Potential for database corruption as a result of installing Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3

The Exchange Product Group was made aware of an issue which may lead to database corruption if you are running Exchange 2007 Service Pack 3 with Update Rollup 3 (Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3). Specifically, the issue was introduced in Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3 by a change in how the database is grown during transaction log replay when new data is written to the database file and there are no available free pages to be consumed.

This issue is of specific concern in two scenarios: 1) when transaction log replay is performed by the Replication Service as part of ensuring the passive database copy is up-to-date and/or 2) when a database is not cleanly shut down and recovery occurs.

For the full details, please read the following blog from the Exchange Team.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/03/29/potential-for-database-corruption-as-a-result-of-installing-exchange-2007-sp3-ru3.aspx

BT Should Stick to Telephones and Not Configuring Mail Servers!

Having received a call from a customer today having problems receiving mail from their customers via our Mail Servers, I looked through our Anti-Spam logs (Vamsoft ORF) and filtered the logs to show rejected mail for them and then I looked through the rejected mail for the problem sender and checked out the details of the sending server, which turned out to have the following Fully Qualified Domain Name:

HESA01UKER.HE.LOCAL

The related IP Address was 213.123.26.92 which is a BT IP Address. I then re-filtered the logs to show all mail from servers with an FQDN of *.HE.LOCAL and there were about 60 entries all coming from similar named servers:

HESA02UKER.HE.LOCAL
HESA03UKER.HE.LOCAL
HESA06UKER.HE.LOCAL
HESA06UKER.HE.LOCAL
HESL01UKER.HE.LOCAL
HESL02UKER.HE.LOCAL
HESL04UKER.HE.LOCAL

Well – all the related IP Addresses are BT IP Addresses and half of the sender addresses were *@BTCONNECT.COM addresses, which would suggest to me that they are all BT Mail Servers.

So – what’s the problem? Well, the problem is that any mail server that is configured with an FQDN ending .LOCAL is not RFC Compliant (email standards) because the FQDN must resolve back to the IP Address that the server is connected to the internet with but a .LOCAL FQDN cannot be resolved as .LOCAL domain names are only resolvable internally and thus when a receiving server sees a .LOCAL FQDN, then server may reject the connection attempt because it cannot resolve the FQDN in DNS and thinks the server is a spamming server.

So – BT need to get their act together and configure their servers properly as their customer’s emails will be getting rejected by some other mail servers (including ours) and as usual, the people sending the emails will think that it is a problem with the receiving server, which it isn’t.

Apple Releases iOS 4.3 for iPhone and iPad

Today Apple have released their latest Operating System for the iPhone and iPad. As usual, if you want the upgrade, you will need to download the latest version of iTunes to be able to install it.

Benefits of the new OS include:

Airplay Enhancements
Safari Performance
iTunes Home Sharing
iPad Side Switch (you now have a choice of the action it performs)
Personal Hotspot for iPhone 4

The one key benefit (for me) is the ability to control what the Side Switch does on the iPad. In the original iPad OS – the Side Switch locked the screen rotation and stopped the screen from rotating from portrait to landscape and vice-versa if you rotated the iPad. On the next iOS for the iPad, the switch suddenly controlled the volume so that you could quickly mute the sound and the Rotation Lock involved Double-Pressing the home button, sliding to the settings screen and then unlocking or locking the screen – much more cumbersome.

Now you can choose between Screen Lock or Volume Mute in the General Settings – mine is back to Screen Lock!!

For more information about the new iOS 4.3- please visit this link:
http://www.apple.com/uk/ios/

iOS 4.3 is compatible with the following Apple Hardware:
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4
iPod Touch 3rd Generation
iPod Touch 4th Generation
iPad
iPad 2