Enabling ASP.NET Session State without Installing IIS

At a client site, I needed to enable within a web cluster the ASP.NET session state service (ASP.NET State Service) and initially this was going to go on one server within the web cluster. The only problem though, as this configuration is easy, was what happens if the one server in the cluster that this is running on is the server that fails!

The solution we decided was to place the service on the SQL Server back-end database. Though this is not clustered (as it is not mission critical), if the database is unavailable then so is the application so why not run the ASP.NET State Service on that machine.

So we changed the web.config file to read:

<sessionState mode="StateServer" cookieless="false" stateConnectionString="tcpip=db_server:42424"/>

We went to the SQL Server (which was running Windows Server 2003 and so had the .NET Framework installed), but found that the service did not exist as ASP.NET was not installed.

So we ran the following, which claims to require IIS to be installed, but successfully enabled the ASP.NET State Service:

aspnet_regiis -i (this is in WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\version folder

Set “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ aspnet_state \ Parameters \ AllowRemoteConnection” to 1 on the server in the above step, set the service to Automatic and started it running.

And it all worked fine.

Exchange 2003 Resource Kit Published

Now available, the Exchange Server 2003 Resource Kit in which I wrote all the security chapters (chapters 11 through 13).

Current Clients

Brian is currently writing documentation and doing software testing for InfoBasis.

C7 Solutions Blog

Following a prompt from Microsoft, I have started a more company based blog on C7 Solutions web site. Maybe I will update that more than this one (which I suppose is the point of a blog anyway)

Enabling Remote Desktop Remotely

Run the following from a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 PC:

WMIC /NODE:"client" /USER:"nwtraders\administrator" RDTOGGLE WHERE ServerName="client" CALL SetAllowTSConnections 1

Two Logins To Install Software

With Windows XP you sometimes see that your Group Policy settings take two reboots or two logins to work. This is because Windows XP operates (by default) in a mode called Fast Logon Optimization. This means that the computer boots and logs in quicker, but it does mean that events that should occur during the computers boot or login will be delayed until the second boot or login.

Examples of events that this effects are software installations via Group Policy and folder redirection (i.e. home folders). During (or usually just after) the first boot/logon XP sets a flag and then during the second boot/logon Windows operates one time only without the Fast Logon enabled.

An example of the two events that appear in the event log (in chronological order) are:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Application Management
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date:
Time:
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:
Description:
Failed to apply changes to software installation settings. Software installation policy application has been delayed until the next logon because an administrator has enabled logon optimization for group policy. The error was : The group policy framework should call the extension in the synchronous foreground policy refresh.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Application Management
Event Category: None
Event ID: 101
Date:
Time:
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:
Description:
The assignment of application Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage from policy IT Suite Software failed. The error was : The group policy framework should call the extension in the synchronous foreground policy refresh.

This behaviour can be changed by turning the Fast Logon Optimization off. This can be switched on and off via Group Policy and the following setting:

Computer Configuration
Administrative Templates
System
Logon
Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

More on Fast Logon Optimization can be found in article 305293 at Microsoft Support.

Outlook Profile Wizard

Fill in the information at the form here to create a valid profile for configuring Outlook 2003 to allow the client to connect to the Exchange Server without the need of a VPN from the internet (known as RPC over HTTP).

This will create a .PRF file that you can offer for download to users. Users will need to log-in twice for this to work though (or rather, be prompted twice for username and password, after which it will work)