Jun
3
2009

VMware ESX Course

This week I’m giving a evening cource Pratical Management of VMware ESX
for the people of Peopleware.  Peopleware is a dutch company in the IT Sector.

The course starts at 13:00 so in the morning I’m updating my cource material
N8004 (ZENworks 10 Advance Administration) to SP2. I thinks the student
will like to to this course at SP2 level rather than SP1.

May
30
2009

Backup

May
28
2009

VMware View 3.1

Yesterday VMware released VMware View 3.1.
There are many improvements of the product. The one I most like are the performance Improvements en the automatic LDAP data Composer Backup.

These are the changes:

  • Performance Improvements – Login times are significantly improved and server utilization is reduced.
  • Automated LDAP Data and View Composer Database Backup – You can now configure automated backup of LDAP data and View Composer databases in View Administrator, enabling disaster recovery.
  • Client Information – Information about the client device that the end user is connecting from is now provided for the desktop session as registry settings. This enables customers to use third party tools or create custom scripts to map local printers to devices. The information available includes the device name, IP address, and MAC address.
  • Improved Logging – Debug logs are now enabled by default. Logging has been improved to provide more informational messages with minimal performance impact.
  • Edit Desktop Wizard Navigation – Improved wizard navigation enables you to quickly modify existing desktop pools.
  • USB Improvements – View 3.1 offers more reliable and broader device support with reduced bandwidth consumption. A separate TCP/IP stream is used.
  • Multimedia Redirection (MMR) for Windows Vista – MMR is now supported in Windows Vista environments. MMR technology delivers the multimedia stream directly to the client using an RDP virtual channel instead of decoding and rendering it with RDP. This enables full fidelity playback in View Client.
  • Adobe Flash Bandwidth Reduction – The Adobe Flash bandwidth reduction feature improves end-user productivity when browsing Adobe Flash content.
  • Multi-Protocol Support – View Client can now use HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) as the display protocol when connecting to HP Blade PCs, HP Workstations, and HP Blade Workstations. The connection is brokered by View Manager. HP RGS is a display protocol from HP that allows a user to access the desktop of a remote computer over a standard network. VMware View 3.1 supports HP RGS Version 5.2.5. VMware does not bundle or license HP RGS with View 3.1. Please contact HP to license a copy of HP RGS software version 5.2.5 to use with View 3.1. This release does not support HP RGS connections to virtual machines.

You can download VMware View 3.1 here.

May
27
2009

ZENworks Configuration Management SP2 out!

Novell just released SP2 for ZCM10.
The major changes are:

  • Greater installation and operational flexibility, including the ability to choose which individual solutions get installed and displayed in the ZENworks Control Center console
  • An enhanced cross-product reporting engine (allowing users to build reports that span endpoint, asset and patch management)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2 support for ZENworks satellite servers
  • Ghost imaging support
  • A patch status dashboard in Novell ZENworks Patch Management
  • Additional license management usage data in Novell ZENworks Asset Management
  • Tighter integration of Novell ZENworks Asset Man

Most exciting thing for me is the support of a satellite server on Linux!

The update file is called: ZCM_10_2_0.zip and you can download it on download.novell.com (Just search for it!

You can also download a overlay CD from the same site.

Just remember you have to run minimum of SP1 to install this patch.

If your Primary server has a internet connection you can download it from your ZCC.
If you don’t have a internet connection on you Primary server you can manually download the file and upload the file into ZCM (zman sui ZCM_10_2_0.zip) and than deploy the update.

The are a whole bunch of fixed:
TID 7001546 – ZCM agent not recognizing the Remote Operator variable when attempting remote management
TID 7001179 – Imaging does not work when ZCM 10.1 uses non-default ports
TID 7002379 – Patch service routine running every 5 minutes hits the db server hard every 5 minutes.
TID 7002128 – The system cannot find the file specified in loader messages log
TID 7001427 – ZCM 10.1 GPO not applied to Swedish Vista
TID 7002114 – Pre-agent slows down bootup
TID 7000787 – Remote operations do not require permission if user is not logged in
TID 7001522 – Promoting device to Satellite for imaging updates HOSTS file
TID 7001743 – Migrated applications containing French characters in “run scripts” replace the French with garbled characters.
TID 7001797 – ZENworks Reporting Service fails to start after reboot or restart of services on linux
TID 7002168 – Preboot services lock when agent PXE boots to Linux server
TID 7002216 – ZCM 10.1.x Group Policies causing longer than expected logins
TID 7001974 – Predefined Patch Management BOE reports appear empty
TID 7002933 – ZENworks Migration tool fails to migrate Associations for group or container
TID 7002165 – ZCM installation ERROR: SSL Certificate used in authentication does not match certificates provided
TID 7002182 – ZCM 10.1.x Exception distributing content: Content id is inaccessible
TID 7002478 – ZCM server causes high utilization on NetWare LDAP server
TID 7002240 – ZCM Remote diagnostic message in English on a French Workstation
TID 7002188 – ZCM 10.1.0 Reporting (BOE) fails to install on a 10.1.1 or 10.1.2 server
TID 7002382 – If auto archiving feature in Oracle is turned on, ZCM components no longer work.
TID 7001943 – ZCM 10.1.1 ZENWORKSWINDOWSSERVICE.EXE / .NET 2.0 randomly crashes
TID 7003136 – ADF value is not collected when the Data form is in invisible mode
TID 7002622 – Run Only Allowed Applications
TID 7002448 – Unfriendly error for user source ZCC login when bad password is used
TID 7002515 – Cannot import .reg file with “delete value”
TID 7002910 – Slow responsiveness of ZCM server and agents
TID 7002707 – ZRSUninstall fails if BOE was previously removed
TID 7003032 – DAU failure occurred
TID 7000624 – Bundles with launch actions randomly launch twice
TID 7002869 – Imaging stops working after applying 10.1.3 system update
TID 7002769 – Remote Management fails rights based managment when validating server time is behind ZCC server time
TID 7002745 – Registry edit action fails when a registry key/value to be deleted does not exist
TID 7003011 – FailedToOpenQuickTaskFirewallPort on Linux server
TID 7003004 – zac ref slow on servers with non standard ports configured
TID 7003051 – ZEN Migration tool fails for iPrint policies containing link to ipprintprinter objects
TID 7003103 – System Requirements using numeric values fail on some non English Operating systems

And fixed there are no TID of:
Advanced Search Filtering on Operating System is not editable
ZCM installation doesn’t prompt automatically prompt for ports
with SecureLogin installed in AD mode ZCM is not able to autologin
Deployable Device List contains Workstations with the ZCM Agent.
Cannot view details of bundles assigned to user source
ZENworks Progress bar users are able to close this window, shouldn’t be the case
Error during upgrade to 10.1: One or more serious errors occurred during the schema update
zac unr -f prompts for password
assetmanagement-50-create-triggers.sql is not in case sensitive format
ZCM 10.1 Agent causing High Utilization
Asset Mgmnt excluding “Novell ZENworks Endpoint Security” (Novell Security Client)
High utilization on ZCM server, needs to be rebooted.
The ZCM Primary server install will create duplicate device names
Second server install doesn’t prompt for cert info when port 80 is selected
User assigned ZCM Icons are missing due to ZENworksWindowsService stopping
Have ZCM store the same detailed info on printers that ZAM 7.5 does.
Documentation for NonCompliant Items Count in the Device Hot List panel of the Home page is missing in the help file
Tablet PC constant refresh after launching desktop items
Error migrating ZAM 7.5 inventory data to ZCM 10.1
gpf on Citrix server terminal sessions
Missing French translation for the demographic data item in the ZCM agent properties.
Errors creating ZCM Imaging Partition
ZCM Installation with OEM SYBASE fails if using special characters like “&”
Improve deployment failure reporting
right click does not work on zenworks explorer
Unable to register workstations
firewall security settings throw warnings in zcm and errors for userenv logging
Now way to detect if devices are taking ownership of each others objects in the zone
ZCM 10.1 install fails on a SQL2005 cluster
ZRS won’t install on OES2
ZCC has no feature to enter a domain in the System Update Proxy Settings
Unknown objects do not disappear from ZCC – Error “Cannot resolve external reference”
SyncBOE loader module should only run on one server in the zone
Not Possible to Delete Discovered Devices that are Managed.
10.2: Device Vulnerabilities page takes longer than 15 minutes to come up
French ZCC does not permit different prompts
Services will not start automatically when ZCM server is boot
Occasional Deadlocks between ZCM and SQL database
Roaming profile isn’t working on Windows 2008
Cannot reinstall 10.1 after an un-install on SLES
after login bundles are not showing up, only after 2-3 manual refreshes all the bundles are visible
User-management and windows-desktop msis do not install correctly when 64 bit .NET is installed on 32 bit machine
Lost Device Handler is not Marking all Devices as Lost
ZCM Generates Group Policy Errors when no Group Polices are Assigned
Satellite server doesn’t not support http 1.0 request, while primary servers does
gpf in zenworkswindowsservice
Unable to execute “Elevate user to Administrator” MSI bundles on workstations
after upgrading to 10.1.x, for non root user the command zman isn’t working anymore
SystemUpdateRefreshHandler threw an exception: Illegal characters in path
ZCM 10.1.2 Preboot Service crashes on dotnet
Bundles appear in wrong place on Vista start menu
ZCM 10.1.0 Errors enforcing the Group Policy
exception in RegValueExistsRequirementHandler System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Length cannot be less than zero.
DLU fails, Error: “ApplyPolicy helper thread terminated abnormally”
Action edit INI section settings with variables and backslashes are not written to file
Bundle System Requirements Fail causes “Error” in ZCC logging
ZCM Server goes to 100% Utilization on all 8-cores
lose msi command line custom settings after re-upload msi
Migration Utility – could not locate following LDAP attribute mappings
Bundle MSI Install reboots when its not suppose to.
CDF information are not inserted into the DB
The Zenworks Server Quits responding
Some components duplicate with each subsequent scan.
Unable to replicate content to satellite servers
bundle rights don’t allow modification to image script bundle

May
20
2009

Groupwise and ActiveSync

On Coolsolutions there is a post from Alex Evans how Novell is going to let other devices connect to Groupwise.

Novell is going to release a new server component who is responsible form different connections to the Groupwise Database. This server component called “integration suite”  for now  (Novell is going to change this name just before releasing this component) will include Active Sync (So the Iphone, Windows Mobile and Nokia E and N series are supported) and other protocols. This way it will be possible to connect Microsoft Sharepoint for example to Groupwise.

Nice! Finally companies won’t migrate to Exchange just because the like to use Sharepoint.
I think it’s a huge step forwards. This way it will be possible to connect nearly everything to Groupwise. And that the way we Novell Guy’s do it! Us Novell Guy’s don’t matter what is on the Client side. We make it work on the server side!

This component will run on Microsoft and Linux in Groupwise 8 SP1. This in planned for Q3 of this year (unofficially).