Wrap up for 2006

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

As another year of weekly columns comes to an end, this is a good time to wrap up a few loose ends and encourage you to write if you have suggestions for next year's columns.

Read the full article here.

Problems with inetd

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

I ran into a problem recently with one of my Solaris 9 servers. For some reason which I have yet to pinpoint, any lines that I add to the /etc/inet/inetd.conf file are removed from the file almost as soon as I finish adding them. Well, almost any lines. Since I generally precede any additions to system configuration files with comments that describe what the lines are for, I did so with these recently added lines as well. When the file was modified, I noticed that only my comments remained in the file of the lines that I had inserted.

The culprit wasn't a cron job. For one thing, there were no obvious cron jobs which could account for what was happening. For another, the timing was odd. The file wasn't changed back on a time boundary (e.g., on the minute). Further, since comments were not removed, it was clear that the file was not simply being overwritten by a copy of the old file. Instead, only the functional entries were being stripped. Some recent change to this system was ensuring that nothing was added to inetd.conf.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Deploying printers using Group Policy

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Here's one quick tip regarding using Windows Vista in the enterprise. Windows Server 2003 R2 introduced the capability of deploying printers using Group Policy, but to use it you first had to prepare your Windows XP client machines by deploying client software called pushprinterconnections.exe to each client using a startup script. Windows Vista includes this client software by default, which means Windows Vista clients don't need any preparation before deploying printers to them. But you must make sure your Active Directory schema is upgraded to "R2" level before you can deploy printer connections to Vista machines using Group Policy, go here for more info concerning the schema update and how to perform it.

Read the full article here.

Storage Tip: What errors of data classification can you afford?

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

As a result of recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), you must carefully preserve all relevant data (i.e., data that needs to be saved as possible evidence in litigation). But what is relevant data? Now, you could just preserve all of your data, but it would be costly to unnecessarily preserve data that is not relevant for e-discovery purposes. But separating the relevant data from the irrelevant data may seem intractable. Here's some perspective on how you could approach the issue.

Storage Tip: Litigation holds require a formal data retention strategy

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

The new changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) will have considerable impact on IT in general and storage administration in particular. Litigation holds are likely to be an especially thorny issue. A litigation hold means that you are required to preserve data that may be the target of a lawsuit against your company so that you can make the necessary information (e-discovery) available if required. But a huge gap exists between your legal department asking you to put a litigation hold on data and your ability to actually do so. And that is your challenge.

Unix Tip: Adding lines to the ends of files

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

Let's look at a quick, clever way to add lines to the ends of files on a Unix system. This little Unix trick can be very useful if you are distributing installation directions to customers and want to limit the possible mistakes that they can make in updating important system files. The basis of this trick is the Unix here document -- a special form of I/O redirection that allows you to insert the content to be added between the redirect command and a special marker that is recognized as the end marker for the inserted text.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Listen to your users, multi-select files in Explorer

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

I was manning the Ask The Experts booth at a 2007 Microsoft Launch event the other day when I heard an interesting story from another Microsoft MVP. He told me that his wife was really excited about a new feature in Windows Vista that made it a lot easier for her to work on her computer.

So I asked what the new feature was, thinking BitLocker? Complete PC Backup? New Group Policy settings for Power Management? Delta sync for Offline Files? Outbound firewall filtering? Dual layer IPv4/v6 networking stack? I held my breath and waited for his reply.

It was the ability to multi-select files in Explorer by using checkboxes instead of by holding down the CTRL key. I did a double-take.

Read the full article here.

Unix Tip: Sharing DVD drives

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

While only the newer Sun systems and higher-end PCs today are equipped with DVD drives, application software is beginning to arrive on DVDs because of the tremendous increase in storage capacity. Your typical CD holds about 700 MB of data. That was a lot of data when system disks were only a couple of gigabytes in size. DVDs, on the other hand, may hold 4.3 or 4.7 GB -- and that's just a starting point. If the multi-layer storage capacity of DVDs is ever fully employed, DVDs will hold nearly 16 GB of data. With less overhead for data integrity and more area, it's no wonder that Solaris is being shipped on DVDs only.

So what do you do if you need to install software that is only available on a DVD on a system which has only a CD drive? One answer is to mount and share the DVD from a system with a DVD reader. Since I had to do that just last week, I'll run through the steps in today's column.

New e-discovery rules mean no more business as usual

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

You may not have heard of the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), but complying with them will have a significant impact on data and storage management. Why is this important? The FRCP rules govern discovery in civil litigation. Discovery means that you must provide legitimately requested company information to those who sue your company. FRCP Rule 26(a) clearly defines electronically stored information as discoverable.

Read the full article here.