Server losing shared permissions

[guard503]

I have a Small business server 2003 it is set up with exchange 2003. I have the D drive drive set up as the storage for files. I have shared so that it can be accessed on the network. It has been set up for a while with not many issues. As of a couple of weeks ago I have started getting a strange issue. I will randomly loose connection to the server whether I am on the same network at the server or I am connecting via VPN. A restart will solve the problem for a while. But I would like to take care of this problem because there is not always some one there to restart the server. The best I can figure out, when I lose connection to the server is all of the shared permissions disappear. It shows that it is still shared until I right click on it and go to sharing and it has "do not share" selected. But as I have previously stated, once I restart it, then the settings come back and everything works fine, for a while...

If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. I am in DESPERATE need of help.

Thanks,
David

 

[LA1]

I was wondering if I could ask you a question about your exchange server. Who do you have for your ISP that will let you run the exchange server. I have a small network and I have exchange 'cept I do not use it b/c Verizon does not want exchange to be used w/ their email....well atleast for residential.

what AV software do you have on the server. How are your workstations... any been infected lately?
do you have a firewall on each workstation that is running?

 

[AdmnPower]

You can get exchange to work behind verizon on a residential network, I've done it. You have to have a domain, do some funky things with dynamic dns and your mx reacords. Then to make yourself look lagitimate to the rest of the world I used verizon's outgoing smtp servers as a relay for my outbound mail. That way my mail would be eminating from a static ip rather than dynamic which kept it from going straight into people's spam. Getting your mx records to work with dynamic dns is the hardest part.

 

[AdmnPower]

As for the above problem about file shares, are your users connecting to the share with some sort of mapped drive. (Those can time out and disconnect after a specific period of time) I'm pretty sure that's not your problem. It sounds like some of your settings are messed up somewhere. What you could do is go through and unshare all your shared directories and then reboot the server. Everyone should be disconnected then, after which you could redo your sharing and permissions. This effectively recreates all your previous settings as it sounds like something with your current configuration has been corrupted or messed up in some way.

 

[Vipernitrox]

i agree with admnpower

one more thing though, you didn't share the D: drive in its entirety right?
if you did... wel uhh don't create a folder inside the d: drive and share that.

 

[guard503]

Thanks for the advice guys. I am out of town right now but when I get back I will be trying some of these things.

We actually have T-1 through AT&T.

I do not have the entire D drive shared. Just a folder that is the main folder for containing all of our file structure.

When I get a chance I will work with it and see if I can come to a conclusion on what works and does not! Thanks again for the advice.

 

[guard503]

I have an update. I was able to do some digging in the server and found a more underlying cause.

When the folder looses it's shared permission, I went in to try to re-share it. But I get this error...
"An error occurred while trying to share "folder name". The Server service is not started."

That was self explanatory, so I go to the services to restart the server service and when I click start it gives me an error...
"Could not start the server service on local computer. Error 5: Access is denied"

BUT if I click start again as soon as that message goes away it will start with no error messages. The only problem then is that employees cannot access the server through VPN from off site when I do that. I have to restart the server in order of them to be able to connect.

Once I do start the server service then everyone on the local network can access the server.

I hope this added information can help someone help me! This is really starting to piss my boss off!

Thanks a ton guys!

 

[Vipernitrox]

start the service under alternate credentials?

 

[guard503]

I will try that... but the weird thing is that it just quiets working randomly. That is what I am trying to figure out. Why it is deciding to stop working whenever it feels like it...

Thanks for the input.

 

[Vipernitrox]

nothing in event log?

 

[guard503]

I have more information...

When I log onto the server after I get a report that it is "down", this is the error message that is on the screen...

"To help protect your computer, windows has closed this program.
Name: Generic Host process for Win32 Services
Publisher: Microsoft Corporation"

I am currently browsing through the event log to see if I can find something that would implement why I am having these issues...

Thanks for all of the help

 

[tlarkin]

How are you sharing these folders? Are there nested folders with in the shared folder, and if so how many folders deep does it go?

Are you using ACLs?

 

[Vipernitrox]

that's a pretty basic thing. In like you really need it
antivirus on it? maybe scan the thing just to be sure?

 

[guard503]

yeah I figured that much but just trying to tell you guys everything that I am coming across so that hopefully someone can figure it out or help out or something!

 

[tlarkin]

I would ensure data is backed up first off this shared drive.

 

[guard503]

Everything is gets backed up every night onto an external.

 

[guard503]

This is rather sad but, I ran an anti-virus (that has a scheduled run every week, supposedly) and it found and deleted some crap and since then, I haven't had any issues. I also realized that it was not current on it's windows updates, so between the two it is doing better.

I will keep you informed.

 

[AdmnPower]

Well, that's good that the issues seem to be fixed. What kind of firewall do you run at your organization... you might look into a UTM appliance.

 

[tlarkin]

I am so glad I don't have to deal with anti virus software on my servers

 

[AdmnPower]

Yeah, no kidding. I just finished installing a UTM device at home so now I don't have to run Antivirus on any of my computers, it's all handled by my firewall.