Blog du Tristank : Extra Bits Of A Personal Nature

ISA Server 2006 TCP Retransmits

tristank — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:24:20 GMT

Health Checks

I perform ISA Server Health Checks for Premier Support (via Premier Field Engineering) as part of my role.

I’ve seen something a few times recently that I thought it might be helpful to call out, while poking around in the Performance Monitor TCPv4 counter area.

The Problem

In short: Lots of TCP retransmissions per second.

Like, lots. More than 1% is annoying; any more than 5% and you pretty surely have a problem.

Recently, I’ve been seeing 20%.

That’s right, kids, according to Perfmon’s statistics, one in five TCP packets requires retransmission.

If your ISA Server seems like it might be a bit slow, and you haven’t looked yet, go look. I’ll wait. You’re interested in the TCPv4 object, specifically the Segments/sec and Segments Retransmitted/sec counters.

What I’ve seen looks like this:

The green area is TCPv4\Segments/sec. The red area is TCPv4\Segments Retransmitted/sec. They’re using the same scale.

Notice that the retransmission figures track with the overall volume.

This 20% figure has been seen across Intel and Broadcom server NICs, so I don’t think it’s specific to either vendor.

Fixing It

In at least one of the places I found this, a simple driver upgrade to the latest version available looked like it fixed the problem.

Otherwise, it could indicate a NIC issue, or a hardware issue with the switch.

If you find yourself in this situation, and do resolve it, please do post details in the comments section below.

My new roadmouse

tristank — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:43:41 GMT

They wanted me to post about Windows phones.

Well, I’m going to fight the power. Buck the trend. Talk about my new favourite travelling companion.

It is the surprisingly-catchily-titled Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000.

First cool feature: Magnets everywhere!

The wireless transceiver doubles as a 1GB USB stick, and has a magnetic doohickie on the end that the charge cable happily snuggles up to.

The same cable has another magnetic dock on the underside of the mouse.

Next cool feature: Use it like a wired one!

With the mouse power switch in the “off” position, I’m still happily mousing away with the cable connected.

Next cool almost-hidden feature: It does Bluetooth too!

You can select between the 2.4Ghz Wireless thingy supplied by the dongle, or regular Bluetooth connectivity with a switch under the battery cover. And since I got bluetooth fixed on my laptop, that actually makes some sense, and means that – as long as it’s charged already – I can use the mouse for a fair while without having to find the memory stick slash dongle slash cord thing.

I have no idea how I came into possession of this one, but it’s quickly replaced the (fleet of) Notebook Optical Mouse (s) that I’ve loved – yes, loved - over the years for its size, lightness and plucky go-anywhere courage.

It is, however, heavier: there’s a nice metal finish, and obviously a rechargeable battery in there, but I don’t find myself minding that much.

From the wish-it-didn’t department: 4-way scroll wheel that I’d have happily substituted for a fatter non-side-scrolling regular wheel (middle clicks are a bit sharp and rolly), and thumb buttons discreetly out of thumb’s reach on the left. I hate thumb buttons (unlike Jeff), but these are unobtrusive enough that you’re unlikely to hit them accidentally.

So perhaps I’m just getting old – and I certainly don’t play as many first person shooters as I used to, especially not on this 1.2Ghz-and-PATA-toting Dell XT – but this mouse seems to do just fine for the moment. Recommended!

Brought to you by the number 8000, and the word “shill”. :)

ISA Server 2006 on Windows Server 2008: Nup

tristank — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:52:46 GMT

Yuri’s blog explains some of the detail. But there’s slightly more subtlety to it, which I’ll try to snake-oil in front of you here:

Can I install ISA 2006 on 32-bit Windows Server 2008 ?

No, it only runs on Windows Server 2003. Okay, so technically, it also runs on Windows 2000, but if you’re installing it like that now, you should check the calendar. Windows 2000 is old, man.

Why not ISA Server 2006 on Windows 2008?

Whenever I asked that, people mumbled about TCP/IP stack changes. Sounds plausible, so I let it slide.

Well can I install ISA 2006 on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 ?

No. Wait – sort of, not really. Do you count virtualization?

What do you mean?

Hyper-V or an SVVP-validated platform. (Details on security. And the inimitable “Jim Harris” apparently pretending to be Jim Harrison. Giggle.)

Er, if I do count virtual machines?

Yes. You run it in a 32-bit Windows Server 2003 guest.

Isn’t that cheating?!

No. Well, maybe. Sorry, did you have a point there?

What about Windows Server 2003, x64 Edition?

Installing ISA on it? No. It’s 32-bit only and uses kernel-mode software; you can’t mix and match 32-bit with 64-bit k-mode drivers. Hint: I just helped you study for 070-351.

What about Service Pack 2?

X64 Edition?

Yes!

No.

You’re not being helpful.

Oh really? Your eyes are the wrong shape.

The next version of ISA Server, called Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG, or, I guess, Timmy to his friends (yep, I’m betting the G ends up semi-silent)), is available in its initial release in the Windows 2008 Essential Business Server thingo, which is 64-bit only.

The next standalone (i.e. non-EBS-integrated) release is currently available in Beta form, and runs exclusively on Windows Server 2008, x64 edition.

That was more helpful.

You still look funny.

Hey, why don’t your links open in new windows?

Because I think it’s nice for the reader to be able to choose whether an informational link should appear in the current frame or a new tab (or a new window).

Sometimes (probably quite often on this blog), you’ll be done with the content at the current page you’re reading, and just want to replace it with something else. Forcing a new window isn’t polite in the age of tabbed browsing.

Let the user choose.

I agree, that’s so wise. You’re like, amazing.

I know.

Everything old…

tristank — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:33:34 GMT

Bing, you say? Odd, I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere before…

Wait! It was me!? I’d like to thank the Academy…

So, I assume I can look forward to a healthy bonus for coining the term!? Sure, the direction was apparently misguided, but the word is pure bing-y gold! Sigh.

Blog du TristanK: Inventing useful brand names since 2005.

(I’d buy Fjnorkel.com (that’s f-nyor-kul) right now, but I had to look up how to spell it twice while typing this sentence, which makes me a little concerned for how well people that didn’t make it up would remember it.)

“Microsoft is evil”, Barbeque Edition

tristank — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:34:46 GMT

A friend of my mother’s was introduced to me at a family barbeque, and started in. Background: lives in a nice suburban neighbourhood, sends her kids to private school.

“Lovely to see you!…

So how do you feel about working for them?” (measured tone)

Pretty good, most days?

“Microsoft is evil.”

(is-she-joking?-pause) Um, look, I think we make dumb decisions sometimes, but could I ask why you think we’re evil? Is this an EU thing?

“I read that the Bill Gates foundation was trying to find a cure for Malaria.”

(confused expression) you did say ‘evil,’ right?

“and you know what that means” (expectant eyebrow-arching)

Fewer dead people?

“Yes!” (triumphant look)

(thinking hard) I can’t see how that’s bad? Is this a theological thing?

“Well it’s for globalization, isn’t it?”

Uhm… what?

“The whole idea is that if Malaria gets eradicated, there will be more people to work in sweatshops.”

(I’d swear the whites of the eyes were in some way frothy at this point)

(Pause) Yes, I guess, that’s technically feasible in some way. Let’s just suggest that we have a programming sweat shop in the Malaria belt.

(Expectancy; exultation)

What I think you’re saying is that you’d rather that about a million people died each year, than, say, they all survived and a couple of thousand worked for very low wages.

(Derailment moment; this-isn’t-quite-the-slam-dunk-I-had-planned)

(nearly shouting) “Well, no, but curing Malaria means more cheap workers. And more cheap workers means more globalization. It’s being done for a profit motive.”

(trying to calm everyone down) Let’s just assume that you’re right and it’s all a big, costly, nefarious scheme to obtain more cheap workers. Just to be clear, I don’t think that’s the case.

Are you telling me that a profit motive that leads to survival for millions, and a small income for a few of them, is more evil than all those people dying, then? Isn’t survival a start?

“But globalization is bad! Sweatshops!”

(patience with crazy person expended) Malaria worse! Death! If you don’t live, it’s a bit awkward to say you’d like your living conditions to be improved, isn’t it?

The conversation turned to other things…

Windows 7 RC n-Trig multitouch drivers are out

tristank — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:04:02 GMT

Some love for my lil’ Dell Latitude XT! Dell won’t sell me a battery slice for it, but I can still glide my fingers across it creepily!

In this DuoSense Multi Touch RC Release: the pen should work as well as multitouch! No more having to pick one and stick with it! Yay!

All linked from the Download page – check the release notes (link in right hand column at top of page body) before you try them.

Vista-Stylez File Management in Windows 7 Beta

tristank — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:07:24 GMT

If you’re finding file management frustrating because the folder pane seems strangely inactive in the Windows 7 beta, it’s probably because it is. It’s perfect for light filing use, but not so good for folder-stuffing and navigational acrobatics. Which I seem to do.

I filed a bug using Send Feedback on that just now, complaining it was harder to organize files en masse with the new system, especially with an extensive folder hierarchy, cos I had to use two windows, and while I love the Snap Left and Snap Right feature to a point, blah, blah blah, whine. (Hey, does anyone know how to tile vertically?)

Of course, seconds after filing the bug, I experimentally right-clicked in the folder area of the Win7 Explorer interface, and there are precisely the options to restore Vista-like behaviour:

It’s also in Folder Options. (oops). The trick to finding it in the Explorer pane is to right-click a blank area, not one of the items.

My bad. Sorry, Win7 team. I take it all back, and I’ll pay for any damage*.

Shutting phones up with Bluetooth, revisited: musings

tristank — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:31:08 GMT

I posted a while back that I was looking for some kind of suppression device that could silence my ringer while I was in the office, and mentioned Bluetooth as a likely candidate.

Since then, I got myself a car with a Bluetooth module in it, and something just hit me – the phone never rings when it’s paired. Sure, it vibrates a bit, but that’s preferable to the slightly loud Bliss edit (by Muse: airy electro (gives me a chance to pick up with minimal noise pollution) then big thumping guitary BOW BOW BOW BOW da-da-da-da da-da-da-do-do BOW BOW BOW BOW etc) that I’m using as my regular ringtone.

I got a Samsung i617T with the new job, but I’m pretty sure the same thing happened with my HTC Touch Dual.

So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that if you get a Bluetooth module for your desktop (or heck, even a cheap Bluetooth headset that you leave on the charger), and add the pairing to your phone, your Headset profile settings might well stop the loud ringing, kicking in magically when you’re within range of it.

(Or: There may be other fun things you can do depending on the capabilities of the Bluetooth device and PC software. My imagination tells me diverting calls to your desk phone would be optimal, but nobody else seems to design software from my imagination. Perhaps a project for a cold winter’s night…)

Oh, and of course, if you rely on actually being able to take calls on your mobile while at work, this might require you to wear the headset. Which could make you look like a cybermen co-conspirator. But that’s just my opinion, nobody else thinks you look a bit silly with a blue flashing light in your ear. (Further note: Please, don’t try wearing a Bluetooth USB dongle.)

Home Hyper-V Networking Gotchas

tristank — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:12:56 GMT

Before the holidays, I bought myself an early present: a new quad-core box with 4GB RAM, which I was going to use for a home Hyper-V lab, so that I could run a bunch of 64-bit VMs as well as the 32-bit staples I’ve been using for years (SBS 2003, and a separate ISA Server box).

I’d had Windows Server 2008 installed on my Virtual Server host for a while, and use it with Routing and Remote Access (RRAS)’ NAT to provide a simple internet gateway for a segment of my internal network.

Lesson #1: Core Quad Q8200s don’t support VT (that’s Hyper-V, kids)

There was a 1300Mhz FSB Q8200 available for the same price as a Q6600, and I figured that I couldn’t go wrong with that. Surely, I thought, all Intel CPUs since the Core2 Duos support Hyper-V?

Well, no, said Intel, and thanks for your money (stupidty tax, I seem to pay a lot of it). The one Quad core chip that doesn’t support Hyper-V is the one I bought. Q8200 is being phased out (I read somewhere), so this mistake should be easily avoidable in the future. Or now, by how-you-say smarter people.

Lesson #2: When you Hyper-V-ify a Parent Partition, It’s Sort Of A Client Too (aka “You may need to set stuff like RRAS up again with the new virtualized network adapters”)

What I mean by this is that when I got the Right CPU and installed Hyper-V, I was without Internets.

To cut a long and boring troubleshooting story short: the physical network adapters I’d configured in RRAS were no longer the Right Network Adapters.

I set up new virtual networks for each physical adapter (one Internet, one Local), and then had to set up RRAS again, because it didn’t think there were any new interfaces to set up – it was quite happy only seeing the old ones, thank you very much.

After checking both virtual adapters were visible in the Network Connections interface, and that they had the right IPs assigned, I rechecked my Windows Firewall settings and ran a port probe to confirm only ports I knew I wanted open were open (RRAS Basic Firewall doesn’t exist any more in 2008, so be careful with dual-homing where the Internet is attached to one of your adapters).

The disconnect here was that I was assuming the parent partition would see the physical hardware – it does, it just doesn’t use it directly any more, it looks like it uses the virtualized setup instead, at least to some extent.

Lesson #3: Hyper-V and DHCP didn’t like each other when the physical host became the parent partition

My RRAS server had (to this point) been my DHCP server for the internal network. This was all fine, and seemed to be working okay (or had my lease durations just not expired yet?), except for the new virtual hosts I created today.

There’s some lore floating around on the forums that worked for me – the bit that worked was manually adding a REG_MULTI_SZ called IPAddress to the likeliest-looking adapter interface in the registry, because Hyper-V setup for whatever reason doesn’t do that.

The DHCP server wouldn’t bind to the physical adapters (or even show them in the Bindings interface), presumably because IPv4 and IPv6 was unbound from them (interesting, hey?) and also wouldn’t show me either of the virtual adapters, which I guess is due to the lack of a static IP address on either of them.

Now, though, my setup’s working nicely, everything more or less as it was before, only virtualized. And thus, you know, more sexy.

Back With A Semblance

tristank — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:16:15 GMT

It’s a new year, I have a new job, and I have new stories to tell*!

I had a lovely Christmas break, thanks for asking, and now I’m back, I’ve moved into my new role as a Premier Field Engineer. PFEngineering is the part of the organization tasked with helping customers optimize and healthify their deployments of our software.

In my new role, I spend more time on fewer things, and more time actually in customer environments. I’m a professional poker, prodder and proofreader.

My focus has expanded, from IIS alone out to IIS, ISA Server, PKI and Security, and I’m likely to be expanding those a little further too.

It’s good to be back in the field. I enjoy working in real (and, um, virtualized) environments, with real (and virtualized) people, fixing things quickly, demonstrating my suddenly-wonderful touch-enabled Dell XT Tablet PC (Mary Jo might hate touch, but I’ve been sold since I used it with Teh Vistar, and Win7 is even better… more on that some other time).

* I lied about having new stories to tell right now. But soon. Sooooon.

What does it mean when there's no "broken page" icon in IE8?

tristank — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:59:09 GMT

I was just catching up on some of my RSS feeds, and noticed that one of the pages I was at didn't have a broken page icon, but wasn't working quite right (some broken javascript in the photos area, I'm guessing... I'll investigate that next).

I wondered what that meant, so fired up Fiddler2 to have a look.

The Headers collection didn't include the compatibility header (X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7 or similar):

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Length: 77144
Via: 1.1 MYPROXY
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:42:24 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Cache-Control: private

But the META tag was present (link):

<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd xhtml 1.0 transitional//en"
"http://www.w3.org/tr/xhtml1/dtd/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" /><title>
Spied: New Mazda3

So: the page is being told to render in IE7 Standards Mode (forced, as opposed to IE=EmulateIE7, which would behave as IE7 did). This makes the toggle compatibility mode button moot, because the site has chosen their mode explicitly.

Wonder if that's the problem... Time to investigate with the developer toolbar, I think...

(Update: nup, document mode didn't fix it - Script Debugging needed to be un-disabled in IE, and then the debugger showed me it was happening in motiongallery.js. I've lost interest now :) )

Game Season Approaches

tristank — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:25:18 GMT

After what seems like a drought of epic proportions, the holiday releases are gradually going to thump their way out. Yay!

What I'm looking forward to:

Fallout 3 - once again, the Australian OFLC needs an R rating for interactive entertainment. I watched the ABC's "Q&A" when the subject was brought up, and ended up furious that people could be so heavily, forcefully opinionated and ignorant at the same time. Makes me wonder whether it's worth watching on *any* subject, if everyone's just going to make stuff up, and then argue that (what they made up) is bad.

Saints Row 2 - I don't know about you, but while GTA IV was "good", I *seriously* fought the urge to skip the cutscenes. Every previous GTA game was entertaining in the cutscenes, and I actually looked forward to them. GTA IV - not at all. I'm hoping Saints Row is more of the over-the-top fun of Vice City or San Andreas; I really liked the original, despite its flaws (Invisible Car!).

Far Cry 2 - I read a developer interview on GamaSutra with the developer (Ubisoft Montreal, Crytek are doing Crysis these days) about how they were really shooting for "open world, open story" and might have a completely massive failure: I really hope they pull it off. I'll be playing it to find out.

Stalker: Clear Skies - I didn't actually finish Stalker, so I might go spend the next few weeks doing that. Loved it, early bugs and all.

Geometry Wars 2 - cheating, because I'm actually playing this already and it's great!

Battlefield: Bad Company - I thought that the earlier Battlefield version for the 360 was superior to the PC Battlefield 2 in many ways. (Controversially, I had the same impression of Xbox Operation Flashpoint vs PC Flashpoint - sometimes a game just *works* on a console). I just saw this is already out, so I'm there!

Too Human - Wasn't really interested, and I played the demo with some reluctance, but it was surprisingly engaging (I didn't think it'd grab me at all, but it did). The reviews haven't been stellar, but I enjoyed the 1GB's worth.

Force Unleashed - Possibly not for the reason you think- I want so see if there's an easter egg where I can get shot by Baltar (geddit!?)

Vocabulary Corner: Analuze

tristank — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:10:40 GMT

Analuze: verb

1. A pointless analysis, as in "I'll analuze those logs if you really want me to, but the problem's not visible at that level"

2. A very difficult analysis: "You really, really want me to analuze that?"

3. A typo when trying to type "analyze", that often works anyway.

It's A Saving, not A Savings!

tristank — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:08:57 GMT

Yes Atwood, it was you that drove me to this.

"This power savings is achieved by dropping the CPU multiplier..."

Gish! So I did a little digging to see whether I was alone in having the (vast unkempt) tufts of hair on my (manly) back try to punch their way through my shirt:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/saving

b. savings (used with a sing. verb) Usage Problem An amount of money saved: a rebate that yielded a savings of $50.

...In the United States the plural form a savings is widely used with a singular verb (as in A savings of $50 is most welcome); nonetheless, 57 percent of the Usage Panel find it unacceptable

Not alone! This sounds like pure marketingspeak that happened to catch on. Using the plural makes it sound(s!) like you're getting(s!) two (or more!) of something(s!).

Sure, usage is possession and all that, but really, it's distasteful(s)!

(ooh!) Foldershare Revamped!

tristank — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

(This post brought to you by the number 3, and the letters WHY AM I NOT SLEEPING?)

It's been a while - and suddenly: Pow! (and did I mention ooh?) A new Foldershare website! Has the feel of SkyDrive to it. And a big, prominent beta logo. Wonder if that hints that Foldershare might become the desktop client for Skydrive, at least in part? (previously, as I understand it, it was always client-to-client, no actual storage "in the cloud", so you couldn't get stuff unless at least one replica was switched on and logged in, but it's possibly a short hop from there to SkyDrive being seen as an always-on repository...) (Juuust idle speculation. I've heard, seen, and know nothing. (Just ask anyone that works with me.))

Ooh again! A new FolderShare Satellite too (with Activity right on the main popup menu, yay! That initial sync is as addictive as watching an old-skool DOS defrag).

That's about it. I see a few problem reports from the new beta in the comments on the Foldershare Blog , so if all is currently right with your file synchronization world, you might want to keep the old client install handy before upgrading.