7/24/2011

Configuring SharePoint Email settings Part 2 (subdomain)

once you have configured your Email server as in Part 1 , you are now ready to go a head and setup your SharePoint server for incoming and outgoing email setting.

The first step is to decide whither you want to create a subdomain for your SharePoint installation or use you root domain to have constant domain name across all your email address Part 3. I will demonstrate both ways let start by create a new subdomain for SharePoint .

First lets decide on what will be the new subdomain name is my case it would be sp.jitpros.local , so all emails that are sent to SharePoint mail enabled list should be @sp.jitpros.local , the benefit is that whenever you mail enable a list any one can sent to it just by knowing its name. so let start.

Configuring Subdomain for SharePoint installation:

1.Open you DNS Server manager , expand DNS tree and select your Domain name zone name (jitpros.local) , right click the zone name –> select New Domain

2. I n the new Domain Box , type your subdomain name in my case “SP” and click OK.

3. Right Click your newly created Subdomain node and select New Mail Exchange(MX)

4. in the New Resource Record screen leave Host Or Child Domain box empty and in the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of mail server record type( your SharePoint server FQDN) : SPfound.jitpros.local (or press browse , double click your DNS server name , double click forward lookup zones , Double click your Zone name (jitpros.local) select the record of your SharePoint server.

You can test your configuration using Nslookup open command prompt and type the bolded commands the out should show the MX preference line with your configuration :

C:\>nslookup
Default Server: jdc01.jitpros.local
Address: 10.83.15.40

> set type=mx
> sp.jitpros.local
Server: jdc01.jitpros.local
Address: 10.83.15.40

sp.jitpros.local MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = spfound.jitpros.local
spfound.jitpros.local internet address = 10.83.15.43
>exit

5. we are done with subdomain configuration , now we can go and complete our SharePoint mail configuration to do this Open you central Administration Site , select system settings –>Configure Incoming E-Mail Settings , in the Enable sites on this server to receive e-mail? select yes ,in Settings mode: select Automatic ( if you have not change the SMTP mail Drop folder , or select advance if you would like to specify and custom mail drop folder ) , in the Use the SharePoint Directory Management Service to create distribution groups and contacts? select NO , in the E-mail server display address: type in your subdomain name e.g. sp.jitpros.local ( based on this all SharePoint list will have this suffix added to their mail address), select Accept mail from all e-mail servers if you want Share point to except emails form any email server , or select Accept mail from these safe e-mail servers , and type in the IP address of email serves that are allowed to deliver email to your SharePoint server, click OK.

6. To configure SharePoint to send emails alerts , select System Setting –>configure Outgoing E-Mail Settings , because we have configured Hmail server to accept emails form the SharePoint server in part1 step 11 , we can use it for the “Outbound SMTP server:” , you can also use your local SMTP server in this field so you can type in in this field either you Hmail server FQDN or your SharePoint FQDN in my case this can be either smtp.jitpros.local or spfound.jipros.local. in the From address type the email address that will appear in the From field when SharePoint send email in the Reply-to address: type in an email address that user can reply to , this should be an address that is watched by some one.

7. the last step is to configure the local SMTP for your SharePoint server to accept the emails for your subdomain , Open IIS 6.0 manger ( I’m using windows 2008 R2 , so only SMTP is available to me) , select your server name , Virtual SMTP server , domains , you can double click your server name in the right Panel to get the location to email drop folder.

8. To accept email for the new Subdomain , Right click the domains and select New –> Domain

9. In the New SMTP Domain wizard select Alias , Click Next

10. in the next screen type in your subdomain name e.g. sp.jitpros.local then click finish

that’s it your SharePoint can now send and receive emails.

if your test this setup you can reverse the setup by deleting the subdomain in the DNS manger and remove all the setting created here to try part 3 of configuring SharePoint in the same Domain.

Posted at 3:41 PM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Configuring SharePoint Email settings Part 3

In Part 1 we have setup our email server in part three we will configure Hmail and SharePoint to send and receive emails using your root domain name.

You should have completed Part1 only setting to start this producer.

1. now we can go and complete our SharePoint mail configuration to do this Open you central Administration Site , select system settings –>Configure Incoming E-Mail Settings ,

in the Enable sites on this server to receive e-mail? select yes ,

in Settings mode: select Automatic ( if you have not change the SMTP mail Drop folder , or select advance if you would like to specify and custom mail drop folder ) ,

in the Use the SharePoint Directory Management Service to create distribution groups and contacts? select NO ,

in the E-mail server display address: type in your domain name e.g. jitpros.local

Select Accept mail from all e-mail servers if you want Share point to except emails form any email server , or select Accept mail from these safe e-mail servers , and type in the IP address of email serves that are allowed to deliver email to your SharePoint server, click OK.

2. To configure SharePoint to send emails alerts , select System Setting –>configure Outgoing E-Mail Settings , because we have configured Hmail server to accept emails form the SharePoint server in part1 step 11 , we can use it for the “Outbound SMTP server:” , you can also use your local SMTP server in this field so you can type in in this field either you Hmail server FQDN or your SharePoint FQDN in my case this can be either smtp.jitpros.local or spfound.jipros.local. in the From address type the email address that will appear in the From field when SharePoint send email in the Reply-to address: type in an email address that user can reply to , this should be an address that is watched by some one.

7. Configure the local SMTP for your SharePoint server to accept the emails for your domain , Open IIS 6.0 manger ( I’m using windows 2008 R2 , so only SMTP is available to me) , select your server name , Virtual SMTP server , domains , you can double click your server name in the right Panel to get the location to email drop folder.

8. To accept email for the new Subdomain , Right click the domains and select New –> Domain

9. In the New SMTP Domain wizard select Alias , Click Next

10. in the next screen type in your domain name e.g. jitpros.local then click finish

11. Now Open any SharePoint list or library and enable incoming email to the list in the email address type in the email for the library or List.

12.Login to your Hmail server , select settings –> Protocols –> SMTP—> route and click add

In the General tab , in the domain text Box type in your Domain name e.g. jitpros.local

in the target SMTP host type in you SharePoint IP address:10.83.15.43 and in the TCP/IP Port type in 25 , click save

13. Select the Address TAB , Select Deliver to the Address below , click add to add the address of your email list ,

The Email Address Should match you list email enabled list mail address.

Few links that might help

Configure incoming e-mail (SharePoint Server 2010)

Incoming Email Configuration – MOSS

Send Documents as attachments with SharePoint 2010

Configuring Sharepoint 2010 to Accept Incoming Emails

Posted at 3:40 PM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Configuring SharePoint Email settings Part 1

I have seen many people asking how to configure SharePoint email settings , in this article I will try to explain Ins and Outs of configuring email in share point.

First we will discuss DNS and Email server setup theory:

Email server exist to send and receive email , there is two services/Protocols that are the core of mailing system POP3 and SMTP.

POP3 is used to receive emails

SMTP is used to send emails

nowadays a new service have been developed that relay on Http protocol such as the Hotmail connector or the MS exchange outlook anywhere services , this new services has been developed to solve the problem that some people faced with their ISP blocking SMTP and/or POP3 protocols due to spams , SharePoint can’t use the HTTP service so we will not discuss this service in this article.

we will build a simple environment that contains 4 machines to demonstrate the configuration. I suppose that you know how to install Active Directory and join a machine to the domain , I will cover the DNS configuration , Configuring SMTP server for SharePoint and Hmail Server configuration.

Back to the POP3/SMTP protocols , email servers use SMTP to send emails to other email servers , but how the email server know about other email servers, Email servers depend on DNS through inquiring DNS server for MX record to determine the IP address of the Email server they are sending email to.

Lets walk through example to see How to configure DNS for mail servers , Suppose that your are building SharePoint testing environment that has email servers for Jitpros.local. based on the following Diagram:

JDC01 server 10.83.15.40 has Active Directory and DNS server

SQLSRV Server 10.83.15.41 has hmail & SQL server installed

SPFound Server 10.83.15.43 has SharePoint installed and SMTP server feature

PC1 Workstation 10.83.15.44 has any client with Email client software

All machine will have their DNS server set to The AD server IP 10.83.15.40

Based on the Above Diagram you will end up with Two SMTP servers one on the Hmail server , that will be used by client to send and receive emails , and anther one used by Share Point to receive email. the catch with SharePoint that it does not have a client software to download email form mail server and also it can’t authenticate to email servers , (Note: Most email servers will deny sending emails if the client can’t authenticate with it , but we will allow SharePoint to send emails by configure email relay, you can also configure windows SMTP services to authenticate when sending to specific domains using SMTP remote Domain settings in IIS manager).

SharePoint use a local drop folder to pickup and receive emails , that’s why you need to install SMTP on it.To configure SharePoint to receive email you have two option.

1.Configure a separated Domain or subdomain for SharePoint Sever for example you could create a Subdomain e.g. Sp.jitpros.local , so that all emails that are sent to SharePoint will have the subdomain suffix sp.jitpros.local , when you enable a SharePoint list to receive email it’s address will be listname@sp.jitpros.local. The nice thing about this configuration that you don’t need create a forward rule for each mail list you enable at SharePoint in your email server.

2. The second Option is to keep your SharePoint email domain in the same root domain e.g Jitpros.local and to use Hmail server or any other email server and create a rule that will forward email that are sent to SharePoint lists to the SharePoint local SMTP server , which means each list that gets email enabled at SharePoint should have a corresponding rule at Hmail server.

lets first configure hmail server DNS record:

For email server to function correctly it needs minimum two records , an A record and MX record , you can also use a CA (conical name) record which simple and Alias to the A record or a second name to the same device.the configuration will start on the DNS server as below:

1. On your DNS server Open the DNS manager , if your mail server is part of Domain and has dynamic DNS registration enabled you will find a record to your hmail server already registered in DNS and has an A record SQLSRV 10.83.15.41

2. As a best practice it’s better to create a Conical Name (virtual name) for your email server, this will help you have constant mail server name in case you needed to change/move your physical email server to antehr machine then you will not be stuck with the old physical machine name. it has been a common practice to set two names for your email server one for POP3 services and one SMTP services in case you needed to separate these two roles into different machines but in our case the two services are provide by the same machine so will create two Conical Records that point to the same machine.

3. So while your on the DNS manager Console select the Zone of your Domain e.g. jitpros.local , right click on the zone name and select new Alias (CNAME).

4. In the New Resource Record screen type SMTP in the Alias Name field and click Browse button , double click your DNS server name , double click forward lookup zones , Double click your Zone name (jitpros.local) , scroll down and select your physical mail server name e.g. SQLSRV and Click Ok.

5. Repeat step 4 but this time type POP in the Alias Name Field , this will create two records pop.jitpros,local and smtp.jitpros.local that point to the same physical server sqlsrv. you can check this by pinging these names they should replay with same IP 10.83.15.41

6. After configuring the CNames record , we need to create an MX record that actually inform other email servers where to deliver email that are sent to your Domain, to create MX record right click the zone name and select New Mail exchange (MX) record

7.In the New Resource record screen , Keep the Host or Child domain filed empty ( which means any email sent to your default domain name ) in the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of mail server record type: smtp.jitpros.local (or press browse , double click your DNS server name , double click forward lookup zones , Double click your Zone name (jitpros.local) , select all records form the record type drop box , scroll down and select your SMTP Conical name record and Click Ok) , then Click OK.

what we have done here is that we informed our DNS server that if some one will be sending email to any user at the Domain jitpros.local , the email should be delivered to the sever that is named smtp.jitpros.local.

to test your configuration open a command prompt ant type:

c:\> nslookup
Default Server: jdc01.jitpros.local
Address: 10.83.15.40

> set type=MX
> jitpros.local
Server: jdc01.jitpros.local
Address: 10.83.15.40

jitpros.local MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = smtp.jitpros.local
sqlsrv.jitpros.local internet address = 10.83.15.41

8. Now it’s time to configure your Hmail Server settings , logon to the Hmail server at right click Domains select add , type in your Domain Name e.g. jitpros.local , check the enabled box

9. under your new domain select Add AD account , select your domain name , and select the users account that you want to create email account from them.

10. under setting—> Protocols –> SMTP , select the FRC complaint Tab make sure you select Allow plain authentication .

11. Most email server require authentication to allow users to send email , you can configure SMTP authentication under settings –>Advanced –>IP Range –> require SMTP Authentication –> internet, under require SMTP authentication select when the mail client should authencate to send email , by selecting any of the option below. if you require that all user should authenticate before sending email (this is done so that no one can use your server without authentication to send spam emails ) , select all check boxes.

Your SharePoint server can send emails either through it’s local SMTP server or through Hmail server , but since SharePoint server can’t authenticate to SMTP server , you need to allow it to send email through Hmail server without authentication if you decided to send all email through Hmail server , To configure Hmail server to allow SharePoint server to send emails without authentication , select IP Ranges –> click add –> type in a name for you SharePoint server , assign it a priority that is higher than the other existing rages , clear the require authentication check box for sending option that you need then click Save.

12. You can now configure outlook or any email client to send and received email through this email server , notice that if you configured require SMTP authentication , you client should be configured to use SMTP authentication.

13. you can test your email serve by sending and receiving emails.

Posted at 11:53 AM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/21/2011

Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V Network connection problems after applying SP1

After apply Windows 2008 r2 SP1 on a hyper-v Machine , you might Face network connectivity problem , this will include:

Machine does not response to continues Ping for some period of Time
In Security event Log in you will see a lot of rejected packet due to connection drop

Microsoft have issue a host fix for SP1 on Hyper-v , download and install update Article ID: 2263829 , if you are some networking issue with your Hyper-v

Posted at 9:47 AM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: Virtualization | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/23/2011

Microsoft Virtualization Improvement Wish list

Hyper-V improvement:

Grouping VM’s in to environment or infrastructure:

In the Current Hyper V MMC , there is no ability to start a Specific group of VM’s with single click , The Idea is to have a group of VM’s that can be started as a set of VM’s that formulate a specific environment or infrastructure that is composed of several VM’s . This can be a single level Group or Multi level organization method.

Example:

An organization Such as a training Center would like to have a group of machines that represent training environment (SharePoint Training Lab, TMG training Lab, Remote Desktop training Lab.

1. The Hyper-V user would Click New –> environment or infrastructure –> name of environment or infrastructure (e.g. SharePoint Training lab)

2. The User would click on the newly create environment or infrastructure name , where he will be presented by ADD or Remove Box to select one or More VM’s or snapshot state to add to this specific environment or infrastructure , each VM machine should have a startup delay Time or order , to organize the sequences of machines startup (e.g. DC first , the SQL server , Then Share Point server)

3. Finally a user can click START environment or infrastructure to start all machines in the order he selected.

4. A click on Shutdown would allow shutting all VM’s in environment in the reverse order of startup.

By doing so the user can create different environments or infrastructures either form VM machines or there Snapshots at different stages, and being able to start this groups of VM’s with a single click

The right side of Hyper-V MMC can represent environments or infrastructures in a tree View under Hyper-v machine name where machine names that are members of environments can be shown in the top middle panel.

Additional Improvements:

· In case where Hyper-V is a member of AD , The Add environment or infrastructure Dialog window can include a Publish to AD check box, this would create a Corresponding OU in AD, where all machines would be created under this OU and AD delegation can be used to delegate the right to user to manage this environment or infrastructure.

· The current Security Module of Hyper-v use Authorization Manager Data Store for security delegation , with the addition of VM Groups , Hyper-v can Leverage and start Using Ad security feature , where VM machines GUID can be added to a group and permission of these machine can be delegated to Environment Owner

Note: The same concept can be implemented and imported into SCVMM but SCVMM Groups would allow adding VM’s from more that Hyper-V Host into a single group and starting these environments

HBA VMBUS:

A lot of people have asked me many times if they can build cluster inside VM’s, and the answer was always that clustering for VM is only available through ISCSI.

The idea Her is to Create a Virtual HBA switch Just in the same Concept of the Network Virtual Switch , Here VM’s can utilize this HBA Virtual switch to create Virtual LUN’s and communicate to SAN Storage System. With Current 8 GB HBA more than One VM can utilize this HBA, just in same concept of Trunk port.

Support for wireless Network cards:

Although I have not seen any one using a wireless net card of server, that ability to use Wireless network adapter can be used as a backup connectivity option in critical situations. Also due the fact that Virtual PC does not support 64-bit OS’s many IT including me are using Hyper-v on their laptops, where we are enforced to bridge wireless adapter for connectivity.

SCVMM and Self‑Service Portal 2.0 (Private Cloud):

Joining VM to AD in specific OU:

The Current New-VM [-Name] <String> -Path <String> -Template [<Template String>] -VMHost [<String Host>] [-AdminPasswordCredential [<PSCredential String>]] [-AnswerFile <Script>] [-ComputerName <String>] [-CPUCount <Int32>] [-CPUType <Pr ocessorType>] [-DelayStart <Int32>] [-Description <String>] [-FullName <Str ing>] [-GuestOSProfile [<GuestOSProfile String>]] [-GuiRunOnceCommands <Str ing[]>] [-HardwareProfile <HardwareProfile>] [-JobGroup <Guid>] [-JobVariab le <String>] [-JoinDomain <String>] [-JoinDomainCredential [<PSCredential S tring>]] [-JoinWorkgroup <String>]

The New-VM Command-let does not support an Option of OU, so that the newly created VM Computer account is placed in a specific OU in AD instead of the default Computers container. This capability would allow admin to apply different Group Policy to VM’s per target OU.

Example: A set of VM’s can be created in an OU and have a different IPsec policy , or in VDI scenario a set of VM’s in an OU can have MS Office or other application installed using GP software installation. In such a scenario each newly add VM will inherent the GP setting based on the OU it’s located in.

Self‑Service Portal 2.0

Linking SSP2.0 Organizational Structure to AD OU’s:

In Current Self-service Portal 2.0 , user would submit requests for building Environment -- > inside the Environment they will request to create one or more infrastructure --> which will contain Services --> which contain Servers role --> which contain VM's.

In reality terms:

· Environment

· Infrastructure

· Services

· Servers role

Do not exist in any physical or logical representation; they are just information stored in SQL DB, they don’t provide any help to administrator in organizing or controlling these machines in terms of delegation, policy enforcement or software installation.

By leveraging these terms and creating an OU for each term teamed with creating computer accounts in the corresponding OU, Enterprise administrators can have more control over these Environments, in a way that can allow them to delegate permissions to Power full users (BU users) though AD delegation and GP.

If VM computer account gets created in the corresponding (predefined) OU of each Environment or role, during Joining. This will allow Group policy to be applied to all computers in OU in addition to auto software deployment using SCCM and GP.

So by redirecting the creation of computer account to a specific OU l, DC Admin can assign a web admin that will create web servers in a specific OU and automatically apply GP and permission and other SCCM automation to all computer members of OU.

Allow Building Customizable Change Request forms with link to action list:

The Change request that are provided in the SSP2.0 , is limited to few scenarios , I think that SSP web portal should allow user to build customized Change request that can be linked to different action list , so that IT admin can create a template for tasks such as :

· Designing Change request (CR)for UP scaling VM , this can include an Increase in Memory size with scheduled downtime for machine reboot

· Designing Change request (CR) for VM Live Migration.

· Designing Change request for (CR) for VM storage expand or shrink.

In general I would recommend that Microsoft should provide API and documentation for SSP2.0 Customer to develop and enhance this product just as the MS DDTK for hosters.

Start all Vm’s in infrastructure, Services or Role using single click as a group

Add the ability to start and shutdown all Vm’s in infrastructure, Services or Role using single click as a group the same idea hyper-v

Create an Up scaling Change request for VM. The CR should include:

· Increase or decrees memory

· Increase or decrees number of CPU

· Increase or decrees Disk space

· Schedule Time for down time and allowable down time period

If Bu user created a VM with say 1Gb RAM, 1 CPU, then later on he required more resource for his VM, He should be able to submit a CR for up scaling VM and provide Time when the machine can be rebooted to upscale it, the out scale scenario call also be implemented but I think it will need much more time.

Provide users at the VM creation screen with unattended answer file Box.

The user can create a window untended installation file copy it’s content in this area , and the VM template would use this answer file in the new-vm command-let to install windows components , this would be a very nice feature to allow creating different VM’s from the same base Template with different windows components ( e.g. IIS , NAP , CA ..etc.), this would off load a lot of work that need to be done in remote desktop sessions

Provide users at the VM creation screen with Add/Remove Role/features Check Box list.

It would be nice to have the ability to select which Roles and Features get installed during machine creation users can select which roles and Features they need to be added to the newly created VM, these check boxes should represent the windows 2008 Roles/features. Using the [-GuiRunOnceCommands <String[]>], which can utilize the Power shell or ServerManagerCmd.exe commands for roles and features addition. Depending on the VM template OS profile different roles, features or software can be added (windows 2008 +R2, windows 7, windows Xp, windows 2003)

Virtual PC support for 64-bit Guests:

Although Current VPC requires hardware Virtualization, it does not support any 64-bit OS’s. This delivers a wrong idea about Microsoft Virtualization capability. It gives the impression that MS is not capable of supporting their own products while other Venders such as VMware and Virtual Box are able to support these OS’s.

It’s known that what people learn at the binging is what stays with them, so if any new IT professional would like to start experimenting Virtualization and due to the Fact that VPC does not support 64-bit Guest Os’s. They would go to other vender products which will lead them to select the same vender server Virtualization technologies. This is Due to VM file format compatibility and the fact that user does not need to do any migration or reinstallation of the VM.

I think that MS should seriously attack this issue and provide support for 64-bit OS in VPC.

Posted at 12:25 PM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: Virtualization | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/20/2011

HP EVA4400 Validate SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation failed in Windows 2008 Cluster ?

If have a HP EVA 4400 and tried to Create Windows 2008 Cluster after creating and Presenting share storage to windows 2008 host , the windows cluster validation test will indicate failing of SCSI-3 support on the shared storage present by HP EVA.

Validate SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation failed

to over come this problem:

1.Open the EVA command view, navigate to the windows 2008 hosts properties screen

2. In the general host tab , for operating system type select Custom

3. In the Custom type add the value : 00000004198009A8

Posted at 5:28 PM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: Windows Server | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/27/2010

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal (VMMSSP)2.0

MS DDC-TK for enterprise gives enterprises the ability to create private cloud infrastructure , by installing the MS self-service portal V2 enterprise will be “building Dynamic Data Center DDC “, where the Data Center admin will only be responsible to approve the infrastructure requirement submitted by different Business Unit , but the creation of VM and destroying them is a user task.

to build privet Cloud you will need following components :

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self‑Service Portal 2.0
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self‑Service Portal 2.0 Dashboard (optional)

by installing a configuring the above components enterprise datacenters can provide infrastructure-as- a-Service to business units within the enterprise

Info: http://blogs.technet.com/b/ddcalliance/archive/2010/02/16/dynamic-infrastructure-toolkit-for-system-center-dit-sc-sneak-peek-into-on-boarding.aspx

After installing and configuring VMMSSP , users might get the following error massage when trying to connect to their newly created VM through VMMSSP user interface :

“connection to the virtual machine lost because anther connection was established to this machine”

To solve this Problem on each Hyper-V host do the following :

1. Run MMC console

2. From file menu select add/remove snap-in

3. Adds the Authorization manager snap-in

4. Right Click the Authorization Manager icon and select Open Authorization Store

5. Select XML and click Browse C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Virtual Machine Manager\HyperVAuthStore.xml

6.Expand the added Virtual Machine Manager authorization store to Role Assignment

7. Right click Administrator , and select Assign Users and Group

8. Select the BU Users from AD or Authorization manager that need Access to VM’s.

9. This will allow user to connect to VM console through VMMSSP 2.0 web interface.

Posted at 12:55 PM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: Windows Server | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/3/2010

How to deploy SilverLight using Group Policy (GP)

A friend have asked me to help him installing Silverlight to a set of computers , after serching the net and MS site we come across the Silverlight Deployment Guide.doc and Silverlight Deployment Guide v2.docx also I come across this blog post , I found these documents hard to implement so , I figured out a new method hope it will help you in your silverlight deployment.

Silverlight file comes in .exe file format which can’t be deployed using Group Policy Software installation Policy to over come this problem a few steps need to be done:

Using a fresh computer that does not have silverlight installed on Download the silverlight file from MS siliverlige site
open cmd command prompt at the file location and run the “silverlight.exe –x” command
This will open extract dialog box to extract the file of silverlight into a specific folder
double click on the Install.exe file and start the installation of silver light
During the installation a new file will appear in the same folder called silverlight.msp
you need to copy and paste this file before installation complete as it will be deleted once silverlight installation complete , this will create a new copy of the file called silverlight_2.msp
rename new file back to it’s original name Silverlight.msp
now you need to integrate the silverlight.msp into the original Silverlight.msi , form the same CMD command prompt run the following Command
msiexec –a silverlight.msi –p silverlight.msp
this will update the existing silverlight.msi file which will increase it’s size from 41KB to 262KB also it will create a subfolder called PFiles
Now you can copy the whole folder to your software distribution share folder and deploy the new silverlight.msi using group policy software distribution policy.

Posted at 9:58 PM by Hikmat Kanaan | Category: Group Policy | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/12/2010

Integrating Remote Desktop Web Access within Windows SharePoint 2007 server

Windows 2008 R2 Remote desktop web access provides access to remote apps and VDI desktops through web interface which provided an easy access to remote apps . In this article we will build on top of step by step producer of how to integrate the remote desktop web access into share point server 2007 web portal. The following assumption are considered done by Administrator:

1.Hyper-v Host with RDVH service installed

2.RDS connection broker (RDcon.geeks.local).

3.RDSH has been configured and published application to RDS web site.(RDweb.geeks.local)

4.RDSH has been configured in redirection mode (RDhost.geeks.local) and personal desktops has been assigned to users

5.Share point server & RD Session host and RD we access (RDSee.geeks.local) , share point has a separate application pool user account not the NetworkService account.

The configuration that is described in Microsoft above article will work for share point service with single RDSH server, this article will build on that configuration to allow share point server 2007 to use RD connection broker and allow published applications from multiple RD session hosts to show up in the Share point web site using RD connection broker.

To configure share point server 2007 do the following :

1. follow the same steps for configuring share point service as in MS article.

2. Add the Application pool user account to the access list of the folder "%SystemDrive%\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\wpresources\TSPortalWebPart\” and assign it modify permission.

This will allow share point to use the local RDS web server to public application on share point . However if you modify the web part configuration to use the RD connection Broker as source of remote apps by selecting modify web part , edit ,

Populate the Web Part from:
RemoteApp and Desktop Connection Management (RD connection broker hostname)

you will get the error “RD Web Access was not able to access the RD Connection Broker server specified.Ensure that the computer account of the RD Web Access server is a member of the TS Web Access Computers security group on the RD Connection Broker server. “

3. To over come this problem you need to add the app pool user account to the Connection broker Local security group TS Web Access Computer in Addition to the computer account that has share point installed on.

The will populate share point web site with all web apps from multiple RD session hosts using RD connection broker including personal virtual desktop machines.

Posted at 11:39 AM by Hikmat Kanaan | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (101)

12/22/2009

Import ISA 2004 configuration into ISA 2006

This article provide solution for exporting MS ISA 2004 firewall policy configuration and import it to ISA 2006 , This migrations is not supported out of the box due some Differences between ISA 2004 and ISA 2006 exported XML Files, so I will illustrate how we can import ISA 2004 exported XML file into ISA 2006 and keep the same rules.

1. Export ISA 2004 rules,

Expand Microsoft ISA Server Management.
Right-click Firewall Policy, and click Export.
Now you will be asked for a name and location where to save the exported rules.
Click Export. If you are exporting confidential information, you will be prompted to provide a password in the Set Password dialog box, the password should be 8 characters
When the export operation has completed, click OK.

2. Now copy the exported XML file to your new ISA server (2006)

3. Export ISA 2006 rules, the same procedure can be used to export

4. Open both XML Files using notepad and compare them you will find some differences between them, the table below will show you these differences:

XML Tag

ISA 2004 Standard Value

ISA 2006 Standard Value

ISA 2006 Enterprise Value

Line #

Build

4.0.2167.887

5.0.5720.100

5.0.5720.100

3

Edition

80(or 81)

16

32

5

IsaXmlVersion

1.10

5.30

5.30

9

OptionalData

4

12

12

10

I highly recommend taking these values from the file exported using ISA 2007 servers, what you need to do is changing the ISA 2004 xml to meet the new values.

Another thing you may notice is that at line 15 you will see the following line at ISA 2006 XML file and it does not exist at ISA 2004 XML file, so add it to the ISA 2004 XML file:

<fpc4:DNSName dt:dt=’string’/>

Now save the xml file and import it to the ISA 2006 and it will work smoothly.

I tried this with ISA 2004 STD to ISA 2006 STD and it worked with me.

Posted at 7:53 PM by Samer Mustafa | Category: ISA Server | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (40)

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