Peer-to-Peer Questions #20: Renaming SQL Server, ISS Sizing, Authentication, Site Server, Browsing Windows NT from 98

February 15, 2000

Editors Note This article, culled from the TechNet Web site (https://www.microsoft.com/technet), answers the most interesting questions received on the peer -to-peer discussion groups over the past few weeks. To post your own questions, visit the TechNet discussion groups at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/default.mspx.

Topics this edition:

  • Changing the name of SQL Server

  • IIS – How Much Horsepower do I Need?

  • Authentication Problems with IIS using Active Server Pages

  • Site Server 3.0 Commerce: How to get that Credit Card Number?

  • Browsing Shares on a Windows NT Workstation from Windows 98

On This Page

Q: Changing the name of SQL Server
Q: IIS – How Much Horsepower do I Need?
Q: Authentication Problems with IIS using Active Server Pages
Q: Site Server 3.0 Commerce: How to get that Credit Card Number?
Q: Browsing Shares on a Windows NT Workstation from Windows 98

Q: Changing the name of SQL Server

Here's a question that periodically comes up in the Answer Forum and Newsgroups. Say you've got SQL Sever 6.5 installed. You rename the computer that runs SQL Server. Then, many believe that you are unable to start SQL Server until SQL Server Setup is rerun. You might try to perform an upgrade, but there appears an error message saying that the server requires SP3 whereas you've installed SQL Server SP5. You're stuck.

So, How does one change the name of SQL Server?

A: Here's a summary of how to tackle this.

If you change the name of the Windows NT server and want to change SQL Server 6.5 or below to match it then execute the following commands from a SQL query window (like in Enterprise Manager):

sp_dropserver <oldname> go 
sp_addserver <newname>, local go 

In addition, if you use the IPX/SPX netlib for SQL Server connectivity you must also run the SQL Setup, choose the option to change the network support, and fix the server name in there too.

With SQL 7.0 you will need to re-run setup to reset the server name. Setup will detect the name conflict; resolve it, and then finish.

There you're done!

Q: IIS – How Much Horsepower do I Need?

I have a Web site with, at the moment, 1 million page views / month. It is estimated that this grows to 10 - 15 million per month. It's a database with an SQL Server 7.0. At the moment we are running 2 computers.

IIS, 500 Pentium with 256 MB RAM

SQL Server 7.0 servers on Dual Pentium 400 with 512 MB of RAM

What hardware do we need to get a good performance?

Freddi Gaisler, Germany

A: Most people would reply with "Well, It depends". But not newsgroup contributor Zach Russell! Fortunately, Zach has a little more to say on this subject and this is what he suggests (notice, however, that he does use the critical word "depends"!):

"Unfortunately there is no clean answer to say that x # of users = x # of xyz hardware. It always depends on the application. For example, static htm pages are incredibly quick, and incredibly fast compared to say .asp pages because all of the work is actually done on the client side instead of the server side. But ASP has some rocking awesome features!

There are things you can do besides just throwing hardware at the problem to help stretch the performance, especially when working with ASP—if that is what you are doing. Some good placec to start are the Microsoft Internet Information Server Resource Kit, Internet Information Server 4.0 Tuning Parameters for High-Volume Sites, Single IP: A Server Solution, and the IIS Planning Guide on the Web: https://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/web/deployment/default.asp.

What I would start doing is to look at how much traffic you are getting and look at the performance. You will not want to ever have your box maxed-out because you want to be able to handle unexpected spikes in traffic, etc. I would also say that is always good practice to have several IIS servers and load balance them so that you have both greater performance and increased reliability. Going to some dual proc boxes for IIS4 would also help but make sure that you have the latest service packs installed.

Something that you can do to test your capacity is to use load testing tools such as the Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool (located on TechNet in the Microsoft Internet Information Server Resource Kit and on the web at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/itsolutions/intranet/downloads/webstres.mspx). This will help you in your planning and you will know what you can handle because you can literally just over work your server to know its maximum. Then, when you start to reach certain numbers you will know when to role out more servers.

IIS5 is coming out really soon and would be worth working with because it will be much faster, reliable, scalable, etc and since you are at a point where your site will be growing significantly, it might be best to start as soon as possible."

Excellent suggestions, Zach - thanks. The only thing I can add to this would be the one reference that every IIS administrator should have: the IIS 4.0 Resource Kit. One of the chapters is titled Chapter 4 Performance Tuning and Optimization. Check it out.

Q: Authentication Problems with IIS using Active Server Pages

Mart Hugh Rogers writes:

I have two NT 4.0 servers in the same domain. Server 1 is the PDC, Server 2 is running IIS.

I have an ASP directory/script (on Server 2) set to allow access for a user account in the PDC (set as <DOMAIN>/<USER>), and also for a user account local to Server 2.

When I try to access the ASP script using IE, the local account authenticates OK, but the PDC account fails - it keeps feeding me a login dialog.

I have tried both Challenge/Response and Basic Authentication without success.

Any tips greatly appreciated.

A: IT Pro Stephen Nicoud supplies this information:

"Windows NT Challenge/Response requires that users have the "Access this computer from network" right on the Web server.

Basic Authentication requires that users have the "log on locally" right on the Web server.

Depending on your configuration, if prompted for a username and password you may have to enter the username as "domain\user" where "domain" is the Windows NT Domain that contains the user account called "user". This can be controlled by setting the default domain to the appropriate value (including a value that will authenticate against all trusted domains). Here is a useful Knowledge Base article, **Q168908:**How to Authenticate a User Against All Trusted Domains.

Good advice from Stephen. If anyone should need additional information on IIS Security, a good resource is Chapter 8 of the Microsoft Internet Information Server Resource Kit, simply titled "Security." Another good Knowledge Base article is **Q164882:**Practical Recommendations for Securing Internet-Connected Windows NT Systems.

Q: Site Server 3.0 Commerce: How to get that Credit Card Number?

IT Pro Mark Liu has this query:

In the manager site, we can retrieve customer's information. For example, to get the product name in order_view.asp we can write

<% = mscsPage.HTMLEncode(row_item.[_product_name]) %> 

But we can not retrieve a credit card number by:

<% = mscsPage.HTMLEncode(row_item.[_cc_number]) %> 

How does one retrieve a credit card number?

A: IT Pro Darcy Kucera provides a straight, to the point suggestion:

In your receipt table, add the columns _cc_number, _cc_expmonth, _cc_expyear and cc_type. Then adjust your Order_view.asp file to include these from your new columns in the receipt table. It works every time. Keep in mind it will only retrieve the new orders. I do this each time I build a new site.

Darcy Goral

Mark Kucera adds "Any key in the dictionary which starts with _ will not be saved - not just _cc_ ."

Thanks Darcy and Mark. The only thing I would add to this is information on the data types for the four columns that Darcy mentions. Here they are:

_cc_number with a datatype of varchar(16)

_cc_type with a data type of varchar(10)

_cc_expmonth data type varchar(2)

_cc_expyear data type varchar(4)

Q: Browsing Shares on a Windows NT Workstation from Windows 98

The issue is about accessing shares on a Windows NT workstation from a Windows 9x client and receiving a popup asking for the password to IPC$. Here's what Jamie says:

I have setup a small Windows NT-based LAN. On the LAN, I have 6 Windows NT Workstations and 10 Windows 98 Workstations. The problem is when I attempt the browse (access) the shares on NT Workstations from a Win98 workstation, I receive a message telling me I have to supply a password for the IPC$ share. How can I fix this problem? I want to be able to view/access the shares on the NT Workstations without having to enter a password? Is this possible? If so, how do I do this?

Thanks for the help,

Jamie Brooks

A: And here's what John R Buchan had to say.

If it can be assumed from your comment about "logged onto the Windows NT Server" that the server is a domain controller and you mean that you logged onto the 98 machine with a domain account? If so, then the Windows NT Workstation you are attempting to connect to would have to be a member of that domain (or a trusting domain) to be willing to accept authentication of domain accounts.

Brief description of Windows NT's authentication procedure for incoming connections:

Win95 is a bit quirky about the way it passes account information when attempting to make a network connection. If there is a value in the "NT Domain" field (Control Panel / Network / Client for MS Networks / Properties), Win95 will pass this as the domain (even if "Log in to NT domain" is disabled). If the "NT Domain" field is blank, Win95 will pass its workgroup as a domain.

Window NT's quirk is that each Windows NT machine (with the possible exception of domain controllers) believes that it is a domain (in and of itself). They maintain their own local security, their own user database, and are capable of authenticating logons, locally.

When a Windows NT client attempts to connect to a remote server, it will pass the account (username password and domain) of the current user. If the current user is logged in locally, Windows NT will pass its own name as the domain.

Note: Windows NT allows you to specify a different account when making a remote connection. If you have specified a different account, that information will be passed instead.

Window NT's authentication procedure

When Windows NT attempts to validate an incoming connection, it first looks at the domain field. If it recognizes (trusts) the domain, it will pass the authentication through to a domain controller for that domain. If it doesn't recognize the domain, it will attempt to validate the account against its own local user account database.

In either case:

  • If the username and password match an existing account, the connection will be completed as that user (assuming that account has permission to make the connection).

  • If the username exists, but the password doesn't match (or the username doesn't exist), the 95's user will be prompted for a password for the IPC$ share. If the user enters the correct password for that account, the connection will be completed (assuming that account has permission to make the connection).

  • If the username doesn't exist, but the Guest account is enabled and has sufficient privileges on the Windows NT server (any Windows NT machine sharing resources), the connection will be validated as Guest.

  • If the username doesn't exist and Guest is disabled, the 95's user will be prompted for a password for the IPC$ share. No matter what password is entered, the connection will not be validated, since the account doesn't exist.

You can see what is happening by enabling Success and Failure auditing for Logon & Logoff on the Windows NT server. Check the Security event log, after attempting a connection.

We at Microsoft Corporation hope that the information in this work is valuable to you. Your use of the information contained in this work, however, is at your sole risk. All information in this work is provided "as -is", without any warranty, whether express or implied, of its accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement, and none of the third-party products or information mentioned in the work are authored, recommended, supported or guaranteed by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Corporation shall not be liable for any damages you may sustain by using this information, whether direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, even if it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.