Let's Talk about .. MOSS2007&Reporting Service-Error The request failed with HTTP status 401 : Unauthorized

After I managed integration settings and granted database access, I clicked at Set server defaults in Reporting Services of Application Management. Then, I got an error page "An unexpected error occured while connection to the report server. Verify that the report server is available and configured for SharePoint integrated mode. -> Server was unable to process request. ---> The request failed with HTTP status 401 : Unauthorized" as shown in the figure.

After I managed integration settings and granted database access, I clicked at Set server defaults in Reporting Services of Application Management. Then, I got an error page "An unexpected error occured while connection to the report server. Verify that the report server is available and configured for SharePoint integrated mode. -> Server was unable to process request. ---> The request failed with HTTP status 401 : Unauthorized" as shown in the figure.
We discussed and connected live meeting with a support engineer from Microsoft. He said that the cause was the authentication mode of ReportServer host website. The way he used to solve this problem was running the command

[CMD]

cd c:\Inetpub\Adminscriptscscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc\c:\Inetpub\Adminscrpts cscript
cd C:\Inetpub\Adminscripts cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/XXXXXXXXX/root/NTAuthenticationProviders "NTLM“cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/XXXXXXXXX/NTAuthenticationProviders "NTLM"

where XXXXXXXXX is the identifier of the ReportServer host website.

Let's Talk about .. SQL Server 2005 & 2008

Last Thursday, I participated the meeting of MS SQL Server 2008 Presentation by Mr.Nicolas and Mr.Jason , engineers from Microsoft.


Because my office member have started using Reporting Services in our systems, thus we would like to discuss about it and the problems we found.


The first one they suggested is "Scale Out". They recommended us to use many report servers to point to the report catalog.


The important one they suggested us to use was Report Catalog. The Report Catalog consists of Reporting Services Database (RSDB) and Reporting Services Tempolary Database (RSTempDB). It has a lot of I/O of transaction.


1.RSDB stores the report's metadata, including snapshots. It is long living, thus it should be backed up.
2.RSTempDB stores tempolary snapshot while running reports. It is highly volatile. And since its volatile, we need the report lifetime policy of data by setting session timeout value (10 min): Clean up Cycle Minutes guides background clean up thread.


Then, how different between RS2005 and RS2008.
For RS2005,

-Many insert to Chunk Data

-Many insert to Snapshot Data

-Many insert to Session Data Table

For RS2008,

-Many insert to Segment; take majority of transation of RSTempDB


Some trip to optimize the Report Performance

-Remove the unnecessary columns

-Bring rendered report to user, for example, doc, pdf, etc.


They showed us the new tool, MS SQL Server 2008 Report Builder. It looks like MS Office 2007 Application because of its theme. In the future, users can design and use the reports themselves. I asked them if there are any features that we still need Visual Studio 2008 to develop the report. They answered me that the Report Builder can do anything VS2008 can except debugging and creating and using several data sources.

Let's Talk about .. Security

Last Wednesday I joined the meeting of my department. One of many parts was about security. Mr Sahassawat from AC InfoTech described about the security to us.

The reason that the organization needs security policy consists of to protect the organization, protect business and employees, set the rules for expected behavior- the prohibited activities, be used for authorize activities, be used for approved operational steps, and legal compliance.

Policy is a part of security the global standard of security is ISO27001 (Global Standard Code of Protection for information security management). Now Thailand has 20 certificates of this ISO.

Policy can declare the direction of the organization and policy is an intelligent property of the organization.

Let's Talk about .. IIS-IP Address and domain name restrictions

For more security, Forbes, SM Team, told me the way to set the IP address and domain name restrictions. By setting it, we can specify who can access the WebSite or Web Service.

The instruction to set IP Address and domain name restrictions

-Open IIS

-Right click at you web sites

-In Directory tab, click at Edit button

-Select Granted access or Denied access as the default, then you can specify for the exception case.

For example, if I want only the website on ServerA to call Web Service on Server B, then I select Denied access and Except for Server A.

Let's Talk about .. Windows Server 2003-Create Local Users and Groups

Yesterday, Forbes, SM Team Analyst, teached me how to create the local users and groups since the method of my Web Service needs to check authorize of the user before performing the operation.

The instruction to create Local Users and Groups

For Local Users:

-Go to Start->All Programs->Administrative Tools->Computer Management
-Expand Local Users and Groups -Right click at Users
-Clickt at New User
-Type User name

Note that this user can be the user domain from Active Directory or Local User of this machine
-Type Full name
-Type Description
-Type Password
-Type Confirm
-Select Password never expires, if any
-Click Create button
-Click Close button

For Local Group:

-Right Click at Groups
-Click New Group
-Type Group name
-Type Description
-Click Add button
-Add user
-Click Check Names
-Click OK button
-Click Create button
-Click Close button

Let's Talk about .. MOSS-Error "You do not habe the rights to perform this operation" when setting SSO

A few week ago, I got the error "You do no have rights to perform this operation" message when I tried to manage the Single Sign-On setting on MOSS2007. I asked P'Knight DBA and P'Pop DBA to check if the rights of the user account I used is a member of public database in the configuration database and it's the member of serveradmin fixed server role in the instance of MS SQL Server or not, and it is. Thus, I opened a case to Microsoft. Microsoft Support Engineer suggested me to check the Single Sign-On service logon account in Windows Server 2003 service. And I found that why the error occured. My Single Sign-on Service logon account was set as Local System. It has to be set as the correct domain account that I use with MOSS.

With the help of Microsoft and the idea from SharePoint 2003 article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889645 , it may concluded that we have to make sure that the user account we're gonna use to set the SSO must be..

1. Log On As in Microsoft Single Sign-On Service in Windows Server 2003
2. Member of Administrator/Local group of MOSS2007
3. Member of public database role on the config database
4. Member of serveradmin fixed server role in the instance of SQL Server that SSO DB is gonna be located

Let's Talk about .. MOSS2007-Find MOSS Version

Sometimes you may forgot what version of MOSS you have and what the latest version of MOSS you installed. I found the way to check it from Penny on Sharepoint http://www.mindsharpblogs.com/penny/articles/481.aspx

Note: Check Deploy Software Updates for MOSS2007 at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

The instruction to find the latest update package/hotfix of MOSS
-Go to Central Administrator
-Go to Home tab
-In Farm Topology, click at your MOSS Server
-Click at Site Actions
-Click at Site Settings
-You can see Site Information which shows the version. (I found it from Penny on SharePoint)

• 12.0.0.6327 : MOSS2007 Cumulative update
• 12.0.0.6318 : MOSS2007 Infrastructure Update
• 12.0.0.6303 : MOSS2007 Post-SP1 Hotfix
• 12.0.0.6301 : MOSS2007 Post-SP1 Hotfix
• 12.0.0.6300 : MOSS2007 Post-SP1 Hotfix
• 12.0.0.6219 : MOSS2007 SP1

The instruction to find the Service Pack version of MOSS
-Go to Start->Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs
-Find Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
-Click at Click here for support link
-The Support Information windows will appear. Then, you can see the version of your MOSS. After that, you can check that number with this table where I found it at Penny on Sharepoint.

• 12.0.6303.5000 : post-SP1 hotfix
• 12.0.6219.1000 : SP1