Remote Configuration Manager Console cannot view advertisements

When you install Configuration Manager console on a remote machine, you will not be able to view the advertisements from the console.












Thanks to the following article which enlightened me on what I should do to rectify this issue.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2010/03/11/fix-no-advertisements-are-listed-in-the-sccm-console-on-a-remote-machine-but-they-do-show-up-on-the-site-server-itself.aspx

Apparently, a file AdminConsole.xml which defines the viewing rules for the SCCM console has an incorrect query to retrieve the Advertisements.

Incorrect Query :
SELECT * FROM SMS_AdvertisementInfo WHERE NOT (AssignmentID = NULL) ORDER BY AdvertisementName

Correct Query :
SELECT * FROM SMS_AdvertisementInfo WHERE NOT (AssignmentID IS NULL) ORDER BY AdvertisementName

Now instead of installing the hotfix, I did it in a much faster way since it's just modifying the xml file.

• Open the XML folder location eg:C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager Console\AdminUI\XmlStorage\ConsoleRoot

• Edit the AdminConsole.xml file (by opening it via NotePad)
  
• Search for the Incorrect Query (as mentioned above)
  
• Replace it with the Correct Query (as mentioned above too)
  
• Save the XML file
• Restart your console

Voila' ... the advertisement is being listed now.

Root Management Server unavailable

This is more of a nooby posts, nevertheless I would still try to share it out to starters who have encountered this issue in their environment.


Got hit with this problem recently where out of sudden my RMS went unavailable and before you know it I got this alert .


A quick check on my Event Viewer shows that I got tons of Event 2115 .


After a quick check on things, I noticed that something is amiss and it proved to be caused by my OpsMgr DB settings. Apparently by default, my OperationsManager DB has a file growth restriction and it seems that my DB hit the limit and thus no new monitoring data could be inserted into the Database.



Just go over and set the File Size to unrestricted growth and that did the trick.

Error Accessing ACS Reports: Cannot create connection to data source

This is something that I wanted to share out for quite some time but it just flew out of my mind until I got hit with this problem recently that I force myself to blog it NOW before I suffer from memory lapse syndrome.

Now, a bit of background here; the OpsMgr environment that I am working in has RMS, DB, DW + Reporting, ACS Collector & ACS DB all deployed into 5 different servers. Now with best practice in mind you would normally have a Data Reader/Data Write account created for your Data Warehouse action accounts. However the same was not stressed with the ACS Database. So what entails then?

So now you have successfully uploaded the ACS reporting components to the Reporting Server you would thought that you are ready to generate the ACS reports? Well, not exactly because you will most likely hit with your report giving you the following error.











From the looks of things, it seems that your report has problems creating a connection to the data source. Now what could be the problem?

Because you have a specific Data Reader account that accesses your Data Warehouse tables/views but this does not apply to ACS Database and because your Data Reader does not have access rights to the ACS Database, your connection will fail.

What would be the workaround for this?
The workaround for this is relatively simple, you would just need to access the SQL Server Reporting Services for the Reporting Server via your internet browser.
For example: http://reportingservername/reports

• From the SQL Server Reporting Services Home page, click on Audit Reports
• Inside Audit Reports, click on Show Details. You shall see DB Audit appears on the screen
  
• Click on DB Audit to launch the setting properties
• Scroll down to Connect Using, and select Credentials stored securely in the report server
• Enter the User credentials that has access to the ACS Database.
  
• Click Apply to store the settings.

Once you have saved the settings, exit browser. Relaunch the OpsMgr console and now you will be able to access the ACS reports without much problem.

Service Manager 2010 has RTMed !!!

Just moments ago, Service Manager 2010 has been RTMed. A product which is very dear to my heart, I have been working on it since its Beta1 days and now with the RTMed version I am happy to see such a wonderful product being shipped to the end user.

http://blogs.technet.com/servicemanager/archive/2010/04/20/announcing-system-center-service-manager-2010-rtm.aspx

UNIX Noob trying to deploy OpsMgr to monitor Sun Solaris

The title says it loud and clear ... me being a UNIX noob learnt some new stuffs today.

Mission Objective: Deploy OpsMgr to monitor Sun Solaris
Target Environment: Sun Solaris 10
Mission Target: Monitor Sun Solaris 10 OS & Oracle DB running in it.

So to start things, make sure that the Sun Server met the following requirements especially on the OS patch !

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
Required OS patch	PAM memory leak	112960-48
SUNWlibC	Sun Workshop Compilers Bundled libC (sparc)	5.9,REV=2002.03.18
SUNWlibms	Forte Developer Bundled Shared libm (sparc)	5.9,REV=2001.12.10
OpenSSL	SMCosslg (sparc) Sun does not provide a version of OpenSSL for Solaris 9 SPARC. There is a version available from Sunfreeware.	0.9.7g
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules SUNWcsl, Core Solaris, (Shared Libs) (sparc)	11.9.0,REV=2002.04.06.15.27

As for OpsMgr pre-req, besides the installation pre-req; you need to ensure that you have the relevant RunAs Accounts created, correctly distributed & attached to the Run As Profiles for the Unix Servers.

Detailed steps available here in the following URL:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd788981.aspx
Next, I manually installed the Cross Platform agent

1. Transfer the agent (scx---.pkg.Z) to the Solaris server.

   scx---.pkg.Z

2. Run the following command:

   uncompress scx---.pkg.Z

3. To install the package, type

   pkgadd -d scx---.pkg MSFTscx

4. To verify that the package is installed, type

   pkginfo –l MSFTscx

5. To verify that the Microsoft SCX CIM Server is running, type

   svcs scx-cimd

Full details on Manual Installation of Cross Platform agents is available in the following link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789016.aspx

Note: Remember to jot down the hostname of the server. This is extremely important especially for certificate issueance. If your DNS server does not include the Sun Server hostname in the DNS record, you need to manually enter this hostname into the OpsMgr RMS server hostfile.

Now back in OpsMgr, run the discovery for the UNIX/LINUX Server. Now the catch here; you will need to communicate with the Sun server via SSH. I was given a root account to discover the Sun server and in most circumstances as well as a default behavior; root account is not permitted to access via SSH. (Security Issue).
So your option is either to use another account or enable root account to login via SSH (which I will share in my next post)

The moment your Sun server is being discovered, you will be prompted to Sign the certificate; select the Sun server checkbox and click on Sign. A successfully signed certificate will bring you to the next screen which show you that the Sun server has been discovered.

Complete the Wizard and your Sun server will be discovered and monitoring will kick in.