About iLO Port Setup and configuration

ILO Setup

ILO Setup

ILO – Integrated Lights Out

This is a very cool feature that allows one to manage the server box remotely. Idea is physically you don't have to be in the data center to manage servers. ILO interface provides exact same interface as you will see when you have connected monitor, keyboard and mouse to each individual server.

Each server comes with default DNS name for ILO web interface (it's DHCP enabled! so if your network has DHCP IP addresses available, then it will pick up the one for it's factory default DNS name.)

Default DNS names usually in the pattern ILO<Serial#OfBox>
For example serial id for server is HPPRO1234567, then DNS name to access server using ILO would be ILOHPPRO1234567 and it would be available at http://ILOHPPRO1234567

It comes with default administrator user id / password. This user id/password should be changed immediately in order to make your server secure.

Once you login using with given credentials, four tabs that are available for use are: System Status, Remote Console, Virtual Devices, Administration

Change ILO Administrator password
Go to "Administration" -> "User Administration" -> "Select a User" -> "View / Modify" Also if needed you can create more users and give them selective permissions to manage the server using ILO.

How to recover the ILO password
In a worst case scenario where you forgot the user id/ password for ILO login, then only way to reset the password is by connecting physically to the box. Make sure monitor and keyboard is connected to box and boot the machine.

Press F8 to enter into ILO Configuration. Then go to Users -> Modify user and change the ILO admin password which can help to get back to use ILO again.

Change the ILO DNS name

• Before you get started, need to get the static ip address and dns name entry configured for this ILO interface.
• Now login to ILO web interface using default dns name (http://DefaultDNSNAME) using default user id/password if that's not yet changed. let's say http://ILOHPPRO1234567)
• Click on Administration tab -> settings -> network. Then first disable the DHCP.
• Enter correct values for IP Address, subnet mask and Gateway IP Address that you allocated for new ILO DNS Name in Eman.
• Enter new iLO 2 Subsystem Name

And click on "Apply" to make changes effective. Following message will be displayed :

Please wait – iLO 2 is being reset with new changes. You will automatically be redirected to the login page in 59 seconds. If an SSL error message is displayed, please restart your browser and re-login.

It will logout you in one or two minutes. Or you can open the new browser session and now try to login using new ilo DNS name. For example http://newdnsname and it should redirect to login screen.

Troubleshooting ILO DNS Name

But for some reasons if you haven't configured ILO dns correctly, then you may not be able to access the ILO web interface. In this case to debug the configuration, you need to connect that machine physically.

Following are steps:

• Connect Monitor to this machine (connect to front port, it's easy!) and have keyboard connection at the back.
• Power on the machine. Once system start booting… You will see white screen display "HP Proliant Servers …." After this keep on pressing F8 key to get you into ILO configuration Screen.
• Now go to Network -> DHCP menu
  * Make sure DHCP is set to OFF (use spacebar to change the settings)
  * Verify ILO name has correct value.
• Now go to Menu Network -> TCP/IP Go to IP Address selection You can't change these settings if DHCP is ON Update IP Address to new ILP DNS entry. Also Enter correct values for subnet and default getway.

Save the settings (F10) and exit. Now you should be able to login to ILO interface using new dns name like http://newdnsname

Note NIC Mac address

We have connected the server on LAN port 1. Hence note the value of Port 1 NIC MAC address, we will need this value to do the Linux installation using the PXE boot.

OS interview questions

By admin | September 22, 2005

1. What is MUTEX ?
2. What isthe difference between a 'thread' and a 'process'?
3. What is INODE?
4. Explain the working of Virtual Memory.
5. How does Windows NT supports Multitasking?
6. Explain the Unix Kernel.
7. What is Concurrency? Expain with example Deadlock and Starvation.
8. What are your solution strategies for "Dining Philosophers Problem" ?
9. Explain Memory Partitioning, Paging, Segmentation.
10. Explain Scheduling.
11. Operating System Security.
12. What is Semaphore?
13. Explain the following file systems : NTFS, Macintosh(HPFS), FAT .
14. What are the different process states?
15. What is Marshalling?
16. Define and explain COM?
17. What is Marshalling?
18. Difference - Loading and Linking ?

Windows sysadmin interview questions

By admin | March 29, 2006

1. What is Active Directory schema?
2. What are the domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?
3. What are the forest functional level in Windows Server 2003?
4. What is global catalog server?
5. How we can raise domain functional & forest functional level in Windows Server 2003?
6. Which is the deafult protocol used in directory services?
7. What is IPv6?
8. What is the default domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?
9. What are the physical & logical components of ADS
10. In which domain functional level, we can rename domain name?
11. What is multimaster replication?
12. What is a site?
13. Which is the command used to remove active directory from a domain controler?
14. How we can create console, which contain schema?
15. What is trust?
16. What is the file that's responsible for keep all Active Directory database?

Windows sysadmin interview questions

By admin | June 15, 2006

1. What are the required components of Windows Server 2003 for installing Exchange 2003? - ASP.NET, SMTP, NNTP, W3SVC
2. What must be done to an AD forest before Exchange can be deployed? - Setup /forestprep
3. What Exchange process is responsible for communication with AD? - DSACCESS
4. What 3 types of domain controller does Exchange access? - Normal Domain Controller, Global Catalog, Configuration Domain Controller
5. What connector type would you use to connect to the Internet, and what are the two methods of sending mail over that connector? - SMTP Connector: Forward to smart host or use DNS to route to each address
6. How would you optimise Exchange 2003 memory usage on a Windows Server 2003 server with more than 1Gb of memory? - Add /3Gb switch to boot.ini
7. What would a rise in remote queue length generally indicate? - This means mail is not being sent to other servers. This can be explained by outages or performance issues with the network or remote servers.
8. What would a rise in the Local Delivery queue generally mean? - This indicates a performance issue or outage on the local server. Reasons could be slowness in consulting AD, slowness in handing messages off to local delivery or SMTP delivery. It could also be databases being dismounted or a lack of disk space.
9. What are the standard port numbers for SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, RPC, LDAP and Global Catalog? - SMTP – 25, POP3 – 110, IMAP4 – 143, RPC – 135, LDAP – 389, Global Catalog - 3268
10. Name the process names for the following: System Attendant? – MAD.EXE, Information Store – STORE.EXE, SMTP/POP/IMAP/OWA – INETINFO.EXE
11. What is the maximum amount of databases that can be hosted on Exchange 2003 Enterprise? - 20 databases. 4 SGs x 5 DBs.
12. What are the disadvantages of circular logging? - In the event of a corrupt database, data can only be restored to the last backup.

54 screening questions for Windows admin

By admin | January 27, 2008

1. What is Active Directory?
2. What is LDAP?
3. Can you connect Active Directory to other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name a few options.
4. Where is the AD database held? What other folders are related to AD?
5. What is the SYSVOL folder?
6. Name the AD NCs and replication issues for each NC
7. What are application partitions? When do I use them
8. How do you create a new application partition
9. How do you view replication properties for AD partitions and DCs?
10. What is the Global Catalog?
11. How do you view all the GCs in the forest?
12. Why not make all DCs in a large forest as GCs?
13. Trying to look at the Schema, how can I do that?
14. What are the Support Tools? Why do I need them?
15. What is LDP? What is REPLMON? What is ADSIEDIT? What is NETDOM? What is REPADMIN?
16. What are sites? What are they used for?
17. What's the difference between a site link's schedule and interval?
18. What is the KCC?
19. What is the ISTG? Who has that role by default?
20. What are the requirements for installing AD on a new server?
21. What can you do to promote a server to DC if you're in a remote location with slow WAN link?
22. How can you forcibly remove AD from a server, and what do you do later? • Can I get user passwords from the AD database?
23. What tool would I use to try to grab security related packets from the wire?
24. Name some OU design considerations.
25. What is tombstone lifetime attribute?
26. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 DC in a Windows 2000 AD?
27. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 R2 DC in a Windows 2003 AD?
28. How would you find all users that have not logged on since last month?
29. What are the DS* commands?
30. What's the difference between LDIFDE and CSVDE? Usage considerations?
31. What are the FSMO roles? Who has them by default? What happens when each one fails?
32. What FSMO placement considerations do you know of?
33. I want to look at the RID allocation table for a DC. What do I do?
34. What's the difference between transferring a FSMO role and seizing one? Which one should you NOT seize? Why?
35. How do you configure a â€Å"stand-by operation masterâ€Â� for any of the roles?
36. How do you backup AD?
37. How do you restore AD?
38. How do you change the DS Restore admin password?
39. Why can't you restore a DC that was backed up 4 months ago?
40. What are GPOs?
41. What is the order in which GPOs are applied?
42. Name a few benefits of using GPMC.
43. What are the GPC and the GPT? Where can I find them?
44. What are GPO links? What special things can I do to them?
45. What can I do to prevent inheritance from above?
46. How can I override blocking of inheritance?
47. How can you determine what GPO was and was not applied for a user? Name a few ways to do that.
48. A user claims he did not receive a GPO, yet his user and computer accounts are in the right OU, and everyone else there gets the GPO. What will you look for?
49. Name a few differences in Vista GPOs
50. Name some GPO settings in the computer and user parts.
51. What are administrative templates?
52. What's the difference between software publishing and assigning?
53. Can I deploy non-MSI software with GPO?
54. You want to standardize the desktop environments (wallpaper, My Documents, Start menu, printers etc.) on the computers in one department. How would you do that?

Sysadmin sample interview questions

By admin | June 12, 2008

1. Why was it that you left the last job that you were at?
2. What do you think your top 3 strengths are?
3. What is most important to you in a job?
4. Major difference between FAT and NTFS on a local machine?
5. How many passwords by default are remembered in an active directory?
6. What is a C name record (in DNS)?
7. What is a LM host file used for?
8. Can you name the FSMO roles in active directory?
9. What tolls would you use to gage the effect of group policy before using any tools?
10. Explain Active Directory sites and services and linked cost routing?
11. When would you use circular logging and exchange?
12. Exhange related question - as an echange admin if someone asked you how to determine if mail was delivered or not which tool would you use?
13. Can you explain how you configurated SMS.
14. Rate yourself in 3 different areas (1-5, 5 is expert)

Hiring an IT guy - questions to ask

Check out their discussion, and description of what question are good and which ones are not that good.

1. What port does telnet use?
2. What is SMTP?
3. How would you troubleshoot a printer?
4. How does traceroute work?
5. Walk me through everything that happens in the network from the moment you punch in www.google.com in the address bar to when the browser displays the page?
6. Can you work this weekend?
7. What kind of people are your current users? Do you like them?
8. What role do you think computer support analysts should play in the company?
9. Assuming you have to work for a living and all jobs pay the same, how would you describe the job you want?
10. When conflict arises on your team, how do you handle it?
11. How do you stay current?
12. What operating system do you prefer and why?
13. What part of the project life cycle have you worked on?
14. Describe the project or situation that best demonstrates your coding (or analytical) skills.
15. What is the differece between local, global and universal groups?
16. What is the major difference between FAT and NTFS?
17. Name the FMSO roles and their functions.
18. You've just been asked to create 20 new Users and update 2 GPOs, ASAP! You go to the Administrative Tools, and discover they are all gone. What do you do? What do you suspect happened?
19. What is a Global Catalog?
20. Explain the function of DNS.
21. Explain a "Two-Way Transitive" trust.
22. In speaking about trusts, what does "Non-transitive" mean?
23. Describe the lease process of DHCP.
24. Explain NTP.
25. What is the 568B wiring scheme?
26. What us your highest achievement while working in the IT field?
27. What are your short term goals to achieve?
28. You have a user call for support for the 5th time on the same issue. How would you handle the call and what would you do differently?
29. List as many ways you can think of to move a file from a Windows machine to a Linux machine.
30. Demonstrate recursiveness by implementing a factorial function.

System Administrator Responsibility

Daily Monitoring Tasks

Table 1.5 Daily Tasks and Their Importance

Tasks	Importance
Verify that all domain controllers are communicating with the central monitoring console or collector.	Communication failure between the domain controller and the monitoring infrastructure prevents you from receiving alerts so you can examine and resolve them.
View and examine all new alerts on each domain controller, resolving them in a timely fashion.	This precaution helps you avoid service outages.
Resolve alerts indicating the following services are not running: FRS, Net Logon, KDC, W32Time, ISMSERV. MOM reports these as Active Directory Essential Services.	Active Directory depends on these services. They must be running on every domain controller.
Resolve alerts indicating SYSVOL is not shared.	Active Directory cannot apply Group Policy unless SYSVOL is shared.
Resolve alerts indicating that the domain controller is not advertising itself.	Domain controllers must register DNS records to be able to respond to LDAP and other service requests.
Resolve alerts indicating time synchronization problems.	The Kerberos authentication protocol requires that time be synchronized between all domain controllers and clients that use it.
Resolve all other alerts in order of severity. If alerts are given error, warning, and information status similar to the event log, resolve alerts marked error first.	The highest priority alerts indicate the most serious risk to your service level..

 

Weekly Monitoring Tasks

Table 1.6 Weekly Tasks and Their Importance

Tasks	Importance
Review the Time Synchronization Report to detect intermittent problems and resolve time-related alerts.	The Kerberos authentication protocol requires that time be synchronized between all domain controllers and clients that use it.
Review the Authentication Report to help resolve problems generated by computer accounts with expired passwords.	Expired passwords must be reset to allow the computers to authenticate and participate in the domain.
Review the Duplicate Service Principal Name Report to list all security principals that have a service principal name conflict.	User or computer accounts cannot be authenticated or log on if they share an SPN with another account.
Review a report of the top alerts generated by the Active Directory monitoring indicators and resolve those items that occur most frequently.	Report shows alerts that occur most often. Focusing on the top alert generators significantly reduces the number of alerts seen by the operator.
Review the report that lists all trust relationships in the forest and check for obsolete, unintended, or broken trusts.	Authentication between domains or forests requires trust relationships.

 

 

 

Monthly Monitoring Tasks

Table 1.7 Monthly Tasks and Their Importance

Tasks	Importance
Verify that all domain controllers are running with the same service pack and hot fix patches.	Potential issues can arise if distributed services are running with different versions of software.
Review all Active Directory reports and adjust thresholds as needed. Examine each report and determine which reports, data, and alerts are important for your environment and service level agreement.	Examining the data that is relevant to your environment allows you to determine the thresholds that trigger the alerts to your service level delivery.
Review the Replication Monitoring Report to verify that replication throughout the forest occurs within acceptable limits	Timely replication helps assure that you meet your service level agreements.
Review the Active Directory response time reports.	Services must respond quickly for the system to function properly and applications such as e-mail to work properly.
Review the domain controller disk space reports.	The drives containing the Active Directory database and log files must have sufficient free space to accommodate growth and routine processing.
Review all performance-related reports. These reports are called Health Monitoring reports in MOM.	These reports can help you determine the baseline for your environment and adjust thresholds.
Review all performance-related reports for capacity planning purposes to ensure that you have enough capacity for current and expected growth. These reports are called Health Monitoring reports in MOM.	These reports help you track growth trends in your environment and plan for future hardware and software needs.
Adjust performance counter thresholds or disable rules that are not applicable to your environment or that generate irrelevant alerts.	Monitoring indicators must be adjusted to suit your environment. The goal is to provide alerts that are concise, highly relevant, and lead an operator to resolve the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Routine Tasks

 

The following are examples of daily routine tasks in the Exchange environment:

•	Perform backups. Each day, perform necessary system and application backups to tape. Perform backup of Exchange Server 2003 information stores. The backup content and schedule should be driven by identified risks and their respective contingencies. Combine archive-to-disk methods with tape backups as necessary to back up particular data sets or logs to tape. Perform full backup at least once a week. Configure automatic notification of backup success or failure.
•	Verify backups. Verify that the necessary system and application backups have taken place without critical errors or failures. As part of risk analysis and contingency planning, there might be a requirement for spare servers on which the data in backups can be verified. Exchange Server 2003 database logs should have been automatically deleted after successful backup. In the event that errors or failures have occurred, take the following actions: • Consult the backup operations guide. • Review each error to understand its impact to the backup process. This is especially true if backup quality or integrity has been affected • If any portions of the backup have failed or any of the errors are significant, log a ticket with the help desk. Restart that portion of the backup immediately, or reschedule it to take place during the most appropriate time period. This minimizes performance impacts and service disruption. • If the ticket is resolved, be sure that the solution is documented in the help desk system and that the ticket is closed.
•	Verify directory service availability. Verify that directory replication for both Active Directory and the File Replication service (FRS) is functioning correctly (without errors), on schedule between domain controllers in all locations. Ensure that the Update Sequence Numbers (USNs) are correct on all domain controllers. (This determines whether it is functioning "correctly"). Warnings and errors can be viewed in Directory Service and FRS logs on all domain controllers. Tools such as Dcdiag.exe, Repadmin.exe, and Replmon.exe can also be used to monitor the real-time status and performance of replication.
•	Check available disk space. Check disk space on the servers and SAN to ensure that sufficient "free space" exists. Tools such as System Monitor, MOM or third-party monitoring tools can be used to monitor available disk space. A more detailed check on a partition or application level can be performed; use automation to ease administrative effort. A process for long-term data archiving storage should be evaluated.
•	Verify successful completion of database maintenance. Use Event Viewer in Windows to verify whether Exchange Server 2003 online database defragmentation was successful.
•	Check SMTP queue. Use Exchange System Manager to ensure that the Exchange Server 2003 SMTP queue connection state is "ready or "active" and that queues are not "blocked," or becoming full, waiting for routing or directory lookup information. Configure Service Monitoring to automatically notify the administrator when the queue exceeds a set threshold.
•	Verify availability of Exchange Server 2003 stores. Use Event Viewer or MOM to verify that all mailbox and public folder stores are available and functioning normally. Set automatic notification to the Exchange administrator, if the Exchange Server 2003 store becomes unavailable.
•	Verify Exchange Server 2003 availability. Make sure all computers running Exchange Server in the entire Exchange organization are available. Server performance counters, CPU, disk I/O, network I/O, physical and virtual memory should not exceed the threshold. Use Exchange System Manager, Event Viewer, Computer Management Console, or MOM to configure automatic notification in case Exchange Server 2003 becomes unavailable.
•	Verify Exchange connectors. Make sure all Exchange Server 2003 connectors are available and functioning. Use Exchange System Manager to validate the status of the connectors.
•	Verify network connectivity and services. Verify that network connectivity (LAN, WAN, Internet) is functional and that network services are available (DNS, DHCP, proxy). Use Ping, Ipconfig, Tracert, System Monitor, and/or MOM to check and monitor.
•	Review open service tickets. Review each Exchange Server 2003 "open" help desk ticket. The ticket owner should follow up on resolving the issue within the established SLA. Document the resolution, or escalate as appropriate.
•	Review Windows Systems and Application logs. Check Windows Server 2003 System, Security, and Application logs on all computers running Exchange Server. On domain controllers, also check Directory Services and File Replication Service logs. Document and investigate all errors and warnings. Use automatic notification when possible to minimize administrative effort.

 

Error message - "Document Feeder Empty"

issue : Document Feeder Empty ,Load the document and press start

Solution : This kind of error message may be printer waiting for document to be loaded for xerox or for scanning . if any user start the process and stop suddenly this message may occur

So just keep a sample document for xerox or for scanning the message will automatically disappear

Regards
Mohamed Rafi

Standard output bin full - hp Printer

issue : Printer Not Working /printing . Error message " Standard output bin full"

Solution : paper jammed in printer cater age and electronic belt .Once removed printer is working fine

Thanks
Mohamed Rafi

Vista password Lost

One of my user  forgot his  windows authentication password , with my friend help i downloaded hiren Boot Cd and Broke the password successfully .

So here is the link for downloading it .

http://www.hirensbootcd.net/download.html?ver=10.6

Regards
Mohamed Rafi.