: : Full

Speed(in Mbps): : 1000

Offload Capabilities : TOE,LSO,CO,RSS

Mtu : 1500

Driver Information

-----------

Driver Status: : Loaded

Driver Name: : bxnd60a.sys

Driver Version: : 5.0.13.0

Driver Date: : 07/30/2009

Notice the MTU setting is set to 1500 by default. Now run “cfg advanced” to list its advanced properties.

Advanced

--------

Ethernet@WireSpeed: Enable (Default)

Flow Control: Disable

IPv4 Checksum Offload: Tx/Rx enabled (Default)

IPv4 Large Send Offload: Enable (Default)

IPv6 Checksum Offload: Tx/Rx enabled (Default)

IPv6 Large Send Offload: Enable (Default)

Interrupt Moderation: Enable (Default)

Jumbo MTU: 1500 (Default)

Locally Administered Address: Not Present (Default)

Number Of RSS Queues: 8 (Default)

Priority & VLAN: Priority & VLAN enabled (Default)

Receive Buffers: 750 (Default)

Receive Side Scaling: Enable (Default)

Speed & Duplex: Auto (Default)

TCP Connection Offload (IPv4): Enable (Default)

TCP Connection Offload (IPv6): Enable (Default)

Transmit Buffers: 1500 (Default)

VLAN ID: 0 (Default)

Wake Up Capabilities: Both (Default)

Run “cfg advanced “Jumbo MTU”=9000” to set Jumbo frames to 9000 bytes. Note that you do not have to account for the 14 bytes of header data here. It’ll take a few seconds to apply the change but you should not need to reboot (yay!). You can now run “cfg advanced” and “info” to list the settings and ensure that the MTU is in fact set to 9000.

You should also enable Flow Control for Transmit (Tx) and Receive (Rx). With the correct adapter already selected, run “cfg advanced “Flow Control”=”Rx & Tx enabled””.

Once that is complete you can enter “q” to exit BACScli or start over using “list ndis” and select another interface to configure. You can also use this utility to select non-Broadcom adapters to display some of their info like MTU size.

Testing Jumbo Frames

To test if Jumbo Frames are working you can ping another host target that also supports Jumbo Frames. The easiest way that I have found to do this was to just change the IP of your test NIC and your test target NIC to something that no other adapter has. This is because there is no way to tell windows specifically what NIC to send traffic over, so setting the NIC’s to their own network ip space is the only way to ensure that the ping traverses a particular adapter.

For example, I changed the source test nic to 172.16.1.4 and the target to 172.16.1.8 and no other adapters on either host saw set in the 172.16.1.* range.

First try a normal “ping 172.16.1.8” and it should work fine. Then use “ping -f -l 6000 172.16.1.8” to test jumbo frames and it should also work, only this time you’ll see it sending 6000 bytes instead of 32.

So that about covers it. I had to do this for each of the 32 iSCSI nics spread across the 8 host servers, but it works! You should be aware that if you do a driver update or if you share a NIC with a virtual network (as a Hyper-V Host) your settings may be lost and you’ll have to go through this again

20 dic 2011

Exchange Server 2010 Build Numbers and Release Dates

To view the build number for the version of Exchange 2010 that you’re running, run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell:

Get-ExchangeServer | fl name,edition,admindisplayversion

All versions here:

Exchange Server 2010

Product name

Build number

Date

KB

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 RTM

14.0.639.21

11/9/2009

 

Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010

14.0.682.1

12/9/2009

KB976573 clip_image001[30]

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2010

14.0.689.0

3/4/2010

KB979611 clip_image001[31]

Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010

14.0.694.0

4/9/2010

KB981401 clip_image001[32]

Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010

14.0.702.1

6/17/2010

KB982639 clip_image001[33]

Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2010

14.0.726.0

12/13/2010

KB2407113 clip_image001[34]


Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Product name

Build number

Date

KB

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.218.15

8/24/2010

 

Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.255.2

10/4/2010

KB2407028 clip_image001[35]

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.270.1

12/9/2010

KB2425179 clip_image001[36]

 

Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.289.3

3/7/2011

KB2492690 clip_image001[37]

Update Rollup 3-v3 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.289.7

4/1/2011

KB2529939 clip_image001[38]

Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.323.1

6/22/2011

KB2509910 clip_image001[39]

Update Rollup 4-v2 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.323.6

7/27/2011

KB2579150 clip_image001[40]

Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.339.1

8/23/2011

KB2582113 clip_image001[41]

Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

14.1.355.2

10/27/2011

KB2608646 clip_image001[42]

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2

Product name

Build number

Date

KB

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2

14.2.247.5

4/12/2011

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/exchange-server-and-update-rollups-builds-numbers.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh135098.aspx

5 dic 2011

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is available for download. The latest SP includes functionality that is aimed at helping users navigate and manage their cloud-on-premises hybrid environments.

The newest SP adds new protection and compliance tooling; additional deployment options; and the return of Outlook Mobile Access (OMA). SP2 also includes a new hybrid configuration wizard, which, as Softpedia explained, can help automate “the setup of a hybrid connection between Exchange Online running in Office 365 and an on-premises Exchange 2010 organization.”

Exchange 2010 SP2 is supported on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Windows Server 2008 Standard.

Exchange 2010 SP2 isn’t the only Microsoft offering that bridges the cloud-on-premises gap. Microsoft is in the midst of a strategy shift in terms of how it intends to encourage customers to move from private to public clouds, officials have said recently.

More info:

What's New in Exchange 2010 SP2: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh529924.aspx

Released: Exchange Server 2010 SP2: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/12/05/released-exchange-server-2010-sp2.aspx

Download:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28190&WT.mc_id=rss_alldownloads_all