Which Application Use UDP Protocol

Numerous applications use UDP, including: the Domain Name System (DNS),  Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the Routing Information Protocol (RIP) , Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), VOIP  and Video on demand ( youtube) .

cisco nexus emulator download

I was searching Google for Cisco Nexus emulator download and came across this link which has details about downloading the emulator as a VM and using it on VMware  Workstation:
http://tejasjain1991.blogspot.in/2013/06/cisco-nexus-titanium.html

Rejoin a computer to domain without restart

I came across an article today which mention a PowerShell command to rejoin a computer to the domain without restarting it. More from the article :

“We’ve all been in the situation where we have signed on to a computer only to find that its security relationship with the domain has failed. In the past we’d have to remove the computer from the domain and then join it back again to reestablish the relationship.

This involved two reboots (one to leave, one to join). If it was a server that took a while to boot, the process could take so long that we might even forget why we sat down to sign on to the computer in the first place.

Test-ComputerSecureChannel is one of those cool little PowerShell cmdlets that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Running the cmdlet by itself checks whether the relationship with the domain controller is still good. If it comes back True then everything is okay. If it comes back False then the relationship needs to be fixed.

Using Test-ComputerSecureChannel with the –credential –Repair options allows you to repair the relationship with the domain without any restarts. You run the command, sign out and then can sign in with your domain credentials. For example, to repair the relationship with the WINDOWSITPRO domain, issue the command:

Test-ComputerSecureChannel –credential WINDOWSITPRO\Administrator –Repair

When signed on as a local administrator.

Test-ComputerSecureChannel has been around since Windows Server 2008 R2.”

[Solved]XP mode not working after installation

So today I installed Windows XP mode on my Windows 7 64 bit PC by following this URL: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7

After completing the installation without any error, to my surprise , I couldn’t see the “Windows XP Mode” in start menu programs.  After investing some time on Google I came to know that we also need install Windows Virtual PC file

(KB958559) before or after  Windows XP mode installation. Once I downloaded  and installed the file, XP Mode started working fine and was added to my Start Menu as well . After installing KB958559, it will ask you to reboot the computer.
Here are the download links for KB958559.

32 bit: http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/5/5/0554AE99-785F-45CB-B1F2-0E3ED1E6117D/Windows6.1-KB958559-x86.msu
64 bit: http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/5/5/0554AE99-785F-45CB-B1F2-0E3ED1E6117D/Windows6.1-KB958559-x64.msu

Here is the nice article about installing and using Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 PC.

Tags: XP mode not working after installation, Windows 7 XP Mode is not showing up in start menu.

How to remove inactive search topology in SharePoint 2013

After configuring a new search topology I used this Powershell command to to remove inactive search topology in SharePoint 2013:

Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology |? {$_.State -eq "Inactive"} |% { Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $_ -Confirm:$false};

I hope this saves someone’s time!!

Unable to Change the Preferred Search Center in Sharepoint 2013 -My Sites

Recently I changed the global search center URL of my SharePoint 2013 farm hence I wanted to update the Preferred Search Center URL in My Sites to the new URL. But I was Unable to Change the Preferred Search Center in Sharepoint 2013 (My Sites).
Altough it is very easy to set up Preferred Search Center in Sharepoint 2013 through Service Application Management --> Setup My Sites-->change the URL and hit OK. But when I went back to the setting it was showing up the old URL.

After some google search I found that this is a bug in SharePoint 2013. A workaround is to set this via PowerShell:

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication$ssa.SearchCenterUrl = "https://url-of-the-search-center/"$ssa.Update()

Verify the setting :

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication$ssa.SearchCenterUrl

Now reset IIS by running this command:

iisreset

Or you can reboot the server .

Configure a high available search service on SharePoint 2013

I needed to configure a high available search service on SharePoint 2013 using two application cum WFE servers and one SQL DB server.

 

The production environment consist OF these servers:
Server 1  : Application and WFE 1
server 2  : Application and WFE 2
Server 3  : Database server

Below diagram shows the proposed search topology :

The objective was to configure the search in a way that search service should keep running even when one server goes down. To create a highly available and redundant search environment we need to install all search components on both servers. SharePoint 2013 doesn’t allow us to configure/modify above the search topology through Central admin console . The only option is to configure it using SharePoint Management Shell.

Below is the script I used to create high available search service on SharePoint2013 :

#set variables
$App1 = "WFE-APP1"
$APP2 = "WFE-APP2"
$SearchAppPoolName = "Search_App_Pool1"
$SearchAppPoolAccountName = "domain\SP_service_account"
$SearchServiceName = "Search_Service_App1"
$SearchServiceProxyName = "Search_Service_Proxy1"
$DatabaseName = "Search_Admin_DB1"

#Create a Search Service Application Pool
$spAppPool = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name $SearchAppPoolName -Account $SearchAppPoolAccountName -Verbose

#Start Search Service Instance and Search Query instances on both Application Servers
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance $App1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance $App2 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryAndSiteSettingsServiceInstance $App1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryAndSiteSettingsServiceInstance $App2 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#Create Search Service Application
$ServiceApplication = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Partitioned -Name $SearchServiceName -ApplicationPool $spAppPool.Name -DatabaseName $DatabaseName

#Create Search Service Proxy
New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy -Partitioned -Name $SearchServiceProxyName -SearchApplication $ServiceApplication

#Setting up the topology

$hostApp1 = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $APP1 
$hostApp2 = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $APP2
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $hostApp1
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $hostApp2
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $hostApp1
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $hostApp2

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$newTopology = New-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $ssa

New-SPEnterpriseSearchAdminComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1
New-SPEnterpriseSearchContentProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAnalyticsProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1


New-SPEnterpriseSearchAdminComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2
New-SPEnterpriseSearchContentProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAnalyticsProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2

#Set the primary and replica index location; ensure these drives and folders exist on application servers. Create folders on SharePoint servers.
$PrimaryIndexLocation = "L:\Index\Primary"
$ReplicaIndexLocation = "L:\Index\Replica"

#create index partitions and replicas for each partition.
New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp1 -RootDirectory $PrimaryIndexLocation -IndexPartition 0
New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent -SearchTopology $newTopology -SearchServiceInstance $hostApp2 -RootDirectory $ReplicaIndexLocation -IndexPartition 0

#Activate the Topology( this command will take considerable amount of time)
Set-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $newTopology

# Verify the Topology
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $ssa

I got help from these two blogs:
http://www.powershellmagazine.com/2013/04/29/creating-and-configuring-a-sharepoint-2013-search-service-application/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/meamcs/archive/2013/04/09/configuring-sharepoint-2013-search-topology.aspx