Windows Tips & Tricks UPDATE, December 12, 2005
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FAQs
- Q. How can I monitor registry activity during logon and logoff?
- Q. What are the system prerequisites for installing Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005?
- Q. How do I install Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005?
- Q. How do I import management packs into Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005?
- Q. How do I configure Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 to find computers to manage?
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FAQs
Q. How can I monitor registry activity during logon and logoff?
A. The Regmon tool, which you can download at http://www.sysinternals.com , is handy for monitoring registry access and modification. However, it runs as part of the interactive desktop, which means when you log off, the Regmon process terminates. To solve this problem, combine Regmon with PsExec (which you can download at http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/psexec.html) to configure Regmon to run under the local system in the background. This approach allows the Regmon process to survive a logon or logoff. To configure Regmon, open a command line, and type
The -i switch instructs PsExec to run Regmon as interactive; the -s switch tells it to run under the local system; and the -d switch tells it to launch the application and not wait for it to terminate.C:\>psexec -i -s -d "c:\program files\misc\regmon.exe"
After a user logs off and logs back on, the Regmon window will appear again and will have captured all activity. (Make sure that you don't close the Regmon application before logging off!) You can use PsExec to run any other applications that need to survive a logoff and logon.
Q. What are the system prerequisites for installing Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005?
A. MOM 2005 allows the monitoring and management of numerous types of systems and services. MOM 2005 has a Check Prerequisites component that you access via the Setup Tasks tab of the main installation setup screen, as the figure shows. The utility scans the server on which you're attempting to install MOM to ensure that the server is ready. Here are the primary requirements that the tool searches for:
- Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 (SP4)
- Microsoft .NET Framework v1.1
- Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC)
- SQL Server 2000 SP3 or later with the MSSQLServer and SQLServeragent services set to "Automatic start." (Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Computer Management snap-in--Compmgmt.msc. Select Services and Applications, then select Services. Right-click the service, select Properties, and set "Startup type" to Automatic.)
- World Wide Web (WWW) Services (Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs)
- Add/Remove Windows Components (Select Application Server and click Details. Select "Internet Information Service" and click Details. Select the "World Wide Web Service" check box. Click OK to all open dialog boxes, as the figure shows.)
- ASP.NET (Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components. Select Application Server and click Details. Select the ASP.NET option). Make sure "Enable network COM+ access" is selected.)
- Two domain accounts: the Management Server Action Account (MOMAction) and Data Access Server Account (MOMDas). These accounts don't need to be Domain Admin accounts. During the installation of MOM 2005, the accounts will be given the required privileges. The MOMAction account, however, needs local administrative privileges on all servers that it will monitor, so making it a Domain Admin account is often the easiest solution. However, you can use an alternative approach (such as using Group Policy to make the account a local administrator of specific machines).
Q. How do I install Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005?
A. The installation of MOM 2005 is a wizard-driven procedure. To access the wizard and install MOM 2005, perform these steps:
- Log on to the MOM server as a local Administrator.
- Insert the MOM 2005 CD-ROM.
- After ensuring that the server meets all the prerequisites (by running the Check Prerequisities utility), click Install Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 on the "Setup Tasks" area of the installation console.
- Click Next to the "Welcome to the Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Setup Wizard" dialog box.
- Select "I accept the terms in the license agreement" and click Next.
- Enter the registered user name and organization and click Next.
- Under Installation Options, select Custom. Click Next.
- Select the components to install, as the figure at http://www.windowsitpro.com/content/content/49085/MOM2005Sizerxls.gif"http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=93930640-FA0F-48B3-8EB0-86836A1808DF&displaylang=en">here . The sizing tool has a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet into which you enter the number of computers to be managed and number of retention days, and it outputs the required database size and the type of hardware needed, as the figure shows.
- Enter the Management Group Name and click Next.
- Enter the username and password to be used for the Management Server Action Account (MOMAction) and click Next.
- Enter the username and password to be used for the Data Access Server Account (MOMDas) and click Next.
- Enter the number of licenses acquired and click Next.
- Select whether to enable error reporting and how errors are sent to Microsoft. Click Next.
- Select the Active Directory (AD) configuration. If all machines are in AD and if domains trust each other, select Yes; otherwise select No, as the figure shows. Click Next.
- Click Install.
- Click Finish after the installation is done. By default, the MOM Administrator console will launch.
Q. How do I import management packs into Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005?
A. To install management packs, which add product-specific knowledge to MOM, perform the following steps:
- Start the MOM 2005 Administrator Console (Start, Programs, Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, Administrator Console).
- Right-click the Management Packs node of the MOM 2005 Administrator Console and select Import/Export Management Pack from the context menu.
- Click Next to the Import/Export Wizard Welcome screen.
- Select "Import Management Packs and/or reports" and click Next.
- Under the location dialog box, select the ManagementPacks folder of the MOM media, and click Next.
- Select the management packs to import (hold down Ctrl key to select multiple packs), as the figure shows and click Next.
- Click Finish to the confirmation dialog box. The management packs will begin loading, as the figure shows. After they're finished loading, click Close.
The new management packs will be visible under the Rule Groups node of Management Packs.
Q. How do I configure Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 to find computers to manage?
A. By default, MOM installs agents only on its own management servers--it won't find any other computers. To allow MOM to find other computers, perform these steps:
- Start the MOM 2005 Administrator Console (Start, Programs, Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, Administrator Console).
- Expand Administration, Computers, Computer Discovery Rules, as the figure shows.
- Right-click Computer Discovery Rules and select Create Computer Discovery Rule.
- Select the management server that will manage the computers that will be discovered. Set the "Rule type" to Include and enter the name of the domain in the "Domain name" box. (This name can be the Fully Qualified Domain Name--FQDN--of the NetBIOS; entering a domain name speeds up the computer discovery process.) Under "Computer name" select how the computers will be found (e.g., by exact name or containing a given substring). Under "Computer type" select whether to find servers and/or clients. The Initial Management Mode dictates how discovered computers will be handled: "Agent-managed" will automatically install the agent on discovered computers; "Agentless managed" will manage them without installing the agent; and Unmanaged will find the computer but won't attempt to manage it. If you want to find domain controllers (DCs), check the "Apply query criteria to domain controllers" as the figure shows. Click OK.
- Right-click Computer Discovery Rules and select Run Computer Discovery Now to find computers that match the new discovery criteria. After the computer discovery finishes, select the All Computers node under Administration, Computers, to view the computers. To confirm Computer Discovery ran use, the MOM 2005 Operator Console's Task Status node, which should show an event ID 9898 (Agent Install and Discovery Task) as the figure shows.
For more detailed information, expand Microsoft Operations Manager, Operations Manager 2005, Computer Discovery, Computer Discovery - summary events, and an event ID 21069 will show the number of computers that were discovered, as the figure shows.
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