Sometimes bad things happen, sometimes ugly things happen. One of the very bad things that can happen is when an active domain controller crashes and there is no backup available. The case becomes really ugly if nobody cares about the crashed controller for about 60 days (forest that was created on a domain controller running Windows Server 2003 and earlier) or 180 days (forest that was created on a domain controller running Windows Server 2003 sp1 and later). On this depends the default...
Net App filer in Vmware
For a project I have to learn some of the specialty of an iScsi NAS. To be precise it was Net App FAS 2500 Filer. These things are very nice but a little too expensive for my personal use. But Net App offers a nice simulator of their product and the simulator is free. You just need to create an account on the Net App web site and search for the word ”simulator” or just follow this link. (). Some bloody side note: the website doesn’t work fine with safari. Just use Firefox and...
Remote Support software for free
Remote software for free Normally I’m not a big promoter of software. But this tool is amazing. Every, and I mean every IT Professional is having the same problem. Everybody in the world looks at you and sees the free helpdesk. Ok I must admit most of the time this is not a problem because helping is caring friendship. Helping over the phone is good because you don’t have to travel. But this is not easy for each occasion. There are a lot of good remote software programs for companies. But the...
Cisco’s basic know-how part 1
This week a nice opportunity knocked on the door. As a windows server administrator in large companies you cannot configure every day switches and routers from the basis. Normally some network guy will do the configuration of the cool Cisco stuff for you. The configuration of Cisco is very easy when you know something about networks. The only problem is to know the commands. This week and in the next post we’ll do an easy basic configuration together. The lab is created in an old version of the...
Fine grained password policy
Today we take a closer look at the Microsoft Active Directory in the 2008 native mode. One of the problems that windows administrators often face in the daily business is the setting of password policies for the whole company. Under Windows Server 2003 it was not possible to set more than one policy for the accounts. So from the domain administrator to the user every body needed the same complex password. Under active directory in version 2008 there is a new object type in the schema which is...
Baseline Security of Windows Networks
One of the hard tasks in the daily live of an IT administrator is to ensure that the network and the server are secure. The perfect security is not possible. There will always be some small leaks either provoked through the behavior of the user in version 1.0 or the administrator of the system. Not to mention design leaks in the software itself. Most environments are too large and too complex for a manual checkup of all security patches and service packs. One other factor is most users need...
Disable low storage balloon tip
I’m owner of an ASUS eeePC with 4 GB and 16 GB SSD hard drive. After changing the OS from ubuntu to Windows XP, everything works very well except the speed is a bit slow but I can live with it. The 4 GB SSD is my primary boot partition with the “%systemroot%” (“C:\” drive), so space is a little short. After all Windows updates and some program installations there are 150 MB left. This is ok for my purpose but windows starts to bother me with balloon tips.
Closer look on HP c7000 Blade Center
This week I want to write something about security with the MSBA from Microsoft. After a hard week working with the new blade series from HP we do have a bit of insight of the benefits of the c7000. This time the security geek’s will be pleased. First we take a look at the question “what is an Blade Center?”. A blade center is an 12 U high rack mounted system. In this box you have six 2700 Watt power supplies, eight multi-function network slots, ten high performance fans and place for up...
Windows Server Baseline Security
Part One. Today and in my next posts, we want to take a closer look at the security settings of windows server. One good way to start is the “Security Configuration Wizard” later called as SCW. The wizard was patched in the operating system with SP1. In the release 2 of windows server 2003 you don’t need to patch – it’s from start up SP2.
Windows 7
It’s new, It’s hot, It’s Seven and It’s in Beta. The new version of the Microsoft Client Operating System. Since the 10 of January the beat version can be obtained from www.microsoft.com. So lets take a short look to the new philosopher’s stone of Microsoft. In this little Video you can see the Installation of Windows Seven. Take a special look to the Hard drive Partitioning and to the new Homegroupe feature.