The best-practices tag has no wiki summary.
2
votes
2answers
40 views
How accurate is the 'supersede' term regarding older updates in WSUS?
Been recently playing around with different options for management of my servers. One of these is WSUS.
Getting a beginning list of updates was simplistic enough (though, the list is a bit...long) ...
3
votes
1answer
50 views
Best Practices for rotating syslog logs on RHEL with different schedules?
OS:
Running RHEL 5.6.
Situation:
I need to rotate /var/log/messagees on a different schedule than the rest of the syslog logs.
By default syslog logs are rotated weekly based on the ...
0
votes
0answers
23 views
Office 365 transition password resets
In the next period my company will make the transition from BPOS over to Office365 .
I've made all the transition steps but I couldn't find exactly when the users should change their passwords(one ...
3
votes
1answer
27 views
Is it a bad idea to do an OVF Export of a VM with snapshot data?
I'm currently using a VM running on ESXi 5.0 to dry-run installation procedures for a software product. We're trying a whole different bunch of things, so I'm making extensive use of snapshots to save ...
2
votes
1answer
26 views
How can I share a live BZR repository with multiple users?
I'm not sure how best to ask this question. Over several years I've developed my way into a corner and need to figure some things out. I almost certainly haven't been following best practices up until ...
0
votes
2answers
37 views
Best Practices for publishing to a web server
I have a high traffic PHP based website and have 2 web servers which sit under a load balancer. I only have FTP access to change the files on the 2 servers when I wish to make changes to the site. ...
1
vote
1answer
49 views
How to avoid namespace conflicts in Active Directory
We are having issues with namespace conflicts. An example:
AD security group Network Admins is used by AD-aware applications for access control
AD user Network Admins was going to be used for the ...
1
vote
3answers
42 views
What is the appropriate location for a custom script?
I wrote a script for my Red Hat server that aggregates some system info and shoots it off in an email. What is the appropriate location to place that script?
Right now it is in my /home/jeff ...
1
vote
0answers
105 views
IIS 7.5 Request Filtering - best practice rules?
Im looking for a set of best practice rules for Request Filtering similar to what UrlScan adds by default.
Any suggestions or an example list of filters is much appreciated. By default IIS 7.5 only ...
3
votes
2answers
95 views
Internal Network/Server Separation Best Practices
I have a block of 5 static IP's, and am going to be running a exchange and web server on-site. I am wondering if I should separate the web server IP, Mail IP, and internal network IP. What would the ...
0
votes
4answers
133 views
Active Directory Design
Please assist me in how I design my active directory hierarchy based on the following.
We have a corporate office where there 8-10 departments and 200+ <250 users are present.
We have two ...
3
votes
1answer
68 views
Backing up a server on the DMZ
We have a somewhat-static web app with a large amount of media files that runs on a 2008 R2, non-domain server on the DMZ. I need to backup the media files on the server. The current backup mechanism ...
3
votes
2answers
447 views
How can I investigate sustained high CPU usage by Microsoft.Exchange.Rpc.ClientAccess.Service.exe?
One CAS server in our array has nearly 90% of its 4 CPUs used. The remaining CAS servers are at 30 percent.
How should I investigate what is causing this increase?
Below is a graph of:
Six ...
0
votes
2answers
47 views
EDB repair in SBS exchange 2003
One week before in our HP PROLIANT ML370 G5 server with RAID5 one hard disk turned amber and we removed and it is working under degraded state until now.
Yesterday morning our users in the domain ...
3
votes
3answers
94 views
Is there a good layout convention for cron files?
I'm currently confronted with a cron file that contains a dozen different applications' tasks--some have only one, some have lots. I'm trying to figure out a good way to organize and document these ...
0
votes
1answer
60 views
What content is best practice to include in a 503 page to provide best user experience in the case of overloaded backend?
The classic example is the "Fail Whale" on twitter. But I'm interested in what people's thoughts are on this.
4
votes
2answers
142 views
Tool(s) for labeling cables with unique ID numbers
We are looking to (finally) implement a cable labeling procedure.
We already have a labler. Now we need a system to maintain unique IDs not related to anything.
I thought of getting a tally counter ...
1
vote
1answer
59 views
250 users with a data dir on a central server - how would you set it up?
I'd like to get best-practice advice on how to setup a scheme where 250 users or more have OS independent access to their own data-dir / user-dir on a central server in the local network. from the ...
3
votes
3answers
218 views
Ranges for Multiple DHCP Server: Better to overlap or separate? wireless vs ethernet clients?
I know there are mixed feelings about running multiple DHCP servers on one LAN, but I'm wondering about the best way to set their ranges.
In my case, I have a router which performs DHCP and also my ...
1
vote
2answers
53 views
Where to create a subversion repository on a server?
When managing my own servers, I normally keep data such as svn repositories in /srv/svnrepo.
In the organization I currently a part of the SAs have been using /home/svnrepo.
My decision to ...
7
votes
4answers
441 views
In Puppet, how would I secure a password variable (in this case a MySQL password)?
I am using Puppet to provision MySQL with a parameterised class:
class mysql::server( $password ) {
package { 'mysql-server': ensure => installed }
package { 'mysql': ensure => ...
3
votes
3answers
184 views
Win7 Domain User Profile- Desktop Icon management best practices request
Here's the situation:
We have a large (5,000+ user) organization that is currently using folder redirection to manage the windows desktop icons. This folder is redirected to a network share where we ...
8
votes
4answers
444 views
Best practice for automated Linux updates
We are working on a way to perform automatic updates for our RHEL/RHEL-based servers.
Initial idea: Using Puppet, we disable the default repositories and point to our own. Then, we use ensure => ...
4
votes
2answers
169 views
Sharing responsibilities within a SysAdmin team
I used to work in a small System Administration team that consisted of 3 members. We each had our own area:
E-mail
Server build and monitoring
File sharing
I am not sure if this is typical but it ...
1
vote
2answers
208 views
ZFS: Best-practices doc state: “On systems with 1,000s of ZFS file systems…”?
The docs state:
"On systems with 1,000s of ZFS file systems, provision 1 GB of extra memory for every 10,000 mounted file systems including snapshots."
What does that mean - how do these people use ...
4
votes
4answers
257 views
How can I load-balance a load balancer?
I'm about to convert a single-server single-database web application into a physically distributed high-available configuration with servers on two physical locations (for now). Now, obviously, I need ...
5
votes
2answers
128 views
Best practice advise asked when users want to work on their workstation and from remote (but on their desktop), on Windows
I've got a work-group of 5 people. All of them have their dedicated machine with Windows 7.
They are all connected to a central server running Windows Server 2008 R2, currently mainly offering the ...
0
votes
2answers
100 views
Best practices to build a scalable Java webapp
We got this JavaEE WebApp (JSP+Struts+Hibernate+MySQL) which currently is running on a single server. Due to growth of the website and performance issues we've decided to cluster the project on some ...
0
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0answers
125 views
Nginx & long poll: Best practices to reduce memory and bandwidth footprint
I use nginx in this mode for BOSH and chat clients along with gzip.
location ~* /http-bind/ {
proxy_buffering off;
keepalive_timeout 55;
access_log off;
tcp_nodelay on;
...
1
vote
5answers
98 views
Granting access to user's file store without their knowledge or consent [closed]
As a system administrator, if you were asked to facilitate access to your users' file store so that a director could look at what types of files are being stored, what would your response be?
The ...
4
votes
6answers
433 views
Is it better to have four average servers or one awesome server
Ok, I want to have one high spec server (two quad core processors, lots of ram, raid 5, Server 2008 R2 etc), my colleague wants to spend the same money on four average pre-owned servers (Dual core ...
1
vote
2answers
109 views
Xen host: vm's management best practises
I just wanna know what is the most recommended method to use for managing your vm's. Let's say you have big dedicated server something like 8 cores cpu and 24gb ram. What method you'd choose for ...
0
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0answers
50 views
Best Practice for keeping Master/Slave Data in Sync during deployment?
So far, one best practice I've discovered is as follows, but it has a couple holes.
Presume that you've got a single load balancer, 2 web servers (A & B) and 2 database servers (M & N - kept ...
1
vote
2answers
51 views
Methods for allowing administrators to set desktop software's per user configuration
Edit: Hello serverfault, they didn't like my question on programmers and migrated it here.
In short my questions is: How do you (administrators) prefer to control settings for third party, off the ...
3
votes
3answers
150 views
Should redundant servers have exactly the same configuration, or slightly different?
If you provide a service on two servers to ensure high-availability, is it better to configure them in exactly the same way, of instead should you introduce slight differences to prevent "freak ...
0
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0answers
72 views
How can I make an init script (or daemon?) for an arbitrary program that runs in the background?
I want to use Markdoc, a system that converts markdown files into wiki pages. Markdoc comes with its own server. I created a new user for the wiki and put the wiki files into that user's home ...
4
votes
1answer
264 views
Acceptable level of hard write errors on tape?
What is an acceptable level of hard write errors on tape? Specifically, what is acceptable on HP LTO-2 media? Is it a hard number of errors, a ratio of hours in use to errors, or something else ...
3
votes
3answers
100 views
Ramifications of rebooting a file server when files are open
This may prove to be a stupid question, but I've scoured in internet and found nothing to that gives me a concrete answer.
I'm curious as to potential consequences of a file server being rebooted or ...
1
vote
1answer
191 views
Firewall Security Guidelines
I'm looking for some best practices or Security guidelines for Firewall and VPN.
Trying to study a little more about network security and write a sort of decalogue (set of rules). Usefull to follow ...
1
vote
1answer
51 views
dns settings for SERVER 2003 domain controllers for a new client of mine
I have recently taken over a new client in a windows server 2003 domain environment. The only issue i see with the setup is that the second domain controller's dns entries might be wrong, hence why i ...
2
votes
2answers
130 views
things to check prior to moving all FSMO roles to a new domain controller before decommission original old domain controller
need to move a domain controller, the first in the forest that holds all the fsmo roles, to another location in a clients building. it will require turning off this dc, call it dc1 for this question. ...
0
votes
2answers
181 views
Maintenance page on nginx, best practices
I want to configure the server to show a maintenance page when it exist. I tried this code and works:
location / {
try_files /maintenance.html $uri $uri/ @codeigniter;
}
But I noticed it would ...
1
vote
1answer
72 views
gpt partition for raid 6 that was 4.5TB, will i have any issues under server 2008 64bit r2?
has anyone had any issues with using one large gpt partition of 5TB on a raid 6 setup with a 3ware raid controller. i am using the partition as a basic file sharing backup repository, nothing fancy. ...
0
votes
1answer
38 views
Getting files onto Fresh Install of Server 2008 “The Right Way”?
I am still fairly new to windows server administration. I have a Server 2008 r2 ec2 instance running and will need to bring a new one up every so often. I like that it is locked down by default, but ...
0
votes
0answers
75 views
Group Policy Settings for Servers Hosting SQL Server and/or Exchange
My company is in the process of building a new AD Domain for our VDI environment. Once the VDI rollout is complete, we will be migrating everything out of our existing domains into this new domain.
...
1
vote
1answer
69 views
Importance of Segregating Backups?
We are in the midst of an infrastructure overhaul, and we're now looking at backup solutions for our new servers. We will have a relatively simplistic server infrastructure consisting of 5 servers, 3 ...
2
votes
2answers
60 views
Adding a new disk to shared machine, what do we do?
I hope this is the right 'exchange' to ask in.
I work in a research group, we have no SA's etc. monitoring our servers. We have total access to them, and decide what happens or doesn't happen on ...
-3
votes
3answers
93 views
What should I install/do to “accelerate” my website? [closed]
I have deploy a website in the production enviroment, but it's going a bit slow, you know it takes too much time to load the pages..
What should I install to "accelerate" my website? I will install ...
1
vote
1answer
148 views
How to rename a mail-enabled security group?
I work in an organization that is prone to frequently renaming teams.
What is the best way to manage name changes to mail-enabled security groups? So far, I have just been using the ADUC GUI on our ...
1
vote
1answer
118 views
Backup strategy for SMB
I'm supporting a small business with 4 XP desktops, 2 Windows 7 desktops and 1 Server 2008 (R1) which is the file/print server, domain controller and contains Active Directory.
I've tested regular ...
