Matt's Latest Project

[LordOfLA]

Its a bit late I know but Dell dual xeons draw less power than dual opterons

edit: and that would be prescott based xeons.... our digital meters showed that for us.

 

[Bootsy]

hey matt, if you need any routing / AD / exchange help let me know, i have experience with all this junk.

=]

 

[madmatt]

Bootsy, thank you.

I've hit a small road block thanks to a bad hard drive. One of the two 500GB drives failed within three days of being installed. Luckily the drives were mirrored.

 

[Geffy]

w00 RMA

 

[madmatt]

I submitted the RMA to WD. I don't know if "advanced replacement" is available for non-resellers but it sure does make the process a lot easier.

 

[kcnychief]

Nice. Let me know what your experiences are with Exchange 2007.

My current Exchange 2003 server is not a 64-bit box, so it might be a while before I build a new machine that's capable of running 2007.

You can grab Exchange 2007 in the 32-bit flavor for an evaluation type scenario. You can even use the management tools from a 32-bit environment as well.

Although you won't get a realistic idea of how it would perform within a 64-bit environment, it will still work. Some of the code paths chosen to achieve the improvements in disk I/O on 64-bit systems will cause a degradation in 32-bit environments. I would think especially for personal use where it's not a standard heavy workload.

As long as you have at least 1GB of RAM to let it run, you could at least tinker/play with it and see if you like it Heck, maybe it runs well enough and you want to keep running it, your call.

 

[madmatt]

Derek,

Microsoft is only making Exchange 2007 available in x64. "Longhorn" will only be available in x64 as well.

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/sysreqs/default.mspx

 

[kcnychief]

Yeah, it's available in x64, but it will run (although you'll get many warnings), on a 32-bit platform.

Rather detailed article in the latest TechNet Magazine describing the process.

 

[NetRyder]

Yeah, I'm aware of the 32-bit preconfigured VHD that Microsoft provides. It's supposed to run within Virtual Server 2005 R2, and according to the sysreqs, Virtual Server 2005 only runs on XP and Server 2003. My desktop is already running Vista, so I'm not sure if it'll work.

I don't want to rebuild my production Exchange 2003 server without trying 2007 out separately first, so my best bet at the moment is to see if I can get that VHD to work on Vista somehow. There is a chance it'll work with Virtual PC 2007, which is Vista-compatible. I'm planning to try that out soon. There's also this.

OWA 2007 is so much better compared to 2003 though.

 

[madmatt]

I'll be installing Exchange 2007 tomorrow or on Wednesday. Last week got busy and I took the entire weekend off from USM.

I've read great things about OWA 2007, support for Windows Mobile, and support for Outlook 2007. Needless to say, I can't wait!

 

[kcnychief]

Yeah, I'm aware of the 32-bit preconfigured VHD that Microsoft provides. It's supposed to run within Virtual Server 2005 R2, and according to the sysreqs, Virtual Server 2005 only runs on XP and Server 2003. My desktop is already running Vista, so I'm not sure if it'll work.

I don't want to rebuild my production Exchange 2003 server without trying 2007 out separately first, so my best bet at the moment is to see if I can get that VHD to work on Vista somehow. There is a chance it'll work with Virtual PC 2007, which is Vista-compatible. I'm planning to try that out soon. There's also this.

OWA 2007 is so much better compared to 2003 though.

You don't need a VHD though, it will install on a 32-bit platform. Just ignore the loads of warnings you will receive during install

I'll be installing Exchange 2007 tomorrow or on Wednesday. Last week got busy and I took the entire weekend off from USM.

I've read great things about OWA 2007, support for Windows Mobile, and support for Outlook 2007. Needless to say, I can't wait!

I'd like to hear your thoughts on it when you get it up and running. I have read/heard some great things about it, as well as the OWA 2007 goodies

 

[Electronic Punk]

Going to be building my domain soon I guess. While I have experience with domains and stuff setting up an exchange server will be all new to me, but i have a static IP these days so its about time I did something with it.

 

[madmatt]

Off to the races with my Exchange install. The installation went well and finished successfully. I am now going through the "Finalize" steps and there I encounter a problem.

Obviously for OWA, Outlook Anywhere, etc. I need a SSL Certificate. Instead of paying for one I decided to make the server a Certificate Server and use my own.

After following the instructions to generate a request I opened the Certification Authority snap-in and tried to submit the request. And of course it fails for the following reason.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: CertSvc
Event Category: None
Event ID: 53
Date: 01/02/2007
Time: 01:57:20 PM
User: N/A
Computer: USM-FUSION
Description:
Certificate Services denied request 2 because The request contains no certificate template information. 0x80094801 (-2146875391). The request was for CN=mail.usmsolutions.local. Additional information: Denied by Policy Module 0x80094801, The request does not contain a certificate template extension or the CertificateTemplate request attribute.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Gee, big help. Thanks error message. A quick search revealed nothing.

Any help is appreciated.

NR, what did you do for your SSL Certificate?

 

[NetRyder]

NR, what did you do for your SSL Certificate?

I use a self-signed cert as well. When I was setting things up last year, I used the initial set-up wizard in SBS 2003 to generate the certificate.

As I said, I haven't tried 2007 yet, so I'm not sure what the differences are in the setup process yet. Let me see if I can find something about that.

 

[Geffy]

You can also use CACert.org for Free SSL Certificates

 

[Electronic Punk]

I'm gonna stall until SP2 is out so I can play with the new RIS stuff via home for complete laziness

 

[madmatt]

You can also use CACert.org for Free SSL Certificates

Great site. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

 

[NetRyder]

Yeah, I'm aware of the 32-bit preconfigured VHD that Microsoft provides. It's supposed to run within Virtual Server 2005 R2, and according to the sysreqs, Virtual Server 2005 only runs on XP and Server 2003. My desktop is already running Vista, so I'm not sure if it'll work.

I don't want to rebuild my production Exchange 2003 server without trying 2007 out separately first, so my best bet at the moment is to see if I can get that VHD to work on Vista somehow. There is a chance it'll work with Virtual PC 2007, which is Vista-compatible. I'm planning to try that out soon. There's also this.

OWA 2007 is so much better compared to 2003 though.

In case anyone's wondering, the VHD does work in VPC 2007.

 

[kcnychief]

Hey Matt and others - how do you typically configure your servers regarding partitions and such? Do you have a small partition for the C drive (OS), then a seperate partition for applications, and again for files?

What are your preferences?

 

[NetRyder]

Hey Matt and others - how do you typically configure your servers regarding partitions and such? Do you have a small partition for the C drive (OS), then a seperate partition for applications, and again for files?

What are your preferences?

My current box functions as an Exchange, SharePoint Portal and File server.
Two physical drives:

- Disk 1 (80 GB):
---- Partition 1 (20 GB): OS and applications.
---- Partition 2 (60 GB): User data, Exchange and SharePoint DBs, IMF archives.

- Disk 2 (200 GB):
---- Partition 1 (200 GB): File server data, daily incremental backups of Disk 1 Partition 2, bi-weekly full system backups.