Install Neo4j on Azure, cannot browse WebAdmin - azure

I've just installed Neo4j 1.8.2 onto Azure by following this step-by-step process...
http://de.slideshare.net/neo4j/neo4j-on-azure-step-by-step-22598695
Unfortunately, when I browse to http://:7474/webadmin Fiddler says Error 10061 - No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.
I've followed the instructions exactly and haven't received any errors.
Any help much appreciated.

So, I think I got to the bottom of this. I think it was due to the size of compute / VM I was creating. It looks like the problem is caused when running on Extra Small instances. I created a new installation using a Small instance and everything now works :).

Try setting the server to accept connections form all hosts, and maybe use a newer Neo4j, say 1.9.4
http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/stable/security-server.html#_secure_the_port_and_remote_client_connection_accepts

The way the VM Depot image is set up, it's pre-configured to allow all hosts to connect, and the Neo4j server will auto-start. The only thing you need to take care of, when constructing your VM, is to open an Input Endpoint, with any public port you want (preferably 7474 to stay true to Neo4j) and internal port 7474.
Note that the UI changed a bit since the how-to was published: You can specify the endpoint as the last step before creating your virtual machine. Other than that, the instructions should be the same. And... once the VM is up and running (it'll take about 5-10 minutes), you just visit http://yourservicename.cloudapp.net:7474 and you should see the web admin. Note: this is not the same as your vm name. If you named your VM something like 'neo' then you do not want http://neo:7474 or http://neo.cloudapp.net:7474. You need to use your cloud service name (you had to create a name for the service when you deployed the VM.
I've deployed that image several times in demos, and just tried again right now to make sure nothing wonky happened. Worked perfectly.

Related

Does an opened SSH connection to a GCLoud VM prevent it from freezing/crashing?

I have a f1-micro gcloud vm instance running Ubuntu 20.04.
It has 0,2 vcpus and 600mb memory.
I write freezing/crashing which stands for just not responding to anything anymore.
From my monitoring i can see that the cpu is at its peak at 40% usage (usually steady under 1%), while the memory is always arround 60% (both stats with my (nodejs) server running).
When i open a ssh connection to my instance and run my (nodejs) server in background everything works fine as long as i keep the ssh connection alive. As soon as i close the connection it takes a few more minutes until the instance freezes/crashes. Without closing the ssh connection i can keep it running for hours without any problem.
I dont get any crash or freeze information from gcloud itself. The instance has a green checkmark and is kind of still running. I just cant open a new ssh connection and also the only way to do something again with this instance is by restarting it.
I have cloud logging active and there are also no messages in there.
So with this knowledge my question is if gcloud somehow boosts ssh connected vms to keep them alive?
Cause i dont know what else could cause this behaviour.
My (nodejs) server uses arround 120mb, another service uses 80mb and the gcp monitoring agent uses 30mb. The linux free command on the instance shows memory available between 60mb and 100mb.
In addition to John Hanley and Mike, You can edit your Machine Type based on you needs.
In the Google Cloud Console, Go to VM Instance under Compute Engine.
Select Instance name to open its Overview page.
Make sure to Stop the Instance before editing Instance.
Select Machine Type that match your application needs.
Save.
For more info and guides you may refer on link below:
Edit Instance
Machine Family Categories
Since there were no answers that explained the strange behaviour i encountered.
I also haven't figured it out but at least my servers wont crash/freeze anymore.
I somehow fixxed it by running my node.js application in an actual background job using forever instead of running it like node main.js &.

Cannot RDP to Azure VM after sysprep

I followed the instructions listed here to capture an image of my Azure VM:
Now I am unable to RDP to the VM - I get the generic message "Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer for one of these reasons:1,2,3 etc"
The VM I'm trying to connect to is: teamsitepoc.cloudapp.net:59207
Here's what I've tried:
I have checked that it's started.
Tried re-sizing to extra small then back to small.
Attached the disk that was captured, giving the following:
Could anyone please advise what else I can try to troubleshoot
It is entirely possible that you encountered the shutdown bug listed at the top of the page you link to.
Unfortunately rather than updating the documentation all they did was add a warning to the top of the page and left the incorrect instructions in the actual steps so likely many other people will encounter the same issue.
The workaround is available here: Image capture issue / VM unexpectedly started after guest-initiated shutdown
I also had this problem, pings went through from the VMs but no RDP port open.
Then I realized that windows was still updating!!

Collectd server not writing down received client data

I have pretty strange problem with Collectd. I'm not new to Collectd, was using it for a long time on CentOS based boxes, but now we have Ubuntu TLS 12.04 boxes, and I have really strange issue.
So, using version 5.2 on Ubuntu 12.04 TLS. Two boxes residing on Rackspace (maybe important, but I'm not sure). Network plugin configured using two local IPs, without any firewall in between and without any security (just to try to set simple client server scenario).
On both servers collectd writes in configured folders as it should write, but on server machine it doesn't write data received from client.
Troubleshooted with tcpdump, and I can clearly see UDP traffic and collectd data, including hostname and plugin names from my client machine, received on server, but they are not flushed to appropriate folder (configured by collectd) ever. Also running everything as root user, to avoid troubleshooting permissions.
Anyone has any idea or similar experience with this? Or maybe some idea what could I do for troubleshooting this beside trying to crawl internet (I think I clicked on every sensible link Google gave me in last two days) and checking network layer (which looks fine)?
And just small note: exactly the same happened with official 4.10.2 version from Ubuntu's repo. After trying to troubleshoot it for hours moved to upgrade to version five.
I'd suggest trying out the quite generic troubleshooting procedure based on the csv and logfile plugins, as described in this answer. As everything seems to be fine locally, follow this procedure on the server, activating only the network plugin (in addition to logfile, csv and possibly rrdtool).
So after no way of fixing this, I upgraded my Ubuntu to 12.04.2 LTS (3.2.0-24-virtual) and this just started working fine, without any intervention.

Windows Azure VM RDP issue

I followed this
http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/04/17/step-by-step-build-a-free-sharepoint-2013-lab-in-the-cloud-with-windows-azure-31-days-of-servers-in-the-cloud-part-7-of-31.aspx#.UX_iF7XvvQI
I created a VM using the datacentre Image it created successfully and the status shows Its running. I am trying to RDP It says
Remote Desktop cant connect to the remote computer for one of these reasons:
1) Remote access to the server is not enabled
2) The remote computer is turned off
3) The remote computer is not available on the network
make sure the remote computer is turned on and conencted to the network and that remote access is enabled.
I did check the endpoints the public port is open and also 3389 private port is open too. I did try with different release one with latest patch and the other with the second latest OS patch but I am still not able to RDP.
Thanks
Yeah I already figured out firewall in my organization is blocking it. I did update the answer but it did not show up I am trying again :)
Make sure your VM has reached the "Running" status. If it's still in one of its pre-running statuses (such as Provisioning), you won't be able to RDP.
Also: Be sure you don't try logging in with 'Administrator' (the default in the rdp login box). Choose localhost\yourusername.
I had a similar problem the other day. It was solved by going to the Azure Portal, selecting the VM Dashboard, then clicking "Connect" in the grey toolbar at the bottom. This will download an RDP file that contains the correct connection settings. You can then send that rdp file to others who you would like to give access to.
I just opened one of the files used to connect, and it looks like the only real difference is the port used.
full address:s:[vm name].cloudapp.net:62808
username:s:Administrator
prompt for credentials:i:1
I am not sure if all Azure VM's use 62808, but the default RDP port is 3389 so just copying the DNS from the Dashboard into the RDP address will NOT work without adding the correct port.
One more thing folks should check when having trouble connecting is password length.
I thought I would be all secure by using a guid for a password. RDP worked fine from home (on older XP RDP client), but not from office. At first I thought it was a firewall issue. After verifying with the IT guys that I had full outbound access, I looked a little closer at the RDP error message.
It was saying my credentials were rejected. Finally, I created a second account on the VM and gave it RDP access. I was able to log in fine. The only difference between the two users was this time I didn't bother with a long password.
So I shortened the password on my main account and got in with no problem. I'm not sure what the limit is, but it seems to be less than 32.

How to duplicate a virtual PC with SharePoint, K2 and domain controller

Is anyone aware of an easy way of duplicating and renaming a virtual PC (can be MS VPC, VMWare or Virtual Box), which is running SharePoint, K2 and acting as a domain controller? I’m looking for a method of creating an image which can be quickly and easily copied and run by multiple parties on the same network simultaneously without name conflicts. It’s either that or go through a ground-up build on each and every machine as far as I can see.
I'd advise against it.. renaming an installed SharePoint machine is sure to cause you pain indefinately and unexpectedly. The way to go is with scripted installs:
create copy of a VM with OS
rename machine + run sysprep
script install SQL
script install MOSS
script configure MOSS (replaces config wizard + a lot of manual settings)
It can all be done unattended.
As a shortcut to install short-lived development machines I have used the following. Just make sure the SharePoint configuration wizard runs after the rename and there should be no problem.
create a copy of a VM having: OS+SQL+MOSS(no config wiz)
rename machine
script configure MOSS
It has the advantage of your development machines being identically installed. Takes about 10 minutes to create a fresh one. It doesn't have sysprep but they are renamed so you can run them all on your network. Not running sysprep has never caused me grief but I wouldn't do it for production environments. Running the configuration of MOSS scripted makes sure it will work on the renamed environment (and all MOSS farms are configured exactly the same, same ports, SSP setup, etc, yay!)
For MOSS configuration scripting see h tt p://stsadm.blogspot.com/2008/03/sample-install-script.html
Plently of samples for SQL out there too.
SharePoint doesn't like having the server re-named from under it's feet (so to speak). Neither does SQL Server (which I assume you'd have installed on the VM for the installation). Not sure about a DC being renamed, there's probably problems there as well...
Having said that, there are some instructions I've read for renaming both SharePoint machines and SQL Server machines, so you might get somewhere.
On the third hand, I've tried it a few times and always ended up rebuilding the server from the ground up for SharePoint as it can get subtly mangled in ways which aren't always apparent straight away (the admin interface and shared services seem to be especially easy to confuse). I've found that I can build a vanilla MOSS install pretty quickly these days...
Sharepoint writes the name of the server into configuration tables in SQL Server. So if you change the name of the server, things stop working.
What you can do, is to install just the OS. Then take a copy each time you need a new machine. Run sysprep
to give the machine a new name. Then install SQL Server and MOSS.
This is not exactly what you are after but it should save you some time.
I've done this, and it wasn't too bad.
Rename the SharePoint-server first, then rename the Windows server.
This posting has a nice checklist.
Don't forget to remove the NIC node from the settings file of the virtual machine, otherwise you get name collision due to duplicate MAC addresses. Here's a how-to.
I believe the solutions above are really good. But I would suggest an alternative ...
If this is a development virtual PC I would suggest that you do the following
Do not rename the server
Change the IP address to be on different network
Change the MAC address so that there are no packet collisions
Since you are using it as a development VPC, edit the computer's lmhosts file edit the entry to point to the new IP address
You might want to skip the step 2 and be on the same network. But changing the hosts file will still point back to you. For example you server name was "myserver" and it was pointed 192.168.1.100 which was the local ip (has hosts file entry) , then if you copy the server give it ip 192.168.1.150 and edit the hosts file and point myserver to 192.168.1.150, the system will still work flawlessly. There will some domain name collisions in the event log of the machine, but it wont affect your development.

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