W2008 - C Drive almost out of space - options?

Question

Good afternoon,

I am trying to give public access to a mysql database setup in a client's server (windows server 2012), so that my application can send it some info during the day. The application will be positioned around my country so a local connection is out of the question. I have followed many solutions to this problem posted by many users but none works, but I apologize if you feel this has been asked and answered.

For starters the database is working on the 3306 default port and an online port scanner detects the port as open (I contacted my ISP so they could open the port).

I edited mysql config file "my.ini" to comment the bind-address value so that it listens on any of the ips it's connected to (localhost. lan and public ip). I can connect to the database using the mysql.exe on the 127.0.0.1, 10.0.0.129 (local lan) but when i try using either the public ip address or my hostname (a dyndns.org domain name that resolves to my public ip address) I get the following error:

ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx' (10061)

My questions are: Can this be a firewall problem even when my port checks out as open? Even with the port open it can still be a port forwarding problem, correct? Should I ask my ISP to port forward all request on 3306 port to be sent to a specific machine?

Solution 1

There are two ways to do this. One is like Knox suggested; using a third party disk partitioning product. The other is to move the data on the E, F and J partitions to another logical disk (another raid array or maybe a temporary external device) if you have one. After moving the data, delete partitions for drives E,F and J then extend the C drive (I suggest 80GB) and if you need to, set things back to the way you want them to be.

Using the Windows drive manager there is no way that I'm aware of to extend the C drive without first removing the other partitions.

Solution 2

20GB is tight even for a Windows 2003 system-only partition. Also, overall file system size is only 250GB ?? How did Windows 2008 end up on this box?

If I was in your shoes, I would add a new RAID1 array with 1 or 1.5TB disks and copy & expand the volumes with a 3rd party partition tool that understands Microsoft volumes. Then keep the old set of hard disks as snapshot or archive. Don't worry if Windows activation kicks up (it shouldn't, but it might), just give them a call as instructed on the screen and you should be good to go.

It is advisable to maximise free space and defragment as much as possible before copying and resizing partitions.

To make some quick free space & defrag:

• move pagefile and check there's no hibernate file in C:\
• empty temp folders (this might require the command prompt if there's thousands of files): c:\temp c:\windows\temp c:\users\$username$\temp
• delete or archive unused user profiles
• move uninstall directories (c:\windows\$*)
• move download cache (C:\windows\softwaredistribution ?)
• get into properties of the C drive and do the drive cleanup
• run ccleaner
• defrag
• defrag again: if the 2nd pass makes a difference, then defrag again
• start a chkdsk with system repair, and let it execute at next reboot
• reboot, and let chkdsk reboot some more :-)

Solution 3

Other people will suggest resizing partition software, which you may find useful. I don't have the details. However, a quick fix is to move your swap file (paging file) from the default C drive to one of your other volumes on the same disk. Right mouse click on My Computer, and pick properites. Then Advanced System Settings, and then select Performance Settings. Then on the advanced tab, you should see already checked by default "Automatically manage..." Set the C drive to No paging File and then set one of the other drive letters to System Managed. Well, one of the other drives that has plenty of room.

This will probably save the amount of physical RAM that you have, which will give you some breathing room.

I have done this several times on computers where they started life with a too small 20 Gigabytes C drive, generally freeing up about 4 GB.

Solution 4

You can try some partitioning software like Knox suggested. Another option for you would be to pickup an inexpensive drive(s), it looks like you're currently running on a 250gb drive/mirror now, and just image your entire array over to the new drive/drives after you've setup the partitions the way you want them.

Solution 5

plan of attack: A.) find out what's using the diskspace b.) delete files c.) move files

• Download CCleaner and let it do some housecleaning
• download windirstat (or simliar)
• move swap file to different partition
• ensure hibernation is disabled
• move directory(ies) to other partitions and use linkd to do symbolic links
• clean up \windows\SoftwareDistribution
• clean up \windows\system32\driverstore
• use a program like Paragon Partition Manager to resize the partitions
• put bigger disk in and reimage existing drive to bigger disk with bigger partitions :)

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Comments

[murisonc]

Are there any other logical disks available on the server? Also what are drives E,F, and J about? Critical?

[Andrew J. Brehm]

I assume you know that the system requirements for Server 2008 R2 speak of a need of 32 GB. microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/system-requirements.as‌​px So I don't think there is much you can do except resize the partition and/or re-install.

[underscore]

what's your server ? APACHE or IIS?

[Michael Berkowski]

If present, comment out skip-networking in my.cnf

[Michael Berkowski]

Also, you'll need to ensure that your database GRANTs are permitting external user connections See the GRANT docs for details

[underscore]

@MichaelBerkowski does it secure ? i don't think it.Good thing is using a STATIC IP on client PC and allowed it on server

[Michael Berkowski]

@samitha It is always less secure to permit external connections to the database, if SSL isn't used, but that's what the OP is asking for.

[Laurent S.]

As mentioned by samitha, it's important to note that all these restrictions ar there for security purpose, so you should be very carefull before removing it. The way you're going is like letting the doors of your house open so that your friends can come in when they arrive... but you never know which stranger may pass in the street...

[Ricardo Mota]

@samitha I installed easyphp on a computer that already has an iis server installed but my application only needs mysql. I will not be using the apache or the iis components. For now i'd rather not try the httptunnel option since the http ports are closed and requires another wait time from the ISP and would probably lead me to more frustration.

[Ricardo Mota]

@Michael Berkowski I have given the root user access on any machine. And I am not specifiying any database when connecting. just the server and user with ">mysql -h 80.80.80.80 -u root"

[Ricardo Mota]

@samitha What do you mean best solution? Are you talking about security?

[Ricardo Mota]

Thank you. But at this point I need my current solution to work without having to rewrite my code and finding a ssh solution that works with an arm linux distribution. I can worry about security on another phase of the project.

[murisonc]

This is a server. User profiles should be very small (only admins) and there shouldn't be "programs" installed because users don't log into servers and there shouldn't be many if any programs installed. I could be wrong and if that's the case then the problem is much bigger.

[TomTom]

Yes and no. If that is a real server, this could easily be THE problem (8gb, 12gb RAM, thus a swap file per default of equal size).

[glaucon]

Yes sadly I've done an awful lot of looking around of stuff to move and there just isn't much left that can be moved

[glaucon]

Thanks - there's a few things here I hadn't thought of. Is windows happy for anything to be put on the end of symbolic links ? I mean for instance could I make C:\WINDOWS a symbolic link ? For some reason I thought this functionality was more limited in windows (although I can't remember any details - maybe that I'm just out of date). Would be interested to know.

[glaucon]

Thanks for this - sounds like a good short term solution without having to install any new hardware !

[glaucon]

Just a couple of followup questions: what would the chkdsk runs be addressing ? Are you guessing there's actually a problem with the drive (I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm just interested to know what you had in mind). Second question if I move the uninstall and download directories might this cause a problem during any subsequent system updates ?

[glaucon]

One last thing ... as you asked ! Although the box runs a server edition of windows it's not really a server - more a developers playbox which is now used for a variety of dev related tasks (hence not as much disk as you might expect)

[DutchUncle]

chkdsk should always be run after heavy disk operations, there always seems to be lint/cruft in windows file systems.

[underscore]

@RicardoMota use SSH tunnel .that's very best solution

[Ricardo Mota]

Wouldn't this require a complete rewrite of my application that currently uses Connector/J to connect to the MySQL server?

[ArGh]

About mysql security, look at the doc : dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/security-guidelines.html

[ArGh]

You could simply develop a little secured CRUD webservice (depending of your needed, you could only develop the Read part) on the mysql server.

[Ricardo Mota]

I have been considering a CRUD webservice for my next iteration. And thank you all for your help.