Betreibt man hinter seiner Fritzbox einen Server, möchte man ihn möglicherweise über den DNS-Namen erreichen können. Da man einem Server aber sinnvollerweise eine statische IP-Adresse vergibt, wird diese von der Fritzbox nicht in den DNS eingetragen. In einer Konfigurationsdatei kann man den Host entsprechend hinterlegen. Wichtiger Hinweis: man sollte die Konfigurationsdateien der Fritzbox nur bearbeiten, wenn man weiß, wie man eine gebrickte Fritzbox wiederbelebt. Ich übernehme keine Haftung für die Richtigkeit dieser Anleitung. Read more

Since a few days we have problems with a server. It sometimes freezes and the only way to make it work again is to reset it. So a few days ago I got a SMS from the monitoring system that alerted me that the server was down again. After checking, I noticed that it was really down and I decided to reset it using the Reset service of our data center. Read more

We have a Virtual Machine with Windows Server 2008 R2 that has VHDs mounted. Since we had mounted the VHDs, Windows Server Backup on the Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V host always failed. When we detached the VHDs again, the backup would run just fine. Unfortunately, Windows Server Backup once again is not able to produce a helpful error message. The only indication in the logs is the following message that at least points you to the right VM: Read more

You know the “Authenticated Users” group in Windows? Microsoft decided to localize its name. For example, in a german Windows it is called “Authentifizierte Benutzer”. While I don’t want to criticize the decision to localize the name, I want to criticize the way it is implemented in some parts of Windows. If you take a look at icacls, you can write a script that does not depend on the locale of the installed system. Read more

Some Linux distributions (for example Debian) in their default configuration blank the screen after a certain time of inactivity. Until recently, I didn’t disable screen blanking on my servers. But recently one server started freezing once a month or so. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an IPMI so I have to send a technician over to have a look at it. The problem is: if the screen is blanked you cannot see the messages of the kernel and if the kernel has died, you cannot un-blank the screen. Read more