John Gully's Blog { technology tips, tricks and errata; }
Reverse Proxy Using Url Rewriter
IIS7 also provides some of these feature through the Application Request Routing Module, so if you are running the newer version you may want to check it out.
<configuration>
<configSections>
RewriteEngine On# redirect to another server based upon the domain name# mail.example.comRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mail.example.comRewriteRule ^/(.*) http://Server2:8081/$1 [P]# Send all other requests here.RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://Server1:8080/$1 [P]
Labels: .NET, IIS, ManagedFusion, Proxy, ReverseProxy, UrlRewriter
Yubico Provider Alpha Release
Labels: .NET, Authentication, Yubikey, Yubiking
Yubico .NET Membership Provider
The goal of the Yubico .NET Membership Provider is to implement the Yubikey authentication using the standard .NET Membership Provider Model. This will allow any developer using ASP.NET to easily add Yubikey functionality to their site.
When complete the Yubico .NET Membership Provider should allow authentication of Yubikeys against either the public Yubico validation server or a private validation server. It should also allow for configuration of single, or multi-factor authentication.
I truely believe that the Yubikey is finally making advanced security accessible. I'm looking forward to showing it off to my clients and seeing their reaction. I'll post more information about the progress of the project as it unfolds.
Labels: .NET, Authentication, Yubikey, Yubiking
Avoid the Oh-no factor when sending email
How many times have you clicked Send on an email only to regret it moments later? There is no undo in email, but if you are using Microsoft Outlook here's the next best thing.
Fire up Outlook, and from the Tools menu select Rules and Alerts. From the "Rules and Alerts" window click the New Rule button.
Select the last template in the list, Check messages after sending and click the Next button.
This rule does not require anything conditions from the "Which condition(s) do you want to check" step so just click the Next button again. You will be warned that "The rule will apply to every message you send" click Yes when prompted.
On the "What do you want to do with the message" step select the last option in the list "defer delivery by a number of minutes". Click on "a number of" and specify how long to wait before sending messages, and click the Next button.
At the "Are there any exceptions" step check the "except if it is marked as importance" option. Click on "importance" and select "High" from the drop-down list and click the Next button.
Finally at the "Finish rule setup" step name the rule "Delay outgoing messages for 5 minutes" or something that provides you similar understanding of the rule. Click the Finish button to complete the rule.
That's it! Now any new email you create will remain in the Outlook outbox for 5 minutes before being sent. This should give you enough time to edit a message if you decide you have made a mistake.
Don't worry about setting the delay to less than 5 minutes, or turning off the rule for time-sensitive email. If you have something urgent simply mark it as a message of 
high importance and it will be sent immediately, bypassing any delay.
Auto-start Virtual Server Guest OS
I have been using Virtual Server 2005 R2 for a few months now and have been quite pleased with it's performance and manageability. The server is used primarily to replicate environments for clients that would otherwise require a lot of different hardware to support.
When the server was recently upgraded I discovered that our virtual machines were not configured to start automatically. Although this seems like a simple configuration there are a few tricks that alluded me at first.
Here are the steps required to have a virtual machine start up automatically when the Virtual Server host starts:
There are two of these steps in particular that were confusing for me. The first being the requirement to use a specified username and password. As I understand it, a virtual machine is run under the permissions of the user who starts it. By specifying a user account you are specifying are essentially telling Virtual Server which account to use when this process is automated. For more information read this TechNet article.
The second confusion was setting the "Action when Virtual Server" stop to "Shut down guest OS". This was originally set to "Save State" but this setting will not resume the guest OS loses power, as the virtual machine's state was never saved. If you stick with "Shot down guest OS" you should avoid any potential problems.
Setting up iSCSI on Windows Server
Recently I took on the challenge of converting some of my home server disk space to iSCSI SAN storage. While this may seem like overkill for a household network (and you may be right), I had several reasons that drove me to this solution. However, the main reason and the focus of this article was to simplify network storage for my Windows Vista Media Center setup.
In my case I wanted to add additional storage to my living room Media Center PC. I had been toying with the idea for sometime, but had only limited success configuring Media Center to use a network location for it's television recording storage. The advantage that an iSCSI SAN provided was that any storage pools appear to the Media Center PC as a local drive. With this goal in mind I set off into the unknown ...
After several nights of research, a few false starts, and a load of caffeine I came up with a workable solution. Here is a quick breakdown of the software I used:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008
- Microsoft Windows Visa Ultimate
- Rocket Division StarWind
- iSCSI Initiator
Windows Server is not required and there are quite a few different ways this could be configured, but this is the setup I had on hand at the time.
The basic plan of action was to use a spare hard drive in the server as an iSCSI target, point the living room PC to this target, then configure Vista Media Center to use the new storage.
- Install StarWind on the server.
- Configure storage on the server as an iSCSI target.
- Configure iSCSI Initiator on the client PC.
- Configure applications to use new storage location.
What is a Target and What is an Initiator?
In the iSCSI world a "target" is the storage being served. The "initiator" is the client requesting access to the target storage. In the example illustrated here the target is the stored shared by the Windows Server 2008. The initiator is the Windows Vista Media Center.
Setting up the Server
The server setup starts by downloading and installing the iSCSI target software. Rocket Division provides a great solution StarWind that will do exactly what is needed. Even better this software is completely free for our basic needs.
I downloaded StarWind and installed the application on my Windows Server 2008 machine. The setup is straight forward, and I had no problems what so ever. Once installed, I fired up the StarWind program and then commenced scratching my head. Fortunately once I determine what needed to be done, the process proved to be quite simple.
Login to the Default Connection
When you look at main screen of StarWind for the first time you should see just the basic information. At this point there isn't much you can do. The trick is to right-click "localhost:3260" and select "Connect". When prompted for a username and password enter "test" into both fields and click the OK button. Once the connection has been established devices (storage) need to added.
Add a Device
Adding a device is the process of assigning storage space to the iSCSI connection. This is the space that will become a local drive on a client machine. To add a device simply right-click on the connection "localhost:3260" and select "Add Device". From the "Device type selection" window choose Disk Bridge device. This will assign an entire physical hard drive as an iSCSI target.
There are quite a few different choices for the type of device to assign. I had a new drive I wished to allocate entirely to my media center. If you wish to use only a portion of a drive you could use an "Image File device" instead. This creates the iSCSI target within a single file on the server. You can specify the file size and even enlarge if you decide you need more storage in the future.
Next you must select the physical drive you would like to assign as a target. Make sure you verify the physical drive number in the Disk Management because PhysicalDrive0 may not be your C:\ drive. You want to be sure not to specify your C:\ system drive since the local system will no longer be able to access the targeted drive.
Finally you can name the device. I gave mine the simple name of "Data", just to ensure that I knew which device was the one I just created. After the device is created successfully you should be directed back to the main StarWind screen, only now the new device you added should display below the "localhost:3260" connection.
Setting up the Media Center PC
The client PC setup really just consists of configuring the storage using Microsoft's iSCSI Initiator program. This application is included in Windows Vista, but it can be downloaded free for use with other Microsoft operating systems.
Add a Target Portal
The first thing to do when you run the iSCSI Initiator is to select the "Discovery" tab and configure a target portal. The target portal is the machine hosting the iSCSI storage, in our case the Windows Server 2008 machine running StarWind. Simply click the "Add Portal" button enter the network name or IP address of the target portal and click "OK".
Add a Target
Once the target portal has been assigned, select the "Targets" tab. This should now display any iSCSI target devices you have added to the target portal. In our example, an iSCSI target named "data" should display. Highlight the desired target and click the "Log on" button. Check "Automatically restore this connection when the computer restarts", and click "OK".
Assign a Drive Letter
Once the target has been configured, a new drive letter should automatically be drive be assigned. Once you verify the storage is available you can permanently assign that drive letter by selecting the "Volumes and Devices" tab and clicking the "Autoconfigure" button. This step will reduce confusion as it ensures that the drive letter will not change.
Configuring Media Center
Once I completed the iSCSI configuration on both my Windows Server 2008 and on my Windows Vista PC I was able to move my Media Center recording over to the new drive. I then added the new drive letter as a location for Recorded TV from the Media Center application. No special configurations or hacks to Media Center were necessary because the storage appeared as if it were a local hard drive. Media Center now goes about it's way happily never caring that the data is stored on another computer in my office upstairs.
Summary
So after overcoming the unknown factor of the iSCSI world the actual process is quite simple. I have repeated this process for several other storage solutions I have been needing. The setup is simple and the solution can resolve a wide variety of issues. I hope this walk though will break down the barrier to entry for others who may wish to use some of this more advanced technology, without becoming an enterprise network administrator.
