February 2009 - Posts
I wanted to post about one of the best tools I’ve found for getting Kerberos properly configured and in the process getting some great HOWTO information on Kerberos, how it works, etc.
When working with SharePoint, and the plan is to have your site run under Kerberos, I recommend using this tool before actually provisioning the Web App. You can do it later, but you’d have to “stop” the WSS provisioned Web App before using this tool. Why? Because the IIS site you use for testing must use the DNS name of the Web App – that ultimately is the key to Kerberos – getting all the SPN (servicePrincipalName) set for the right AD Principals.
Basically, before actually creating or extending your web app in SharePoint, which would provision the Web App in IIS, you setup an standard IIS ASP.NET Virtual Host in IIS using the same DNS name as the eventual SharePoint Web App, set the App Pool to the Principal that going to be the App Pool for the Web App, then, put the DeleConfig files in the IIS site and hit the default page; gives fantastic diagnostic information on if Kerberos is setup correctly. I'd suggest this as a first step...
http://blogs.iis.net/brian-murphy-booth/archive/2007/03/09/delegconfig-delegation-configuration-reporting-tool.aspx
http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1434
This post in no way endorses the use of Visual Source Safe, Mesh, or general supportability of this approach. This is entirely at your own risk….
Visual Source Safe (VSS) has been around for some time. There have been a few 3rd parties, then Microsoft, that implemented some nice server side capabilities such as Source Off Site (SOS), VSSConnect, and now in VSS internet based access.
The issue with the server approach is that all of these requires some process to be running and hosting some part of VSS all the time.
What happened if you just used Mesh and shared the VSS DB folder (it’s just a folder) in Mesh and shared that way?
Well, I can say that for the past several weeks, I’ve been successfully working on a couple of different machines, doing check-in/out and it’s looking like no major issues so far. Now, to be clear, this is just 1 user in a non-concurrent mode access the Mesh folder (when it’s local) from different machines. Mesh gladly in the background syncs all the changes up to the “cloud” and when I’m online with the other machine those changes, and all status, etc. come down nicely… I’ve even run analyze several times to just be sure..
Cloud services that is. Windows Azure, .NET Services, Live Services….
If you looking for the spoon fed variety of information, a bunch of HOWTO vides have been released – see below.
These are small little “nuggets” – like those MSDN Nuggets out of Microsoft UK.
| Get Started Developing on Windows Azure? | If you’re a developer and you’re new to Windows Azure, start here! You’ll see what you need to download and install, and how to create a simple “Hello World” Windows Azure application. |
| Deploy a Windows Azure Application | You’ll see what it takes to move your application into the cloud – you’ll see how to request and register a token, how to upload your Windows Azure application and how to move it between staging and production in the cloud. |
| Store Blobs in Windows Azure Storage? | Learn how to leverage Windows Azure storage to store data as blobs. You’ll learn about blob storage, containers and the API that makes it easy to manage everything from managed code. |
| Leverage Queues in Windows Azure? | Learn how to use queues to facilitate communication between Web and Worker roles in Windows Azure. |
| Debugging Tips for Windows Azure Applications | The Windows Azure SDK includes a development fabric that provides a "cloud on your desktop." In this screencast, learn how to debug your Windows Azure applications in this environment. |
| Get Started with .NET Services? | .NET Services are a set of highly scalable building blocks for programming in the cloud. In this brief screencast, you'll learn about the registration process, the SDK and the built-in samples - everything you need to know in order to get started. |
| Harness the Microsoft .NET Service Bus? | The .NET Service Bus makes it easy to access your Web services no matter where they are. In this brief screencast, you'll see how to take a basic Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service and expose it to the Internet with the .NET Service Bus. |
| Get Started with the Live Framework? | If you are looking to get started developing with the Live Framework, this is the place to start! In this screencast you'll learn how to get a Live Services token and what you need to download in order to start writing Live Framework applications. |
| Use the Microsoft Live Framework Resource Browser? | The Live Framework Resource Model is a simple, straightforward information model based on entities, collections and relationships. In this brief screencast you'll learn how to navigate the relationships between entities by using the Live Framework Resource Browser, which is a tool that ships with the Live Framework SDK. |
I have to give a nod to Startup Delayer from r2 Studios…
This tool takes over the “timely” launching of all those startup programs that just seem to bog down a fresh boot. Just not having all these programs competing for resources makes the process nicer.
A few programs that I use that had issues at startup with System Tray icons just not appearing but the programs were running are no longer an issue.
