Written on October 19, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

It’s a horrible tale. A tale of frustration, anguish, and very little sleep.

Our story begins a couple of months ago really. One of my clients gives me a call. They’d like email, calendaring, appointments, and I said I could so help them with that. So, I went online and downloaded the trial of Exchange Server 2007 for their Windows 2003 Server. I installed the Exchange environment and switched mail over; all was swell. Well, time had come to get the Exchange installation licensed this week so I went to get the volume licensing squared away only to find that I couldn’t get Exchange 2007 in a 32bit distribution, so I called up Microsoft’s open licensing division. After two hours on the phone and, eventually, my own looking into the subject, I found that I made a horrible assumption. That Microsoft would be distributing licensed copies of Exchange 2007 in 32bit. Totally wrong – they’re only selling it in 64bit, and the 32bit versions only exist for, well, trial and evaluation purposes. Yikes! Well, the licensing was just the same anyway, but I had to pass along the bad news to my users and tell them I needed to strip out Exchange 2007 for the previous version, Exchange 2003, and it shouldn’t take me all that much time. That, right there, was the kiss of death.

So, this weekend, I go to run a simple utility called Exmerge which would allow me to extract the database of everybody’s email to individual containers that I can use in Microsoft Outlook called *.pst files. It’s a common utility – one that’s been around with Exchange forever. Well, I found out, Microsoft discontinued support for Exmerge in 2007. After 2 hours of additional research, I found the commands I needed for Exchange’s new management shell to accomplish this.

Well, except after another hour of fiddling with it, I found out that the command that I wanted really wasn’t available until Exchange 2007 SP1. You see, Microsoft apparently thought that this whole idea of exporting data to files was crazy-talk until the universe screamed and they included that functionality in the first service pack. Well, okay, so I download the service pack and run through installation, and I had to spend another 2 hours troubleshooting that.

Okay, so, I now have Exchange 2007 SP1 on the server and the tools I need are installed. Great! So I go to run my command, but I still can’t export. Why? After another hour of research, I find out that this will only work with Outlook 2003 SP2 installed. Well, that’s a client application and I don’t have that on my server, so I have to install it over a remote connection which takes upwards of 2 hours. Finally, after something like 7-9 hours, and it’s 3 am in the morning, I finally get the database extracted to individual PST files.

Whew! Piece of cake! Woops. That killed me.

For you see, now I needed to uninstall Exchange 2007. That didn’t go very well; the process bombed on me multiple time. Four hours later – I kid you not – I still can’t get Exchange 2007 to cleanly uninstall, and its Active Directory updates are confusing the ForestPrep portion of Exchange 2003, so essentially what I have here is a trashed Active Directory database.  Loathing what I would have to do next, I realized the bitter truth: I would need to DCPROMO the server to make it a standard box, then, DCPROMO again to re-create the domain and a brand new Active Directory schema.

Holy crap, Batman, loads of work. So it’s seven AM. I get started. I start backing up files and my user’s profiles; I start checking services; auditing my permissions; getting ready for basically nuking 30+ users, their passwords, and all of their data. So, I do this, downgrade the box, then DCPROMO it back to a Domain Controller for a new domain. It worked! I was able to install Exchange Server 2003 cleanly, get IIS to map correctly for the remote services, and installed all SMTP routing for email. I re-created my user accounts and my mailboxes. Now I was ready for Exmerge! It’s noon, on Sunday, I’m now 36+ hours into no sleep land and some 17 hours into this project.

Well, Exmerge fails. I spend another two hours verifying permissions, and then I learn the next horrible truth: I used Outlook 2003 SP2 to create the *.pst files with all of my user’s email. Well, Exmerge only understands Outlook version 2002 or _less_ and can’t read the 2003 file. Microsoft’s brilliant remedy on their technical articles: open Outlook, create a new *.pst in the older version, import the stuff from the subject *.pst, and save all of it to the older version. So I manually DO this for 30+ users.

Now… NOW… I’m ready to roll! I kick up Exmerge, get it to import, all of my user’s containers get their email back. I ran the file restore and brought their files back to their profiles. Yes, it’ll be a headache as users need to re-log in tomorrow (Monday morning) using a new credential and a new password, but hey, 20+ hours later over the weekend, they have a working server.  The server works; the new Active Directory is sound; mail is routing; my client is a reasonably happy camper.

Me? I’m looking at ~44 to 48 hours of no sleep. While I was doing all of this, I was trying to grade homework assignments across four classes to kill a little time. Wow. What a weekend. I need a nap.

R

Written on October 7, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

Just in case you weren’t aware: Brazil has had reliable electronic voting for over a decade. Electronic ballots were introduced in 1996 and by 2000, all elections were conducted using an electronic system. Voting is compulsory in Brazil and over 120 million people voted on Oct. 5 using a Linux-based distribution; if you’re interested in taking a simulation, one is available on the web. Wikipedia even has a nice article on them.

And they work rather simply. You apparently key in a number from your voting card, and you’re presented with a list of choices accompanied by pictures of the candidate. You hit the number of your candidate. You type in the number, see the picture, and you’re asked to confirm. You then get a stub that you voted.  Votes are recorded to flash cards which are serialized to each unit to prevent fraud. Once the data is electronically transmitted to the head office, the results are counted in under six hours. Apparently, the latest machines have fingerprint readers. And get this: the ballot boxes work off regular batteries and cost under $1,000 to produce.

Okay, so I’m looking at this and thinking: the greatest industrialized democracy on the planet – um, that’s US – still cannot guarantee its electronic voting process, and has paid zillions more than tiny Brazil, but Brazil – BRAZIL – who apparently whipped this puppy in the bud the first time. It’s extraordinary to me that voting districts across America still can’t seem to vouch for their voting machines or have a universal paper record, and that we can’t deploy a univeral process.

In my courses and in casual conversation, I’ve always mentioned that the problem is more of a political one than a technological one. The technology is obviously there (Linux, a couple of batteries, and a machine with a modem, screen, and 10-key – wow, duh) and we can certainly make the transactions as transparent as we want to (we seem to trust computers to vouch for corporate financial and banking systems, yet, we can’t trust computers to tally a vote?). It’s a political problem – an idea problem – that really limits us as a country. When Brazil – BRAZIL! – surpasses the United States by holding free, fair, accurate elections for 120+ million people by what essentially amounts to an ATM, what on _earth_ is holding us back?

I mean – aside from the political interests that don’t want to see greater accuracy and transparency in American elections?

R