fbreseal & IIS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eric Johnson
  • Start date Start date
E

Eric Johnson

After creating and configuring a nice XPe image that uses
to IIS to process ASP files for our webs, I run
fbreseal.exe.

After re-booting, W3 and FTP services do not run. System
log complains about a 'path' being unavailable (e.g.
LM/W3SVC.

inetmgr shows the machine 'connected' but nothing beneath
that. Disconnect, and reconnect succeed, but restoration
of IIS backups generates "invalid data" message. Any
ideas?

ej
 
I think the problem is that when rebooting AFTER the reseal, not all the IIS
related services are running. There set to automatice but not running.
Reboot again and you should be fine. Also, I think this is in the SP1
release notes.

HTH... Doug
 
Well, the XPe is SP1, and the services are configured to
be "automatic". But trying to start them from
services.msc, and reboots do not change the situation.
I'm certain the problem lies in the MetaBase.bin file,
and IIS' understanding of what the machine's network name-
- typically modified on the next boot after fbreseal.
But that's mostly a hunch. HexEditing MetaBase.bin does
not reveal anything obvious to me. And in general, there
is no security in our XPe image, so we have funny "users"
like IWAM_MACHINENAME, and IUSR_MACHINENAME. Don't if
that has anything to do with it however.

Thanks,

ej
 
I've had images generated from multilple uses of
fbreseal, and (yesterday, for example) images where
fbreseal was executed just a single time after fba. Same
result-- this week. What's troublesome is that the
behavior is not predictable, at least by me. We have
production images where everything seems fine, but I've
always used the same procedure:

a) Create an XPe image with only TD components
b) boot (fba does its thing)
c) log in, manually config and patch the image
d) install our app, config web & ftp sites
e) run fbreseal
f) save image

So, I'm really struggling to understand what causes IIS
to be still born, or totally healthy. Why is is
Metabase.bin corrupted, and what must I do to avoid that?


ej
 
Eric:

Your process is exactly what I do. I now add the -keepall switch when I do
the manual reseal. This is probably not necessary since I set everything I
need in TD for the System Cloning Tool component. All I can offer as a
suggestions is to make real sure you are not resealing more than once.
Check out some of the prior posts about this from David Reed [MS].

Here are a few snippets:
"MS does not support Cloning an XP Embedded image more
than once. This is one of the reasons why we delete
fbreseal.exe & setupcl.exe after the system is cloned.
Cloning an image multiple times can lead to data loss &
image corruption, and this is why MS does not support
multiple cloning of the same image.

I understand that some people have been successful doing
this, but once data loss occurs or your image is
corrupted, is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to
correct the problem."

and ...

"A BSOD is not likely. Usually the cases involve IIS,
database, user account settings, domain memberships, etc.
being corrupted or losing some settings altogether. This
is somewhat rare, but can occur. "

HTH... Doug
 
Hi Eric,

What are your settings in the system cloning tool? It
may be a setting in there that you are missing... Just a
guess...

Robert
-----Original Message-----
Eric:

Your process is exactly what I do. I now add the - keepall switch when I do
the manual reseal. This is probably not necessary since I set everything I
need in TD for the System Cloning Tool component. All I can offer as a
suggestions is to make real sure you are not resealing more than once.
Check out some of the prior posts about this from David Reed [MS].

Here are a few snippets:
"MS does not support Cloning an XP Embedded image more
than once. This is one of the reasons why we delete
fbreseal.exe & setupcl.exe after the system is cloned.
Cloning an image multiple times can lead to data loss &
image corruption, and this is why MS does not support
multiple cloning of the same image.

I understand that some people have been successful doing
this, but once data loss occurs or your image is
corrupted, is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to
correct the problem."

and ...

"A BSOD is not likely. Usually the cases involve IIS,
database, user account settings, domain memberships, etc.
being corrupted or losing some settings altogether. This
is somewhat rare, but can occur. "

HTH... Doug
Eric Johnson said:
I've had images generated from multilple uses of
fbreseal, and (yesterday, for example) images where
fbreseal was executed just a single time after fba. Same
result-- this week. What's troublesome is that the
behavior is not predictable, at least by me. We have
production images where everything seems fine, but I've
always used the same procedure:

a) Create an XPe image with only TD components
b) boot (fba does its thing)
c) log in, manually config and patch the image
d) install our app, config web & ftp sites
e) run fbreseal
f) save image

So, I'm really struggling to understand what causes IIS
to be still born, or totally healthy. Why is is
Metabase.bin corrupted, and what must I do to avoid that?


ej
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
 
Oh, crap!!!! I've just finished making a very nice image
with Beep.sys component and it works beautifully. Then
the fates intervene:

0) I run fbreseal (just once)
1) I copy that image onto new media
2) I boot that clone
3) I set a static IP address
4) I run our app, exercise the web & ftp sites locally
and with a remote client. It's all good.
5) I stop the web & ftp sites
6) I rename the machine
7) I re-boot
8) I start the web & ftp services-- they fail to start

eventvwr.msc:

The service metabase path '/LM/W3SVC' could not be
opened. The data is the error code. (Boilerplate website
directions here.)

The only thing I can think of at this time is perhaps the
W3 & FTP services should be running when the machine gets
a new name, and for some minutes after that so it can
modify Metabase.bin itself....

I'm trying that this morning. I'll post the results...but
thanks for all the input. It's really helped my thinking
on this topic.

ej
 
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