Wes Jerrell // Blog

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Configuring Exchange 2010 HT for fault tolerance/HA when using smarthosts

Recently I was trying to find a way to provide high availability across two Exchange sites using two smarthosts. The key issue was finding a way to make the local site's smarthost primary while still having the failover site's smarthost available to each HT server.

Exchange_diagram
The solution lies in MX records in DNS. I did some research about the DNS option in the send connector, but it didn't seem like what I needed to do since I wanted to force all outbound mail through the smarthosts. However, local DNS records are still neeeded to produce the desired results.

First off, we need to define some records. Hopefully you already have your smarthosts defined in DNS and for this article, we will assume they are primary-sh.test.local and failover-sh.test.local. These will point the IP address of the smarthosts in the DMZ.

Next, we create the MX records. For the primary site, we want to create two records with the same name, but they should resolve to the two smarthosts with different costs. For example:

mx1.test.local should resolve to primary-sh.test.local with a cost of 10
     and
mx1.test.local should resolve to failover-sh.test.local with a cost of 20

Now in your primary outgoing send connector, you should use mx1.test.local as the smarthost fqdn and allow your primary site's HT server access to the connector. If the primary (lowest cost) smarthost is down, DNS will automatically direct the send connector to use the failover smarthost. It is worth noting that if you set the costs the same, the HT server will use the smarthosts in a round-robin fashion.

Since we want the failover to work both ways, we need to create similar records for our failover site, but with its local smarthost (which is failover-sh.test.local) as the lowest cost.

mx2.test.local should resolve to failover-sh.test.local with a cost of 10
     and
mx2.test.local should resolve to primary-sh.test.local with a cost of 

Similarly, when you configure the send connector for the failover HT server to use, you would use mx2.test.local as the smarthost. Again, it will failback to use to primary smarthost if there is an issue with the failover device.

Once you apply the send connector settings, check your queues. Everything should be good to go. Be sure to take your primary smarthost offline to test the failover. Testing is key!

A Posterous Safari Extension

Being a fan of the Posterous platform and a Mac user, I thought I would take time out to develop a Safari Extension of my own.

Safari_posterous_extension

 

I've wrapped up the official Posterous bookmarklet in to a Safari toolbar item, all the functionality of the brilliant bookmarklet remains but having a neat little toolbar icon seems just that little bit more elegant.

If you would like to use it for yourself then you can download it from here.

via blog.macjasp.com

Better than the bookmarklet. I'm using it now!!

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Running Mountain Lion in VMware

This is some necessary info if you plan to run OS X 10.8 in VMware. In order to get VMware Tools installed, you must:

  1. Take a snapshot
  2. Install VMware Tools as you typically would, except don't click "Restart" upon completion!
  3. Navigate to /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools
  4. Delete vmmemctrl.kext and vmmemctrl
  5. In terminal, open services.sh as root
  6. Comment out these two lines with #
    #kextload '/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vmmemctl.kext'
    #'/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vmmemctl'
  7. Save the file and click restart on the installer

I would've never figured it out if it weren't for Rob.

Source: Robservatory

Block ads for your entire network (and iPad)

I'm not going to go into an in-depth howto with this, but instead give an overview and point you to the resources needed to complete the project. Given how this works, you're going to need a computer or server that is always on. I use an Ubunutu server to serve media and websites, but this can be accomplished on Windows, FreeBSD, or any other Debian Linux system like Ubuntu.

First, we need to download/install Privoxy. There is a change that needs to be made to the default config. Jump into the config file and edit "listen-address  localhost:8118" to reflect your server's IP. For example: listen-address  10.0.1.100:8118. Restart the service to have the changes take affect.

Grab your iPad or other machine you want to block ads on and go to the network settings. Somewhere around there, you will find the configuration for a proxy. Select HTTP proxy. If you can't find it, just Google "set up proxy on {device name/browser name}."

Enter your proxy IP and port (8118 by default) and save. All done! Now you can browse on your iPad, ad-free!

Tip: Privoxy by default replaces image ads with a checkered image. I think it's unsightly, but they've done it for a good reason. To remove (on Ubunutu), edit the user.action file and toward the bottom, right under "{ +set-image-blocker{blank} }," remove the # in front of the /. That uncomments that line and uses the blank image for all ads. Restart service for changes to take affect.

ProTip: AdBlock has some very good block lists for ads, and it's what you're probably already using for your browser. Andrwe has written a great script to parse those block lists and add them to Privoxy. Great stuff. Just download the script from his site, sudo chmod +x ./privoxy-blocklist, and execute. Easy as that.

Speed up page loads by blocking social media buttons

I've recently noticed that pages seem to get hung while loading the 1,000,000 social media buttons for every single post on each site. It became very frustrating to me, so I set out to find a way to block the buttons. The solution was easy enough... a block list in AdBlock. If you're not using AdBlock, you should. 

Add this block list in AdBlock's preferences: https://monzta.maltekraus.de/adblock_social.txt

All done. Now to share links, I do it the old-fashioned way, copy and paste or bookmarklets. Happy faster surfing!

Obama on the Debt Ceiling

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America ’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America ’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

- Senator Barack H. Obama , March 2006

Verizon's unlimited data coming to an end

Android Central says it's nabbed an official document laying out the brand new Verizon data plans scheduled to take effect next month, and there's good news for those of you currently using an iPhone on Verizon with an unlimited plan: It looks like you'll be grandfathered in.

We weren't quite sure if that would happen yesterday, but if this document is real, Verizon will be going the way of AT&T and allowing those with unlimited data plans to keep them (presumably as long as they're not changed or added on to any other deals).

Elsewhere on the deals, the smartphone plan will start at 2GB for $30 a month, up to 10GB bandwidth for $80 a month. Mobile hotspot access costs $20 a month extra for 2GB on the hotspot.

Unlimited plans will still be available up to July 7, and those unlimited plans will continue even when you upgrade your phone in the future. So if you want to get in on an unlimited plan before the caps get put in, now's the time to do it. We'll keep ears open for official confirmation on this one, and you can read all the details over here.

[via Engadget]

via tuaw.com

Get on the train while you can!