XenServer 6.x removes auto-start vm option!?

Yes, they removed this feature.  So basically, if you physical machine reboots, none of the VMs will come up.  Anyway, there are various solutions, but the simplest one is to add to the bottom of


/etc/rc.d/rc.local

the following 2 lines:

sleep 30

xe vm-start tags=autostart --multiple

Then, add a tag to each VM, autostart.

This info comes from the post here:

http://www.raido.be/knowledge-center/blog/detail/xenserver-6-auto-start-vms

New BES user can receive, but not send email

Had a user that had this problem.

First I did this:

How to set the Send As permission:

1) Launch ADUC. (Start > Administrative Tools > Active Directory Users and Computers)

2) Enable the advanced features view so that you will be able to see the security tab. (Select menu - View > Advanced Features)

3) Highlight your domain, right click on it and click on "properties".

4) Click the "Security" tab and then click "Add".

5) Enter the name of your BES Admin Service Account and click OK.

6) Now highlight your BES Admin Service Account and press the "Advanced" button.

7) In the Advanced Security Settings window click "Add"

8) Enter the name of your BES Admin Service Account and click OK.

9) Now a new "permissions entry" window will pop up. You need to select "User Objects" in the "Apply onto" drop down box. (It’s down toward the bottom of the list).

10) Click the allow check box for the "Send As" right and select OK. Note: make sure that deny is not checked for this right.

11) Click OK to close the Advanced Security Settings window. The new entry for the BES Admin Service Account will show up in the permission entry list.

12) Click OK to close the properties window. The BES Admin Service Account should show Special Permissions set to allow.

The "Send As" permission has now been set. Please note that it may take up to 90 minutes for the Exchange Information Store to update its permissions cache

Then I Read this:

Stopping the BES Router
Removing the Send As permission from the Information Store and the affected Users account 
Reapplied the Send As
Stopped and restarted the Exchange Services. (Instead of waiting 120 min)  This did take quite some minutes though, so be patient...
Started the BES Router

So, since I had just reapplied the Send As, I just stopped the BES Router, restarted the exchange services, BES Router, etc, and it worked.

• To start Microsoft Exchange services, at the command prompt, type net start registry name. For example:
  net start MSExchangeIS
• To stop Microsoft Exchange services, at the command prompt, type net stop registry name. For example:
  net stop MSExchangeIS
  
  

Optimizing XenServers and Hosts

I found this useful post about doing some optimizations for your Xen hosts and guests:

Link

Unfortunately, I had some trouble finding where to make the mods on the host.  The location you will need is /boot/extlinux.conf.  I think this may be the RedHat location...

Also, these lines are very long, and if you edit them with nano, for instance, you may screw up the file.  I did this once, and the machine would no longer boot.  You have been warned.  So use vi.  (Weren't you always looking for a good excuse to learn vi?)

I just added the kernel param to the 'xe' section.

Can't update XenServer

I tried using a DVD to upgrade some of my XenServers from 5.6 to 5.6SP2.  I got an error that there were no installations found that could be upgraded.  The solution to this was to apply the update from XenCenter.  It appears some updates have to be applied from XenCenter; some updates have to be applied from an DVD or ISO.  If one doesn't work, then try the other.

XenCenter blank concole screens, and stats not updating

For me this problem was related to some cache files.

I just saw the suggestion in this thread about clearing the cache....and it worked!

http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=154046&tstart=0


in short:

Stop XenCenter

run %AppData%\Citrix

delete everything there.

Start XenCenter
---

I also couldn't install updates until I cleared the cache...

Exchange intelligent message filter update fails, Exchange then not running

So I try and dutifully run Windows Update on my SBS2003 box.  Twice now, it has failed (hung) when doing an update to the Exchange Intelligent Message Filter.  When this happens, it leaves your Exchange server in a state where it doesn't work.  Isn't that great?

Anyway, I reboot the system and Exchange still doesn;t come up correctly.  Turns out, I had to go to services, enable the IISAdmin service (this must have been disabled during the failed update), then I went to a cmd prompt and ran "iisreset".  This seems to have solved the problem.

Reduce SQL Svr instance memory usage

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2005/02/04/34984.aspx

On our SBS2003 box, we sometimes have sql instances using upwards of 1.5Gb ram.  The machine ram usage goes beyond the available physical ram, and the machine slows to a crawl.

We've used this technique to reduce the sbsmonitoring instance and the ssee instance.

There is also a nice tip there for using taskman from the cmd line to get the sql instance.  Of course Process Explorer also will tell you this info directly.