Re: 24 hours of.. ummm.. fun?

On 15 Mar 2007 I stormed the castle called alt.2600 and heard -=Biscuit=-
cry out in news:Xns98F47C29A59F4no.one@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ThePsyko <thepsyko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> delighted us to no end by
taking a lime green crayon and scribbling in
news:Xns98F44FC001D17LifeIsGood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, on the
hallowed day of Thu 15 Mar 2007 07:48:26a:

What a nightmare (and it was far more complicated than this but
I'm not about to type out every fucking detail lol) ... Way
back when I started here, the network was running on NT4 (PDC
and BDC). First thing I did was move everything to Active
Directory with a 2k server. lalalala.. fast forward to adding
Exchange to the network. Exchange works fine, but in order for
my remote users to really use all the features, I needed to
configure it for RPC over HTTP.

OK.. oh wait.. MS says RPC over HTTP requires a 2k3 server for
the global catalog.. ok, add one to the mix and make it a
secondary DC.

fast forward a bit and people are having strange problems.. I
look on the exchange server and both the 2k3 GC and the 2k DC
are listed as GC/DCs.. umm ok.. look things up and MS says that
a 2k sp3 or later box can be used as a GC for Exchange...

What they DON'T have documented is that if you have a 2k DC on
the network, even if you have a 2k3 GC, the 2k box will hijack
the DS traffic and, since it can't support HTTPS, force it to
failover to TCP/IP which completely b0rks remote users from
accessing the directory..

So I finally figure that out and slap the 2k3 CD in to upgrade
the 2k box.. the upgrade "completes" but somehow is all fucked
up and it keeps rebooting itself.. Exchange keeps trying to
find it and completely ignores the 2k3 box since the 2k box was
the primary DC.. and the 2k3 box is all pissy because it can't
find the 2k box either.. so I go to transfer all the FMSO roles
to the 2k3 box, but I end up having to forcibly seize them
since the 2k has decided it's not coming back.

Finally get it all up and working so I go home for the day.

3 hours later I get the call... email is down.. I remote in and
look, and the Exchange server has gone back to look for the 2k
box.. wtf.. finally (after 2 hours of troubleshooting and
resolving other issues), find the proper setting (under
recipient update services.. go figure) and tell Exchange the
primary DC is the 2k3 box.. then I have to go reboot the 2k3
DC/GC/DNS box but click the "install updates and shut down" box
without thinking... and shut down it did.. of course, with no
other DNS servers on the network (the 2k box was the other
one), Exchange can't find it's ass with it's thumb so it sits
there being useless... can't fire up the 2k3 box remotely so
say *** it and grab a 2 hour nap... get up, shower and hop in
a cab.. get to work, fire up the 2k3/DNS box, rebuild the 2k
box as a 2k3 server (fresh install since upgrade didn't work)
and add it as a secondary DC / DNS server.. FINALLY get it all
done just about the time my East Coast people (a managing
partner specifically) are getting up and firing up Outlook..

weeeeeee.....

Holy ***, that sounds like fun.



yeah.. the icing on the cake is that I have a WebEx with HP/Mercury
Support for their Quality Center Dashboard (which is no longer seeing QC
even though it's on the same box) at 3pm... otherwise I'd have gone home
long ago lol

maybe I'll take tomorrow off :)

--
ThePsyko
Public Enemy #7



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