Tag Archives: Microsoft

DNS Server repair for Windows VPN

It look like that Windows 10 gives VPN connections a higher or same priority as your standard network connections. This can end in the situation where you can not access your companies Server and Application anymore when you open a VPN connection. A good example is that you can not access DFS resources anymore. Root cause is a false DNS Server entry order because of wrong connection prioritization.

I created a small script that start a VPN connection and increase the VPN connection interface metric to a high value (lower priority), so that your other connections get priority when it comes to DNS Server entry selection.

Have fun.

#DNS Server order repair for Win VPN connection usage
#It start a VPN connection and change InterfaceMetric of this connection.
#V1.02
#Author: Andreas Neufert
#Website with most up to date version: andyandthevms.com
#################################
#Input
$vpnconnectionname = "Veeam VPN SPB"

#Start Powershell as Administrator (found at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7690994/powershell-running-a-command-as-administrator)
if (!([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal][Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole] “Administrator”)) { Start-Process powershell.exe “-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File `”$PSCommandPath`”” -Verb RunAs; exit }

#Start VPN Connection
rasdial $vpnconnectionname

#Lookup which DNS Server is used
write-host “DNS Server”
$pinfo = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
$pinfo.FileName = “nslookup.exe”
$pinfo.RedirectStandardError = $true
$pinfo.RedirectStandardOutput = $true
$pinfo.UseShellExecute = $false
$pinfo.Arguments = “www.google.de”
$p = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
$p.StartInfo = $pinfo
$p.Start() | Out-Null
$p.WaitForExit()
$stdout = $p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()
$stderr = $p.StandardError.ReadToEnd()
#Write-Host “stdout: $stdout”
#select-string -Pattern “Address” -InputObject $stdout
#$c = $stdout.split(‘:’) | % {iex $_}
[string]$a = $stdout
[array]$b = $a -split [environment]::NewLine
$b[1]
write-host “=============================================================================================================”

#change the Interface Metric to a high number so that the other connections and their DNS settings become higher priority.

write-host “Changed to:”
Set-NetIPInterface -InterfaceAlias “Veeam VPN SPB” -InterfaceMetric 100

#output the new DNS Server address
$pinfo = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
$pinfo.FileName = “nslookup.exe”
$pinfo.RedirectStandardError = $true
$pinfo.RedirectStandardOutput = $true
$pinfo.UseShellExecute = $false
$pinfo.Arguments = “www.google.de”
$p = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
$p.StartInfo = $pinfo
$p.Start() | Out-Null
$p.WaitForExit()
$stdout = $p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()
$stderr = $p.StandardError.ReadToEnd()
#Write-Host “stdout: $stdout”
#select-string -Pattern “Address” -InputObject $stdout
#$c = $stdout.split(‘:’) | % {iex $_}
[string]$a = $stdout
[array]$b = $a -split [environment]::NewLine
$b[1]
pause

 

VM File Server with enabled dedup – High change rate every 28 days and how to avoid this

We see more and more customers enabling Windows deduplication within a VM to save space on the file servers. Even more with Windows 2016 this will become more and more the standard.

With deduplication enabled you will see a ~20x higher change rate every 28 days at the block level backups (e.g. Veeam). The root cause is the garbage collection run of the Windows deduplication engine.

You can find more informations here:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/31178.deduplication-garbage-collection-overview.aspx

…and can discuss the solutions here:
https://forums.veeam.com/post193743.html#p193743

100 Sockets Veeam Management Pack for Hyper-V for free cool promo

Hi,
just wanted to share a very cool promo for Hyper-V Users.

If you use Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and Microsoft Hyper-V, check out the following link and profit from 100 Hyper-V Socket promo.

http://go.veeam.com/mp-v7-free-enterprise-hyperv-license.html

Veeam enhanced it´s outstanding virtualization Management Pack in v7 to support Hyper-V now. Forget you very basic Microsoft Hyper-V Management Pack. This one brings you the best tools to fix your broken environments in a very short time.

Happy hands on experience…

Andy

Windows 8.1 and Veeam Backup & Replication

Hi everybody….

sometime the easiest things do not work and you have a tough time to find the root cause.

A customer of mine uses an virtual Windows 8.1 as a Veeam Backup Server and also as a VMware HotAdd Proxy for Branch Offices.  For security reasons the UAC and Windows Firewall was enabled and username administrator disabled.

We found 3 major challenges in this situation:

– Backup & Replication was not able to run on an other local user than “Computername\Administrator”  (“Can not access admin$ share” error.
– Random disconnect of VMware Tools with stunning Backup Jobs.
– After adding the Branch office Backup & Replication Server itself as a Veeam proxy to Head Quarters Backup & Replication server, local hot add processing was not possible anymore. Manual hotadd of disks was still possible… strange

Solutions for this situation:
– Enable File&Print sharing to use another local admin user than “Administrator.

fileandprinton

– The second one was fixed by enabling “high performance”  or “Höchstleistung” at the windows power options.

– Hotadd processing problem was related to different patch levels of B&R in the branch office.  The HQs Backup & Replication Server was on a higher patch level and local branch office server was not able to process hotadd anymore. Running same patch level solved it.

Happy backup…. Andy