First of all I have Installed DNP on a Stock windows server. I have several issues which I have posted at:
http://forum.dotnetpanel.com/forums/p/4418/21812.aspx#21812
http://forum.dotnetpanel.com/forums/p/4436/21894.aspx#21894
Today I upgraded to DNP 2.5.0 and checked to see whether the symptoms mentioned in above threads are gone or not. They are not gone in DNP 2.5.0
I am upset. As this stuff is not working as I wanted it to be and is not production ready, I decided to further simulate a worst case scenario where a server crashes and we loose everything and we have only backups and nothing else.
At this point uninstalled DNP completely! reinstalled, configured all services DNS, Mail, Database(Sql Express) etc on the server outside of DNP. Then deleted the DNP Enterprise Server database, attached my backed up DNPEnterpriseserver db in SQL studio, deleted DNP Enterprise user and added again with new password that is set in the current DNP Enterprise server Install. Also changed the crypto key in the web.config to the old key in my backup Enterprise server web.config.
At this point everything looked so good, able to login to DNP portal, able to see my users, their databases their mail accounts etc. I was very happy
Here started struggle, first symptom is when I tried to create a database new database is just not created, I see no error also. So I deleted the MsSql 2005 service in hopes that I can just add it again so that it might work again. To my astonishment I am not able to add MsSql 2005 service at all.
"Error registering server service" this is the error I get and as below it is a partial paste.
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System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at DotNetPanel.EnterpriseServer.TaskManager.WriteLogRecord(Int32 severity, String text, String stackTrace, String[ textParameters)
at DotNetPanel.EnterpriseServer.TaskManager.WriteError(Exception ex)
at DotNetPanel.EnterpriseServer.ServerController.IsInstalled(Int32 serverId, Int32 providerId)
at DotNetPanel.EnterpriseServer.esServers.IsInstalled(Int32 serverId, Int32 providerId)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
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Wow then I just tried to Update other services to see if they are working! That is a no go also... Every where every service Errors in red all the way for all services.
"Error while installing service on the remote server" please note I got this error when I tried to update a service.
The error goes briefly like below
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System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHeaderException: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHeaderException: Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.SecurityFault: The signature or decryption was invalid ---> System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: WSE523: The CipherData contents are invalid.
at Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.Cryptography.SymmetricEncryptionFormatter.Decrypt(Byte[ data)
at Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.EncryptedData.Decrypt(XmlElement encryptedElement)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
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At this point I got little worried and tried to create a hosting space, wooo error again as 'Error creating user account' but the thing is hosting space gets created even with this error but none of the resources does. Partial paste of the error as below.
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System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. ---> System.Exception: Error executing 'ADD' task on 'webserve' HOSTING_SPACE_WR ---> System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHeaderException: Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.SecurityFault: The signature or decryption was invalid ---> System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: WSE523: The CipherData contents are invalid.
at Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.Cryptography.SymmetricEncryptionFormatter.Decrypt(Byte[ data)
at Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.EncryptedData.Decrypt(XmlElement encryptedElement)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
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Finally my Question is what have I done to experience so many errors! All I did was restore my old Enterprise db on a new DNP install, restored all resources websites, ftp accounts, mail accounts manually outside of DNP. I am able to login to Portal with my old Serveradmin pass, able to login with my old user and pass. Everything seems working. But something is literally bad that is throwing all errors as above.
In my case I simulated a disaster on a test server that has 2 db's and 2 users. What if the failed server has 2000 users and numerous other resources. What if all these errors popup and customers are unable to manage their accounts through DNP control panel, unable to create spaces, databases, mail accounts, change passwords etc.
My point is Life is not pixel perfect and smooth, servers do go down, Harddisks do crash, backups do get corrupted. When all these can happen, why is that DNP is not friendly enough! giving so many errors. Why my life is so tough on this test server alone
What if this is real!
If I put DNP in a production scenario and disaster like this strikes, what should I do. I think DNP documentation should have a dedicated section on
Migration and Disaster recovery. As a matter of fact there may be a small setting I forgot to change that created this whole mess, also may be in this forum this might have been discussed before, but a central
Migration and Disaster recovery guide in documentation takes me a long way and is needed. This is such an important topic that has to be discussed. Given this problem I can't deploy DNP in production. Reason is simple I can't use Load Balancers, Mirror servers etc because I am a small business man. The way my backup strategy works is the manual way such that when a disaster strikes I restore all data from my backup disk, reinstall or reconfigure DNP quickly using backups! For things that I can do perfectly myself why should I hire a higher level technician and pay him. To me DNP should handle all basic recovery scenarios just to be competitive as a small businessman.
This is not a cry, right now I can uninstall everything and reinstall and configure everything to Mint condition in less than 1 hour but the thing is I loose my old data! which I hate.
So what is the solution? please....