Powershell - FSMO Roles

Viewing FSMO with Powershell
Get-ADDomainController -Filter * | ForEach-Object {$_.Name; $_.OperationMasterRoles; Write-Host}


Transfering FSMO roles with Powershell
Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity servername -OperationMasterRole InfrastructureMaster, RIDMaster, DomainNamingMaster, PDCEmulator, SchemaMaster

WSUS Error: Connection Error after KB3148812 and KB3159706

After getting a WSUS server up to date the console no longer worked.

The error is very uninformative...

Log Name:      System

Source:        Service Control Manager

Date:          7/18/2016 10:39:15 AM

Event ID:      7034

Task Category: None

Level:         Error

Keywords:      Classic

User:          N/A

Computer:      

Description:

The WSUS Service service terminated unexpectedly.  It has done this 3 time(s).

The proper fix for both of these KB's which you SHOULD install:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3159706

Also, don't forget that if you are not using SSL for WSUS you should be!

Remove iPhone Native apps

With our recent iPhone re-deployment there where several native apps that I wanted to remove.  This is pretty easy to do with Apple Configurator and XenMobile.  This requires the phone to be supervised.  Supervised mode can be set with Apple Configurator or if you sign up for Apple DEP.  Supervising the phone will wipe it.

1. Ensure Apple Configurator is version 2.x
2. Click File - New Profile
3. Restrictions - Configure - Apps tab
4. Under "Restrict App Usage"
5. Set to "Do not allow some apps"
6. Click the plus sign
7. Type the App name you want to remove and choose it
8. File - Save - name it and save it

Now you have a profile for the app(s) that will remove them.  You just need to upload this into XenMobile (or other MDM) and apply it to your devices.  Can also be applied straight from Apple Configurator.  I prefer to not use the Configurator to apply ANY configuration and instead push it through MDM.  This allows easier removal of profiles and policies.

XenMobile - do this from the Mac with Apple Configurator on it.

1. Under Configure - Device Policies - Add
2. More - Custom - Import iOS & Mac OS X Profile
3. Name it and then browse to the newly created and saved profile.
4. Assign to the proper delivery policy and you're all set!

Sit back and watch the native app disappear.

How to get the native app back?  Just remove the profile.

DHCP Migrate Failover Deployment to Server 2012 R2

Awhile back I wrote a guide to migrate from split scope to failover that is new in Windows 2012.
http://didyourestart.blogspot.com/2013/02/dhcp-migrate-from-split-scope-to.html

This guide is intended to move the failover to a new Windows Server 2012 R2.  As you already know you can only have two servers in each failover scope.  So in order to do the migration we'll need to drop a server.  The steps to do this are very easy, but attention needs to be paid to where you execute the commands or you could drop the wrong server.

We'll identify our servers as the following:

• Win2012-01 - Primary DHCP server moving away from
• Win2012-02  - Secondary DHCP server moving away from
• Win2012R2-01 - Primary DHCP server moving to
• Win2012R2-02 - Secondary DHCP server moving to

I'm assuming you already have your new servers built and DHCP role installed.

Also important to note first! If the static IP address of a DHCP server needs to be changed, you must first delete all DHCP failover relationships that exist on that server, and then recreate the relationships when the new IP address is active.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn338982(v=ws.11).aspx 

First we'll remove DHCP failover from Win2012-02

1. Get a good backup of DHCP
2. Log into Win2012-01 and open powershell as administrator (right click run as administrator)
3. Run Get-DhcpServerv4Failover
1. This gives us necessary information for removing the failover.  Note this will also tell you which partner it's connected to.
4. Make note of the Name.  In my case it's TF-192.168
5. The next command will remove the failover AND the scope from the opposite server.  For instance, I'm running this on Win2012-01, which will leave it's scope and leases intact.  But it will remove the scope and leases from Win2012-02.  Always run the remove command from the server you want to leave intact.
1. Remove-DhcpServerv4Failover -Name TF-192.168
6. Note that Win2012-02 no longer has the scope available (refresh the console)

Now let's add Win2012R2-01 into the scope (note I'm leaving my scope name the same, also I'm using hot standby which is indicated by "ServerRole")

1. This command is run from Win2012-01
2. Add-DhcpServerv4Failover -ComputerName Win2012-01 -PartnerServer Win2012R2-01 -name TF-192.168 -ScopeId 192.168.1.0 -ServerRole Active -SharedSecret Ican'tTellYou -Force
3. From the DHCP console we can now confirm that Win2012R2-01 is getting the scope and leases replicated to it (F5)
4. In addition run Get-DhcpServerv4failover and you should see the new replication partner of Win2012R2-01 listed, ServerRole of Active (meaning Win2012-01 is still the primary), and Mode of hotstandby.

NOTE: Notice that it only replicates over the scope, but not anything below that.  If you set your Options or policies at the server level then this will not move them!  It also won't move your Filters.  

At this point we have DHCP Failover between Win2012-1 (Active) and Win2012R2-01 (Standby)

Now let's drop Win2012-01 out of the failover

1. This command is run from Win2012R2-01  (Important, otherwise you'll drop the wrong server)
2. Remove-DhcpServerv4Failover -Name TF-192.168
3. Confirm in DHCP console that Win2012-01 no longer has any dhcp scopes (refresh)

Now we can add in Win2012R2-02

1. From Win2012R2-01
2. Add-DhcpServerv4Failover -ComputerName Win2012R2-01 -PartnerServer Win2012R2-02 -name TF-192.168 -ScopeID 192.168.1.0 -ServerRole Active -SharedSecret Ican'tTellYou -Force

As a final step run your Get-DhcpServerv4Failover and check status.  Also refresh your DHCP consoles and ensure all is happy.  Make sure you configure your Server level options and Policies if needed as well as Conflict Detection Attempts.

Powershell Moving and Viewing FSMO roles

Recently wanted to move my FSMO roles, but didn't want to use the old method of netdom.  Besides, everything is going powershell so might as well start learning now!

View the current holders:

1. Thanks to The Scripting Guy - Get-ADDomainController -filter * | Select-Object Name, OperationMasterRoles

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/2014/11/28/powertip-use-powershell-to-get-list-of-fsmo-role-holders/


Now we can move them

1. Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "servername" -OperationMasterRole 0,1,2,3,4 (or use their names)

http://thelazyadmin.com/2013/08/managing-fsmo-roles-with-powershell/

Domain Controller high CPU - Service Host / Security Log

I had been having problems for sometime with our Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 domain controllers.  The CPU would spike to 50% and sit there occasionally dropping down to 2% and then shortly after back up to 50%.

The process in question was the Service Host: Local Service (Network Restricted).
The sub processes are:

• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• Windows Event Log
• DHCP Client

It doesn't take a lot of google fu to find the following post:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28440274/Why-does-security-logging-on-the-DC-eat-all-the-CPU.html

From this post it indicates that the Windows Security log could be at fault.  I took a look at ours and it was set to overwrite and had a maximum size of 1GB (actually well under the MS maximum size, but still large imo).  A quick test of clearing the log fixed the issue.

Of course the issue started up again a few days later when the log got full and started to overwrite again.  So, I reduced the maximum size of the security log to 10mb (not large enough to hold much of course, but we're just testing at this point).  Once the log started overwriting again no issue.  From this I made the conclusion that the issue isn't just overwriting events, but rather overwriting the events when the log is very large.

Solution:

1. Ensured that our SIEM solution was collecting the logs every hour.
2. Set the maximum log size for the security log to a value that will hold 12 hours of logs and then overwrite.  To determine this value I just had to wait and then check it's properties (for each DC!)
3. If any logging event success / failures are ever changed I'll need to re-evaluate that the size is still sufficient.

Another solution that I didn't like as much was to throw hardware at the issue, ie add a CPU.

In addition here's a good table of MS recommendations on logging settings
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn487457.aspx

XenApp 6.5 Remote Powershell

Recently I wanted to be able to remotely run a powershell script against my XenApp 6.5 farm to be able to manipulate the logon mode.  This can easily be done with Powershell from the hosts themselves, but I ran into issues when running it from workstations or in my case a monitoring service.

Goal: Remotely run a powershell script from a monitoring service to disable logons if a specific failure occured.  In addition, query the server what what the servers are currently set to.

Requirements:

1. XenApp AppCenter / DSC installed on remote machine
2. Patch DSCXAMx650W006 installed on remote machine
3. CitrixXenAppCommandsRemoting Service set to Automatic and Running on at least one server in the farm.
4. Port 2513 open

Note: if a XA server is installed in Session host mode then it will have the Command Remoting service disabled.

Once you have AppCenter installed and the patch installed you should be set.  Open Powershell up (I prefer to use ISE)

First we need to add the Citrix snappin.  Add-PSSnapin Citrix*
For the command we'll need two components to make it work.

1. -Computername parameter, this is going to be the XA Server that has the XenApp Command Remoting Service enabled and running on it.  
2. -Servername parameter, this is going to be the XA Server that you want information on.  If you do not include this parameter then it will return information on all servers in the farm.

Example:

Let's say I want to find out all information for a single server in my farm.  In this instance XAADM is my data collect that has the Commands Remoting service running on it and XA01 is the server I want information on.  In this instance we could run the following:

Get-XAServer -ComputerName XAADM -ServerName XA01

Great, now we can use this to disable logons on a server remotely.  https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2013/03/14/how-to-put-xenapp-servers-to-maintenance-mode/

Set-XAServerLogonMode -ComputerName $Comp -LogOnMode $LogonMode -ServerName $Server
options:

• AllowLogOns
• ProhibitNewLogOnsUntilRestart
• ProhibitNewLogOns
• ProhibitLogOns

or to get a list of LogonMode status:
$(Get-XAServer -ComputerName XAADM -ServerName XA01).LogonMode

Errors and causes:
Citrix XenApp Commands Remoting Service:
Get-XAServer : Could not connect to net.tcp://s-xa01:2513/Citrix/XenAppCommandsRemoting. The connection attempt lasted for a time span of
00:00:01.0010632. TCP error code 10061: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it x.x.x.x:2513.
At line:1 char:3
+ $(Get-XAServer -ComputerName S-XA01).LogonMode
+   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-XAServer], EndpointNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.ServiceModel.EndpointNotFoundException,Citrix.XenApp.Commands.GetServerCmdlet

cause:
This error indicated that the "CitrixXenAppCommandsRemoting" service was not running on the specified "Servername"


Citrix Remoting:
Get-XAServer : Citrix commands must be executed at the Citrix server or using remoting. Make sure that your user account is a Citrix
administrator and that the IMA service is started.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-XAServer
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Get-XAServer], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ImaInteropError,Citrix.XenApp.Commands.GetServerCmdlet

cause:
Command was issued using -servername which works if proper remoting is setup with certificate, This can be challenging to setup, instead use -computername to target the remoting service along with -servername to target the server needed.  IE Get-XAServer -Computername XAwithRemotingService -Servername XAwantinginfofrom