Archive for May, 2009
Reasoning Thoughts
Posted by Bloggylife in thoughts on May 31, 2009
Refund & Exchange within 14 days
That’s what is written on the receipt. I bought it exactly two weeks ago, so I was entitled to the above argument.
The Sales assistant informed me, I can exchange but not refund my money, it’s been over 14 days! But I bought it two weeks ago, my time is not up yet.
I from my side, tried to reason with her, that one action can’t be valid without the other being true too! If I can exchange, then I can refund, there is an ‘&’!!
I momentaliry thought, maybe she’s not grasping my point of view, but it was perfectly clear, to anyone that the above statement can’t include true and false, and be valid and printed on the receipt.
So I asked for the manager and he informed me, that it’s been 14 days. This is what I said,
14 days, each day 24 hours, I bought this two weeks ago at 12 PM so I’ve got till 12 PM today, and now it’s 11 AM, my time isn’t up yet!
If things don’t make sense, just go along and reason with the other end 
Email Error: Invalid EHLO/HELO domain
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting on May 27, 2009
Sending from my company email to another company email I got this error (link)
smtp; 550 5.5.0 Invalid EHLO/HELO domain
It’s because the other end mail server complies with SMTP standard (RCF 5321)
For our external email transfers, our spam filter handles it, that is Mail Transfer Agent (MTA). The problem was the FQDN configured didn’t publically resolve. Our MTA public IP didn’t have a Host A record on public DNS. It’s just natted to a public IP through our firewall.
You might wonder how this is possible?
See we receive through one SMTP connector (SMPTin.company.com) and send throughout another (SMTPout.company.com). So our DNS records, MX records, A records, are pointing to our (SMTPin.company.com)
So the HELO/EHLO value our mail server provided in the mail session when connected to the other end was not a publically resolvable FQDN. The value SMTPout.company.com, didn’t have an A record associated with it.
Updated the DNS records with the SMTPout.company.com A record.
I’m not sure how many mail servers out there comply with RFC5321 standard, but if you have this misconfiguration, you’ll face a problem when sending to such mail servers.
Thanks Nick for all the help you provided
Terminator Salvation
Posted by Bloggylife in entertainment on May 26, 2009
Booked in VIP cinema for Terminator Salvation movie with the bros. First time in the VIP section, we sat in comfy chairs and our orders for snacks were taken and brought to our seats.
The plot of the movie, as it is with the previous sequels, man against machine. Each trying to eliminate the other.
Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor is the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.
You kind of figure out the pattern, I don’t want to spoil the movie, but at some point, I figured out the scheme! The movie was awesome, with amazing graphics and one thing I liked in fight scenes, NO MUSIC, reminds me of fight scenes I liked in The Bourne Ultimatum movie.
I don’t like Christian Bale as Batman, because he whispers all the time as the character, does Batman reaaalllyy need to whisper?? But as John Connor he’s great.
I’ve watched all three terminator movies, so now I’m downloading 1 and 2, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was my least favourite.
IT Thoughts
Posted by Bloggylife in thoughts on May 17, 2009
Give it up and Confess
We have the logs
Network Tips – Hosts File
Posted by Bloggylife in windows on May 17, 2009
It’s easier to access by name than by IP. That’s what the DNS and WINS is for if you have them set in your network, but there are devices that are not registered and are only accessed by specific people.
Your switches, routers, firewalls, etc.
If you type in a name, it has to be resolved to an IP, before going to the DNS, your windows machine will check its hosts’s file, to see if it is listed there.
You’ll find your Hosts file in:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
Open hosts file with notepad and enter information in the following format:
ip hostname
example:
10.10.10.2 Core1
To verify your settings, try pinging by name and you should see how the name is resolved.
I’ve been using this for a long time, I even copy my hosts file and pass it around for ease of access to other network admins.
Just Thoughts
Posted by Bloggylife in thoughts on May 16, 2009
Setting up rules … is not an issue …
It’s following them
Bind IP to DNS service
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on May 16, 2009
We faced a problem with our DNS (link), that made me look deeper into its configuration.
Our server is Microsoft Server 2003 which runs two services FTP and DNS.
You can configure many IPs on a single network card, this is common with web servers running multiple sites. You can view the multiple IPs, in the Advance TCP/IP settings of your network card. Under the IP Settings tab.
For web services, in the IIS configuration you can assign each site an IP, because by default each site runs on the default port 80 (http), so if you want to run multiple sites on the same IP you need to assign different ports not used by other services. So to avoid all that and for end users to access directly through http default port, each site has an independent IP.
For DNS in Microsoft, if you go to the management console, there are some settings to which IP to listen to receive DNS requests and also, which DNS servers to trust to load records from. To know which IP the DNS is actually using, right click the DNS and select Launch nslookup, the IP that appears at the top of the command window is the IP binded to the DNS service.
What I came to notice, it’s the first IP in the IP addresses in the Advance TCP/IP settings.
Solution:
To overcome the problem, I faced in my previous post. I just removed the IP I wanted the DNS to use and added it again and it appeared on the top. And that solved the problem and I removed the IP used by the FTP from all our primary DNS settings.
In IIS settings, if you go to your FTP site, and see the properties, you’ll see the IP the FTP uses.
Dark Thoughts
Posted by Bloggylife in thoughts on May 14, 2009
Sad dark thoughts circling my mind
Even though they’re empty, still I feel exhausted inside!
Trying to pass my day
Sitting around as time passes away …
All by myself, hot tea in hand
Merging my thoughts so I can understand
Then the fact that I can’t deny
It’s clear, as a bright blue sky
If I only knew what’s on the other side
Maybe I wouldn’t be so scared to decide
To simply close my eyes …
I’m ready to cross over … come … before I change my mind
Change my mind ???
Not because I have better hopes for my existence
No, I have done enough resistance
I give up … I surrender …
I’m just afraid of the end … the after life
Is it heaven or hell ???
Am I doing well ???
Or is it no matter what I do
Everything I seem to screw
If that’s the case, then there’s no point to all my doings …
From this moment, all the way back to my beginnings …
I’m just trying to figure out what’s the difference
Trying to understand all life’s nonesense …
Email Problem: Fatal Error
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting on May 12, 2009
Catchy title ;P A company contacted me regarding receiving a fatal error their email encounters when sending to our domain.
I saw the error message they are receiving, their email server, trying to resolve our domain using a local DNS in their premises and failing to do so.
This is how I troubleshooted:
- Checked our flow of emails, we are receiving and sending emails
- We have received emails from that company in the morning
- I nslookup-ed our email entries against our domain
- I used an external DNS and all our entries we resolving just fine
- I used external email account to send and receive emails with/without attachment (that took quite a while to reach its destination)
So I told them it’s a DNS problem, you’re having problem looking up our MX records in order to send us emails, check your DNS server.
Actually I was glad everything was fine from our end and left it at that and didn’t investigate thoroughly. The next day their IT person sends a report stating one of our DNS is giving them problems, so a temporarily solution, all DNS queries are forwarded to the functioning one!
WTF, I forgot to check the secondary DNS and what do you know, it’s not loading any records in any of the zones configured!!
So you see, they were having a problem, because their email server was querying our MX records against our secondary DNS server which had a problem. It wasn’t down or else it would’ve gone to the primary one, it was up and running with empty zones ;P
CONCLUSION, it was a DNS problem, but it was OURS not theirs ;P
Our secondary DNS is of course located in the DMZ, it’s running two services, DNS and FTP, each having their own IP. The issue was for security reasons, you configure your primary zone to allow zone transfers to listed IPs, I listed the seconday DNS IP but just to make sure you have configured the correct IP.
In DNS management console, right click the DNS server and select nslookup, the DNS IP should appear, that IP should be configured on the primary DNS.
Our problem, it was receiving DNS queries with one IP and loading zone information from primary DNS with the IP assigned for the FTP services!
I’m not quite sure why it’s doing that … I just included both IPs as trusted in the primary DNS configuration and voila it worked 
Sat down and wrote an apology email to the company and believe it or not when sending to their other company handling their IT services I got another error:
smtp; 550 5.5.0 Invalid EHLO/HELO domain.
What I did to solve this problem ;P used my gmail account to send the apology email to the IT person ;P I’ll just leave that to another day or as we all know tomorrow ;P
Dozing Off
Posted by Bloggylife in personal on May 11, 2009
I haven’t been sleeping much for several weeks now, don’t know why. So my lack of a good sleep is accumulated till the weekend in which I manage to compensate.
Everyone is giving me this comment, you look tired! ya3nee I can’t fool my body, it needs rest!
I’ve been eating once a day, I get to work in the morning and have my mega coffee and drink other caffeinated hot drinks during the day, get out of work, a hungry monster, I think McDonalds knows me by heart ;P
I booked a facial on Sunday and dozed off during the process! Today, I had a massage and one moment she’s massaging my legs and then my hands, huh, I must have blacked out for a while!
When it’s time to sleep in my comfy bed, I keep tossing and turning, cursing myself, for not sleeping though I’m tired! Then the alarm goes off and yallah time to get ready for work and since I didn’t have much sleep and malee khilq, I put on anything in front of me and look like crap and go to work!!! This isn’t good for my feminine side, I’m crossing over ;P
Time is going by so fast, it’s mid May already and half the year is almost over. It’s kind of scary how time flies by so fast and when I take a look and see what I’ve accomplished, it’s not at all what I had in mind … not at all …
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