WSUS – Self-Update Is Not Working

In the application event log, event ID 13042 was being posted from Windows Sever Update Services and the message Self-Update is not working.  Here is at least one solution for why this was happening and how to determine if this is your problem.

Open a browser and type the url as http://<WSUS_Server_Name>/iuident.cab.  If you get a file not found error or something similar in your browser, this is probably for you.  If you get a file download dialogue box, first click on cancel and assume this solution is not for your problem.

If you got the file not found or similar error, then here is what you should do.

1. Open IIS Manager.
2. Expand the tree for the SBS Server then for Sites.
3. Click on Default Web Site to highlight it.
4. Click on bindings in the action pane.
5. Make sure that there is an entry for http on Port 80 with * as the IP address.

If the entry points to another port or isn’t there, you probably have to make some other adjustments in IIS.  Here is what I think you may find.

Perhaps you have added a new site that you want to host and have given it Port 80, changing the default web site to another port, like 8080.  This would would allow normal Port 80 traffic to the new web site, but would also prevent the default web site from starting because of a port conflict.  The easy solution is to change the default port to say 8080, or some other unused port.

While you could change the physical path for the default web site to the directory you want for your new web site, another way is to do the following.

For bindings, create to entries.  Suppose the external URL is mywebsite.com.  Then create two http bindings, both for port 80 with * as the IP Address.  Use http://www.mywebsite.com as one host name and mywebsite.com as the other host name.  This will direct traffic to the specific web site on port 80 rather than the default traffic.  If you host multiple web sites, do the same thing for each.

This should make the 13042 error go away.

To verify, open command prompt as administrator.  Go to c:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools and run this command:

wsusutil checkhealth

Then open the event viewer, application logs and see if you now get a 13040 Self-update is working event.

Putting your Business Web Site on Your SBS Server

Many SBS users have web sites that are hosted on subscriber (for fee) hosting environments.  Either they created their site before they got their server, or a third party created the site and used his or her favorite hosting site; perhaps it was from a domain registrar, like GoDaddy or others.

If the web site is primarily for delivering content, as opposed to highly transactional like an online store, you may wish to use your SBS server to host the web site.  Doing so is very easy, but you need to get it right.  Here’s how.

First, you need to get the site files onto your server.  There are different ways to do this depending on where the site is currently being hosted and what you have access to.  Following are several scenarios you might follow.

• You have a copy of the site files.  In that case, create a folder on the server and copy the files into that folder.  A good place for them is c:\inetpub\wwwroot.  Create a folder in that directory and copy the files into it.
• You can access the current hosting site via FTP.  Use an FTP client program to copy the files from the current hosting environment, then store them as in the previous step.
• You can use a program like Microsoft Expression Web or its predecessor SharePoint Designer 2007. The former is a product you can purchase and is an excellent tool to management web content, but you can still download 2007 for free.  Use the site import wizard (under File menu in 2007 and under Site menu in Expression).  Access to the existing site is supported for FTP, Front Page Extensions, File System, WebDAV, and HTTP.  The last is great when you don’t have other access to your web site.

Once you have created the folder with your site files, you now need to create a site in IIS Manager.  Expand the server name and right click on Sites choosing Add a Web Site.  You will see this dialogue box

Change the values shown in this example as follows:

• Site Name -the name of the site as it will appear in IIS.
• IIS will create the corresponding Application Pool name and you can leave this as is.
• Physical Path – browse to the folder where you stored the files.
• Binding Type – leave as http
• IP Address – leave as all unassigned unless you want traffic only for a specific adapter
• Port – leave as 80 unless you have a good reason to use another port; browsers are defaulting to 80
• Host name – enter the name that will be used to access the site.  More information follows.

Now you may be asking, how can I use port 80 on this new site when it is already being used on the Default Web Site that SBS sets up and uses for Exchange and other things?  The answer is simple: in this new web site, the header values will use what is in the URL from the browser to pick which site to return.

Not that in the above example, http://www.staging.com would be accessed as http://www.staging.com from the browser.  But in order to do that, there is one more thing to be done – make DNS changes.  Before you do, however, test your site thoroughly to make sure it is displaying as you want.  Once you create the site, you can click on the site name in IIS Manager and browse it by clicking on the right hand Actions pane to browse the site.

You need to add records to the public DNS and also to the local zone.  In the public DNS, modify the www record to now point to your server.  If the www record is a host record, change the IP address.  If it is a cname record, have it point to something that points to your server; the REMOTE host record is a safe and easy choice.  In the DNS located on the SBS server, change the www record to point to the server, or add a host record if one doesn’t exist.

That should almost do it, but you might want to make one more change.  Sometimes the URL in the browser will be entered as http://<domain&gt;.com instead of http://www.<domain&gt;.com.  If you want that to be resolved to the web site as well, you will need to add another binding.

In IIS Manager, click on the site name.  In the Actions pane, click on Edit Site Bindings…. At the edit dialogue, you should already see type as http, host name as http://www.<domain>.com, port as 80, and ip address as *.  Click the Add button.  In the add dialogue, enter <domain>.com as the host name and leave everything else as is, then click ok.

Now your web site will resolve browser requests from http://www.<domain>.com or <domain>.com.

Does it go without saying that you should substitute <domain>.com with your own domain name and domain type?

Exchange Managment Console – Kerberos Connect Error

One day, it may come as a huge surprise – and shock – to you when you open Exchange Management Console and see this screen:

If you open Exchange PowerShell, you will get the same error.  What’s more, Remote Web Workplace (RWW) and OWA stop working as well.

So what happened, and how do you fix it?

The answer to the first question has two parts.  What is causing the error is that the Default web site has stopped.  Why it has stopped is the second part of the first question.  To fix the problem, all you need to do is to restart the Default web site.  In order to do that, you have to understand why it stopped in the first place.

A possible cause is that a new web site was created and started whose bindings conflict with the Default site.  A way to unknowingly have this happen is to create a new SharePoint web site in Central Administration and not give it unique bindings.  You can spot this from two different places:

• IIS Manager – If the Default web site is stopped, try restarting it. If it starts correctly, then for some reason it stopped, and with it restarted, your Kerberos error should disappear.  If it didn’t start, and the reason is a port conflict, then follow the instructions in the following sections of this post.
• SharePoint Central Administration – From the main page, Application Management, click on Manage web applications.  The default applications are SharePoint Central Administration v4 (for SharePoint Foundation 2010) and SBS SharePoint.  If you have another, check the port and make sure it is not port 80.

Of course, it is possible that you modified the bindings on the Default web site and it is not using port 80.  This is not at all recommended.

If starting the Default web site fails with other than a port conflict, you will have to determine that error and correct it.  If it is because of a port conflict, follow these steps:

1. In IIS Manager, expand the server, then click on Application Pools.  Make sure all the application pools are started.  If not, try starting any that are stopped.  If they start correctly, proceed.  If not, check for the error that is preventing them from starting and try again.
2. Expand Sites in IIS Manager. Click on each site and in the right had Actions Pane, take a look at the bindings under Browse Web Site, or better still, click Bindings…. under Edit site.
3. If you find a binding that has no host name and uses port 80 for a site that is not the Default web site, stop that site.  You can stop the site from Manage Web Site in the Actions pane.
4. With the conflicting site stopped, try starting the Default site again.

If this solves the problem, you can then focus on the conflicting site.  How did it get there in the first place?  A common culprit might be SharePoint Central Administration if a new site were not properly created.  Or someone attempted to add a public web site but didn’t configure the bindings properly.  I am creating a separate post for how to set the bindings for a public web site in SBS.