Back to work this morning with a bump, one of our client’s suffered a major power outage over the weekend – the UPS closed the server down without issue, except when it was restarted the clients could not log in, browse the web etc. (HP server running Windows Small Businee Server 2003). I promised the client one of my engineers would be there for 8am to see if the problem could be solved before his staff got in. I got to go!
A check of the event log showed several errors all of which pointed to a problem with the IPSEC service not starting. I tried to start the service manually but that did not work. In consultation with an engineer from another company it was decided simply to disable to IPSEC service and restart to server. This worked in as much as it allowed the office to start working again (including several staff who connect and use terminal services) but it did not address what was wrong. The client was happy – even though user who access their email via OWA were unable to without the IPSEC service running – as by 10am his people were working. We’ll work the solution out later this week.