As an example of the missing images, if I attempted to view one of the failed images say, http ://someweb_site/Style%20Library/Images/btn_home.gif, it would display :

 (the white square and red cross is intentional, please don’t adjust your screens)

rather than  

In case you haven’t memorised the HTTP codes Wikipedia offers this refresher:

 304 Not Modified

Indicates the resource has not been modified since last requested. Typically, the HTTP client provides a header like the If-Modified-Since header to provide a time against which to compare. Using this saves bandwidth and reprocessing on both the server and client, as only the header data must be sent and received in comparison to the entirety of the page being re-processed by the server, then sent again using more bandwidth of the server and client.

Even though fiddler does a cracking job of recording what happening, I can never resist firing up Wireshark to confirm the same information. Below shows the server returning the 304 Not Modified response.

So the file was being requested from the server and the server was telling the client it hadn’t changed since last visit. But I hadn’t visited the site before. I flushed the client’s web browser cache just to be sure and still got the same error. To me that confirmed the error was at the server end.

SharePoint has its own caches to speed up page and content delivery.  The one I was interested in is the binary large objects (BLOB) cache and initial thought was to flush this cache and fix the problem, MS have a nice simple powershell script to do this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg277249.aspx

Flushed BLOB cach for the site, but still no dice. Then took a bit of a step back and looked at how SP used blog caches. Tobias Zimmergren’s blob piece was very help in understand where to look for the BLOB setting in the web.config file. A few simple checks showed that this site wasn’t using BLOB caching. Somehow SharePoint must have got confused in to thinking it did have a BLOB cache and was trying to return the images and JavaScript from the non-existent cache.

The fix was easy; we created a BLOB cache and everything worked beautifully, then we disable the BLOB cache and everything still worked. Despite the web page displaying the content correctly, I confirmed under the hood with fiddler and as you can see a much happier result.

This is nothing new or exciting, I just keep forget the syntax so I’m leaving here to make it much easier to find/remember.

Interface Configuration

Interface named Local Area Connection with the static IP address 192.168.66.100, the subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway of 192.168.66.1:

netsh interface ip set address name=”Local Area Connection” static 192.168.66.100 255.255.255.0 192.168.66.1 1

Add multiple ip addresses

netsh interface ip add address ” Local Area Connection ” 192.168.66.101 255.255.255.0

netsh interface ip add address ” Local Area Connection ” 192.168.66.102 255.255.255.0

Configure DNS

netsh interface ip set dns “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.66.200

Add multiple DNS entries

netsh interface ip set dns “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.66.200primary
netsh interface ip add dns name=”Local Area Connection” 192.168.66.201 index=2

Configure WINS

netsh interface ip set wins “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.66.200

DHCP

Automatically obtain an IP address from a DHCP server:
netsh interface ip set address “Local Area Connection” dhcp

Get DHCP DNS/WINS settings:

netsh interface ip set dns “Local Area Connection” dhcp

netsh interface ip set wins “Local Area Connection” wins

Rename interface names

netsh.exe interface set interface name = “Local Area Connection” newname = “INT”

netsh.exe interface set interface name = “Local Area Connection(2)” newname = “Internet”

Disabling/enabling an interface

netsh interface set interface name = “Local Area Connection” admin = disabled

netsh interface set interface name = “Local Area Connection” admin = enable

Export your current IP settings

netsh -c interface dump > c:\current1.txt
import your IP settings
netsh -f c:\current1.txt
You can also use the global EXEC switch instead of -F:
netsh exec c:\current1.txt

LOOPS

FOR /L %I IN (2,1,20) DO netsh interface ip add address “Local Area Connection” 192.168.66.%I 255.255.255.0

This will add ip addresses from 192.168.66.2 to 192.168.66.20 with 1 step each time.

Examples:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490943.aspx

http://ss64.com/nt/netsh.html

For reasons only known to myself, I’ve stupidly decided to kick off the final two MCITP: Enterprise exams starting with 70-649.

Ah, nothing like making bets, attempting to get a bit of competition going, that you can get certified before the rest of the team.

In front the Boss. (He’s a hockey playing, beer drinking, Northern ninja for randomly appearing like that!)

Pure Muppet magic on my part! Meep.

Hum ho.

Why the Enterprise rather than the long winded 70-647 update exam first? After skimming the objectives, it looks less work and studying for 749 will help out with 647 at a guess.

Check List:

Study guide:                                         Ms Press Self paced 70-647 Training kit

Hands on:                                              Build a virtual lab on Windows 2008 and use the Ms Virtual Labs

Pick a date to get this done by:    Monday 23rd of March 2009

Better get on with it then.

So, kick off by designing and build and small self contained Windows 2008 domain. This is all built on a physical machine, running Windows 2008 Server x64 with 8GB of RAM, lots of hard disk space and a couple of NICs. Hyper-V is installed.

I’ve added three additional networks in the Virtual Network Manger: Domain_Internal, DMZ and Hyper-V_External. Hyper-V_External is connected to the router for direct Internet access.

I’ve build, installed the Integration tools and patched (32updates and 159mb later) one VM, then cloned it (done by copying it to a new location, starting it up and running newsid) to speed things up and save download bandwidth. I should have used Windows Deployment Services (WDS), but I get around to that later.

The master network plan is below

This isn’t information leakage and I haven’t forgotten to add IPv6 addresses in, just a basic network diagram!

So once everything has finished installing, on with setting it up.

Now to start going through the notes and playing!

Notes Part 1

It takes the engine to Client Version:  1.5.1955.0 from Client Version:  1.5.1941.0 if you check the about details

KB952265

Basically fixes a couple of things Forefront can break if you it’s running on a web server, SharePoint, WebDav, IIS7 or a 2008 server with Hyper-v. So not massively essential to get out there, for most of us.

It requires a reboot if you apply the patch by running the .exe Not so much fun for those in us in Ops role without of hours only reboot windows.

However, if you extract the files from the .exe you’ll find the new mp_ambits.msi.

This doesn’t require a reboot to install. Hurra!

You should also replace  the old ones in you Forefont deployment points/shares. There’s one for x86 and x64. Don’t get them mixed up.

Oh, and for those using Forefront and Windows 2008 core read this for trying to install the update kb955884

Doing the talk was excellent fun and (I think) I managed to answer all the questions put to me.

Here’s the Ms Silverlight video version of the talk I’ve just published for the Heroes Happen Challenge

It’s part of a national call and frankly looks like a great bit of fun. I stuck my hand up for giving it a go as did a few other brave souls. I’m going to leaf through some books and pick a topic to try.

Guess it’s time to build a real 2008 Server and stick Hyper-V on it – like I need the excuse