SharePoint SSP: Error "The Search....."

When you see a following error when you are working on Search Settings (adding rules etc...),

"The search service is currently offline. Visit the Services on Server page in SharePoint Central Administration to verify whether the service is enabled. This might also be because an indexer move is in progress."

Most of the times, your search service is online unlike what exception states. But if you run the following command, the magic happens and you no longer see the above error.

psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait

The output looks like this (You will have no idea what was fixed under the hood :)):

Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
(C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\kthota>psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait
SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard version 12.0.6413.1000
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2005. All rights reserved.
Performing configuration task 1 of 4
Initializing SharePoint Products and Technologies upgrade...
Successfully initialized SharePoint Products and Technologies upgrade.
Performing configuration task 2 of 4
Initiating the upgrade sequence...
Successfully initiated the upgrade sequence.
Performing configuration task 3 of 4
Upgrading SharePoint Products and Technologies...
Successfully upgraded SharePoint Products and Technologies.
Performing configuration task 4 of 4
Finalizing the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration...
Successfully completed the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration.
Total number of configuration settings run: 4
Total number of successful configuration settings: 4
Total number of unsuccessful configuration settings: 0
Successfully stopped the configuration of SharePoint Products and Technologies.
Configuration of the SharePoint Products and Technologies has succeeded.
C:\Documents and Settings\kthota>

Known ASP.NET vulnarability (Includes MOSS 2007 and 2010) - Microsoft Security Advisory (2416728)

Microsoft published the following vulnerability on their technet site @ http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2416728.mspx  on Sept 20th, 2010.

Executive Summary

Microsoft is investigating a new public report of a vulnerability in ASP.NET. An attacker who exploited this vulnerability could view data, such as the View State, which was encrypted by the target server, or read data from files on the target server, such as web.config. This would allow the attacker to tamper with the contents of the data. By sending back the altered contents to an affected server, the attacker could observe the error codes returned by the server. Microsoft is aware of limited, active attacks at this time.
We are actively working with partners in our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) to provide information that they can use to provide broader protections to customers.
Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

For more information, you can read
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2416728.mspx

After this incident was known, the first impression was that it would not effect MOSS 2007 and MOSS 2010. But that is not true. If you are using MOSS 2007 or 2010, then you have a work around as described in the blog @ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2010/09/21/security-advisory-2416728-vulnerability-in-asp-net-and-sharepoint.aspx

Please remember that this is only a work around and wait for the ASP.NET security patch release from Microsoft.