IIS7–Self Signed Server Certificate

I had to create a self signed certificate to run on an exchange web access site.

After looking around I have found the following Microsoft tool

selfSSL7.exe (it  is for IIS7, there is an selfSSL for IIS 6).

Ref: http://blogs.iis.net/thomad/archive/2010/04/16/setting-up-ssl-made-easy.aspx

This tool allows you create a certificate for a specified common name, something the GUI in IIS7 does not allow you to do (as it adds the server name).

I had issue running it on the server where IIS was installed, it kept moaning about .net framework issue. I was nervous about messing about on the server with .net so I put selfSSL7.exe on to another IIS7 server.

The command I ran was this, it was for blinkdinkyowa.blinkydinky.net (an example name), with a Key of length 2048, valid for 365 days. It is also exported the file to a pfx file, which would allow me to import to the correct server.

selfssl7 /N cn=blinkdinkowa.blinkydinky.net /K 2048 /V 365 /X /F .\blinkdinkowa.blinkydinky.net .pfx /W <password>

So on the correct server I opened IIS, clicked on the server, and open server certificates. Right clicked and imported the pfx file.

In addition I opened an mmc, with the certificates snap in and imported the certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities. This just allows the server to trust the certificate.

I then jumped into the website bindings in IIS7, and set the https binding to use the new certificate.

IIS7–Self Signed Server Certificate

Picasa UNCs (Network Shares)

I have a central server, running a RAID5 array. I store all my important files here including my pictures. The server is backed up in addition to the RAID5 array.

Now we also have a number of laptops in the house, including my wifes. I wanted to keep all the pictures central, but allowing my wife to view them all from her laptop.

Easy I thought, I’ll just add a UNC to folder manager in picasa… lol. Nope Picasa does not support UNCs, after traipsing the net and trying to modify the watchedfolders.txt file for picasa (with limited success). Something reminded me of what I did to share a USB drive from within a existing local folder (its in another blog post). I used mklink.

mklink comes with Vista and 7. It allows to create file and folder links within existing folders, and as a bonus it allows for uncs to be used.

So with Picasa running on the laptop looking at the local pictures folder, I then created a directory junction using mklink that pointed to the server share.

Picasa now sees that folder as nothing more than a subfolder and as such just scans through the folders.

C:\Users\<username>\Pictures>mklink /d <~NewFolderName> \\<Servername>\<servershare>

Now I use ~ at the beginning of files and folders to ensure they appear at the top of any listing. Just reminds me that the folders/files have special significance. (So is you don’t want a tilde on the folder name just leave it out here.

I hope that helps someone.. I am currently sitting here waiting for picasa to finish cycling through the folders….

Picasa UNCs (Network Shares)

Ubuntu: Rhythmbox: clear out library

After importing some folders I wanted to clear out some entries, and reimport. I am sure there should be an option to do this in the GUI but it appears there is not.

Library management is pretty poor in my opinion.

Anyway to do this I had to delete the following file, and restart rhythmbox. 

~/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml 

~ is linux shorthand for your user folder /home/ /home//.local/share/rhythmbox/ 


This works for ubuntu 11.04 and Rhythmbox 0.13.3.  It has been known for them to keep moving the the file around, so if you have a different version this may be in a different location. The file should be the same so you should be able to search for it.

Ubuntu: Rhythmbox: clear out library

Getting round restricted Windows filenames (unc)

I recently had an issue with restricted filenames.

Normally windows will not let you create a file that has one of the restricted filenames, this is a hangover from windows past.

CON, AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, NUL

One of the systems used a UNC reference to access storage on a remote server share. By using the UNC the access allowed the system to create a file called con.xxxxx.doc, this file was in fact an uploaded user file.

The problem came when a backup process tried to access the file locally and compress and encrypt it. The process failed because of the file name.

So what to do. In the end I used the same trick that allowed the file to be created. I just referenced the file using a unc (\\servername\c$\…. etc..) rather than locally (c:\…. etc..)

Getting round restricted Windows filenames (unc)

Waiting for System Event Notification Service………..

Found this article and its response while experiencing an issue while logging out of a administration RDP session to an win2k8 R2.

I had tried stopping the SENS service which did hung, as described. But I think there is a timeout and the session did finally sort itself out.

I include the content for this article response more for my sanity in the future…

The system event notification issue isn’t an issue with Windows Live messenger… Read below on what I have found.

The fix for this issue is very simple.

First we will examine what causes the issue to begin with. The cause is the COM+ Event Service detects a bad code and hangs. When you go to services.msc you won’t see the service hang but believe me it is. If you try to stop the server you will then see it hang and you won’t be able to get it back started. You can’t kill the process via taskmgr because its a svchost.exe service so you’ll never know which one to kill unless you download a little program call Processor Explorer from Sysinternals.

1. Open Eventviewer and select Application and filter the list so all you see are Error logs

2. Scroll through al Error logs till you come to one EventSystem (EventID=4621) (The COM+ Event System could not remove the EventSystem.EventSubscription object {C986B80D-E6CE-4FB0-9A44-F19BF27C165A}-{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}-{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}. The HRESULT was 800706be.)

3. Ok now open Process Explorer and sort by process name

4. Find the list of svhost.exe and start right clicking each and selecting Properties.

5. After hitting Properties on each services make sure you are selecting the Services tab and look for the svchost.exe process that has the EventSystem service which its display name is COM+ Event System

6. Now close the box and right click on the svchost.exe process and select Restart

7. Instantly once the service shuts down and restarts you will notice in your taskmgr that the users that were hung are now gone and they can now login and logout as they please

8. There are some services that won’t start back up after restarting this service so make sure you go back into services.msc and sort services by automatic and start up the ones that aren’t running.

This should resolve your issue until you get another SystemEvent error in Event View, but then just follow these steps and you are fine. The greatest thing about this fix is it doesn’t require a reboot like all the millions of thread out there about this issue, because the issue isn’t resolved by a reboot.

I am definitely interested in hearing if this has worked for you so please let me know.

Thanks
Jeff

There is also a large thread on the Microsoft forums about this, and it may be worth going through this if you don’t have any joy here.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/65634267-8550-4b96-b6d1-6e020859aee7/

Waiting for System Event Notification Service………..

Transfer contacts from symbian s60 5th edition to android, and removing duplicates (google contacts)

I recently had to find a way to easily transfer my contacts on my old phone , a samsung i8910 (OmniaHD) to Galaxy SII.

After trying to do this for a while (my pcstudio kept crashing, maybe to do with me using a custom firmware from faenil, n205). So that meant I couldn;t easily get to my contacts from my pc.

Initially I tried a number of different Samsung pcstudio applications, all to no avail.

Then in desperation I went to the phone and looked at the contacts. It turns out that you mark all the contacts, and then send them via bluetooth as VCards. So thats what I did. In 1 hit, the contacts were onto my new phone.

So I had set up my phone to sync with my googlemail account, what this meant was that I had a number of duplicates, when I copied over from the i8910. So how to merge these??

Turns out this is easy. Sync with google, to ensure duplicates make it to your google account. Then go to contacts.google.com. Click on My Contacts, then in the right frame click ‘Find Duplicates’. You will get a list, you can then select them and merge them.

Fan bloody tastic….

Transfer contacts from symbian s60 5th edition to android, and removing duplicates (google contacts)

Samsung MTP device–Kies Driver Install Failure–Galaxy SII

I have just brought a Samsung galaxy SII.

However I have tried o install the Kies software in 2 locations and in both locations the utility has failed to install properly.

The software installs ok, however when I tried to connect the phone via usb, the driver installation would fail on SAMSUNG MTP device.

Now a quick search on Google turned up this article, dated 8th September 2010 and was was for the original Galaxy S. Surely I thought, it couldn’t be the same issue. however I followed the instructions on the blog post and it has worked in both locations.

Its to do with the length of file extension, being over 18 characters. By removing these files from the phone it will allow the driver install to complete successfully.

Anyway he is the article, it references small utility that allows you to search the phone for the offending extensions.

http://arvindgaba.com/computer/samsung-galaxy-s/mtp-usb-device-failed-to-install-for-samsung-galaxy-s-kies-resolved/

Samsung MTP device–Kies Driver Install Failure–Galaxy SII