2010-05-02

PHP file_exists function bug and Domain Migration

First of all, let me say this is NOT a bug report. Just a friendly title to someone who might be asking themselves the same thing.

The other day i was reported that our Intranet website was not working properly. I looked at the PHP code to see if everything was in order and runned a few tests with variable placing inside the file_exists and the function was returning false when the file actually existed. Why is this i asked?! Eventually i found out, there was no bug or change in the code.

We had at our corporate environment migrated the domain and Intranet was running smoothly for 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks the old domain was shutdown. Only by the third day this Intranet communication came to me, but the answer was that in the IIS manager for the Intranet Server, on the corresponding website properties, whe still had issues in the "Directory Security" tab, there was a user still there from the old domain.
The file_exists was trying to access the path with a user that was no longer valid, returning false on the function as it had no permissions.

Hope this helps

Taken from http://netprobe.blogspot.com/

CISCO Pix Device Manager Export List to File


This manager's interface is little intuitive thus why i decided to add this title to Google Search Engine with a few questions and answers here

Can you use PIX Manager interface to perform querys to the DB entries?
No

Can you run reports from the firewall to create an excel sheet ?
No, not that i know of..

So how do you do if you want to export a list containing all the entrys from your PIX Firewall? Do you have to look individually one by one?
Fortunely no. Just go to File and Choose "Save Running Config to a new window"

If you are unsure about this and are afraid that it will write to NVRAM don't, this will generate a file with the firewall users and groups and ask you for a location to save it.


Taken from http://netprobe.blogspot.com/

Can't view desktop shortcuts over the network, why?

Hello,

There are no stupid questions and certainly this is not one of them. The other day a friend of mine was accessing remotely to the C$ share on a computer, trying to access the Desktop folder from the user "Centrino" , altough he knew that Centrino had shortcuts on the Desktop, entering this folder he could not see them. What the heck - He tough. Why is that?

The answer is pretty easy:

Shortcuts from all users are not replicated for each user account and probably before Centrino User was called Centrino he was Called Something else. Why again? Because if someone renamed his account in Active Directory from "Intel" to "Centrino", the SID actually will be the same. So nothing will change on the computer side, meaning that documents and settings will still point to Intel's folder.

You can check this in regedit at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

There you will see a bunch of SID's, to know what is the SID of Centrino user please check here



At this point you will know what is the correct Image Path on the computer for that user, and if you like to, change it from Intel to Centrino, altough there are some implications with active directory, so if you are unsure of what you are doing don't mess around.



Taken from http://netprobe.blogspot.com/

Getting SID from USER and USER from SID

Sometimes when administrating a network there is a need to know which code belongs to the USER for the operating system. this code is regarded as the SID or Security Identifier.

Getting USER from the SID:

You can use a tool called Sid2user
http://www.chem.msu.su/~rudnyi/welcome.html

Usage:
sid2user [\\computer_name] authority subauthority_1 ...
 
 
Getting SID from the user:
You can use a tool called User2sid
http://www.chem.msu.su/~rudnyi/welcome.html
 
Usage:
user2sid [\\computer_name] account_name


Taken from http://netprobe.blogspot.com/