Best posts made by openit

1. What is kernel in Linux ?
2. What are components of Linux OS ?

does it seems to be very basic ?

@scottalanmiller said in Do I need help desk system ?:

Why not make a ticket system but only use it for yourself?

You are saying me set-up Help desk system and use it by myself without users involvement (ticket creation and closing by myself) ?

Hi All,

I am looking to setup IT Assets Management software for around 150 pcs, 30 printers, 40 voip devices and 20 others. Needs to include Tag Nos. attached on those devices in Assets management software.

I am aware of Spiceworks AM, ManageEngine AM but I prefer Static Assets Management software, because these software may not scan properly (due to vlan, antivirus etc.) to give exact reports and sometimes we used to have clients,guests on our network so these software will include everything (non-company owned).

I know Snipe-IT, which seems to be well suited for my requirement, but the thing is, I need to build linux server, setup Snipe-IT and maintain. Last time I have tried by downloading the ready to use vm for Snipe-IT, and there was a problem to import the assets with .CSV format, it was showing import progressing (it was lasting permanently).

Could you people recommend any simple software (windows support will be good). Did I mentioned, free will be great ?

Thanks

Hi all,

I am looking for an Access Point or Router with features like limited time connectivity (lets say based on device mac, Internet will work for 1 hour per day), register and log in to through captive portal (or whatever).

The idea is, to provide free Internet in our area (restaurants, parks etc.) and we advertise our blog website but Internet will be for limited time like 1 hour per day etc.

Our benefit : Users will visit our website by default, may stay and go through articles if they like, and can visit if they love it.

Public benefit : The get free Internet

Please advise for such solutions. I used to hear lots of good things about Ubiquiti, maybe they have that kind ?

Thanks for your time !!

I am on Online Chat with Ubiquiti...........seems matches our requirements a lot....

Gonna get one and test it before getting bulk. Thanks for all responses !

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

Is Salt/Ansible are alternative kind of software for PDQ Deploy ?

Because I tried to use PDQ Deploy Free, I wondered it was asking for Domain Credentials to setup, so I left it.

Um, sort of. PDQ Deploy is a very simple (but really good) software deployment tool. Salt and Ansible (along with Chef, Puppet, cfEngine and others) are full DevOps style Change Management State Machines. With Salt, as an example, you could manage your servers and never log into a server (or desktop) ever again. Just "define its state" in Salt and let Salt do all of the work. You can do "anything" from Salt.

This reminds me following article I have read it years ago

12 reasons why every linux system admin should be lazy

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@scottalanmiller said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

@openit said in Software restriction policy on Workgroup network ?:

The actual reason why our all pcs not under domain is, "some PC OSes are Home Editions". And I was not willing to bring half pcs to domain and leave remaining under Workgroup, until we buy Pro Versions.

Then you are in a good position to seriously consider never having a domain.

This made me feel Happy !

I always felt bad, when I was not able to do easily due to lack of Domain.

Domains are the panacea that people think that they are. Microsoft's marketing has been very powerful in the SMB. AD Domains are certainly nice and powerful and well integrated into Windows, but we don't use them at NTG for a reason - too much work, too little benefit. We had it and we own the licensing for it, but we removed it and are happier without it. I've worked in companies with hundreds of people not on domains and it worked great. There are lots of cases where they just don't make sense.

Great feedback (with case study )

Hello all,

I am looking to have deep understanding about risks from Ransomware malware and see how Virtualization helps us to protect from.

I have read somewhere on Internet that "Ransomware removes itself once it detects the machine is VM not physical", not sure if I remember correctly ?

Lets say all my production servers (file server, erp, etc.) on VMs on top of Hyper-V / XenServer/ VMWare Virtualization Server.

Scenarios :

1. If user's computer infected, virus will encrypt all his computer data and also shared folder (on which he have write access) from File Server (which is on VM). Scheduled VMs Snapshot enabled. So if I revert back to snapshot earlier to infection on File Server, I can get back whole data (by losing some data, depends on snapshot), right ?

Note: I can understand with this above step reverting back with snapshot can undo settings and loss of some data which was not infected and not required to recover.

2. So we were talking about on top of VM. How about Virtualization server itself ? Few of vectors for risk are Administrator computer ? as he will access the Virtualization Server and VMs through Hyper-V Manger, XenCenter, vSphere etc. ? But I didn't seen any credentials saved on Windows for XenCenter, so what are the actual risk here ?

3. I heard so many big companies effected with ransomware virus, so if Virtualization is great, why it didn't helped them ? Aren't they virtual (servers) ? maybe they meant for user computers only ?

4. What effect can be with sudden power failure for Virtualization Server, how its going to effect VMs and Host itself ? (out of topic, but bcoz Virtual, including here ) Is that same effect as if a physical server ?

Thanks. I will add more questions, as they are available

@aaronstuder said in Easier guide to setup Salt Stack/Ansible for Windows environment ?:

Here is the official docs for Salt:

https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/installation/windows.html

Thanks.
So, Salt Master = Salt Stack Server
Salt Minion = Salt Stack Client

Right ?

@scottalanmiller said in Easier guide to setup Salt Stack/Ansible for Windows environment ?:

@openit said in Easier guide to setup Salt Stack/Ansible for Windows environment ?:

Also, I have seen somewhere in ML that in comparison to AD with SS, someone mentioned SS is good even Lanless. Not sure what is Lanless ?

LANless, meaning "without a LAN." Or "not depending on a LAN." Could be written "sans LAN."

Youtube Video

Wow, that's you @scottalanmiller , will take some dedicated time later to watch it.

Hello all,

In process of setting up Offsite Backup, I am thinking of doing to full backups twice in a month (lets say) to External hard drives and moving them to bank locker. How's the idea ?

Following are the reasons I am thinking of above process :

1. I want to make sure that offsite copy is not touchable in any case. If I chose to set it up on remote location and use VPN to connect over Internet and do offsite backups on schedule, still it may vulnerable to Ransomware kind of virus if something missed security thing or new vector of attack, right ? so don't want to take chance.

2. Chosen external hard drive, because it's cheap and don't need much equipment, maintenance like Tape one, on the top of that offsite backup is not for longer duration, so it will be okay with external drives, right ? may use 3 external drives to rotate, so at least two versions of backup will in hand (may be older but at least )

3. Now I want to discuss how to backup ? one thing is I need to full backup, which could be around 5TB.

• Now need to chose the method, and I don't want to copy and paste the data, because, there will be some errors like long path name which could miss the files, so may be third party software or in-built Windows Backup software will be fine ?
• Secondly, password or encryption for the backup, because it's going to out of office premises.

4. Why this location : We don't have any offsite location or branch near reachable and may not able to choose Authorized person's home. So bank locker comes to my mind.

Really appreciate your suggestions !!

Hi all,

As you are aware of NHS England, German Railway, etc. are affected by Ransomware virus (WannaCry - as of now highlighted).

Lots of patches may be released by the Microsoft and one of them I know is https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms17-010.aspx

Following are my queries :

1. Doing only Windows Updates is not enough to get all Patches ? or there are some patches like (MS17-010) which should be patched separately and not available in normal Windows Updates ?, if yes, what is the central location to get this information so that I can apply for our workstations.

2. We are having all Windows 7-10. And from link https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms17-010.aspx , I am not very clear what to install to get patched. Let me give example for my laptop :

a) I have navigated to Windows 10 Version 1607 build which is my laptop build from above link MS17-010

b) And opened 3213986 link from Update Replaced, which took to following page:

c) And then chosen Microsoft Update Catalog and following is the next screen and again not sure which executable (patch) to download ?

3. Third step in this process is to disable SMB V1.0 on all which is very older one.

4. Currently all workstations are left to update windows randomly, but seems end-users are skipping some times (by postponing) and you know Windows Updates can take 30-40 minutes sometimes and users are very annoyed when it happens on working hours. What's the best practice to set the Windows Updates Schedule ?

Appreciate your suggestions !

@scottalanmiller said in MS 2012 or 2016 to learn and certify ?:

Also, should go without saying... build a huge home lab and test EVERYTHING hands on while doing it.

Noted and sure I will do the same.

Going to study MCSA Windows server 2016. And will get guide one of the following

1. By William Panek

https://www.amazon.com/MCSA-Windows-Server-Study-Guide/dp/1119359341

2. Microsoft Press
   https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/exam-ref-70-740-installation-storage-and-compute-with-9780...

Hello there,

Just wondering to know what Network monitoring software you are using ?

I am looking for one, I just need a simple to setup and simple things to monitor like Up or Not ? with PING sensor or other, which checks the devices for every 5 minutes and alarm somehow. Of course free one

We have lots of Windows PCs, HP N/W Printers, IP Tel Server, Network devices (AP, router, switches etc.), Servers etc. to be Monitored.

Thanks !

Hello all,

I am looking to setup Assets Management system at our office. I already know SnipeIT one, was about to setup.

Few days back, I found Ralph software, just thought to share here, to inform you and get feedback if someone is using. It looks interesting.

It looks like taken some part from SnipeIT.

http://ralph.allegro.tech/

Regards

Hi all,

I'm talking about company sized with around 110 staff, all windows, most useful service is File Server service, using Office 365 for emails, not hosting website/email locally.

We have Office 365 essentials for email, but no additional tools like spam filter.
We have general antivirus ESET, but no specialized anti-malware, anti-ransomware, anti.....
We have firewall, but not additional add on like Outbound filters, etc.....
We don't have vulnerability scanners, commercial tools to monitor heartbeat of machines and network devices, no opendns kind of service etc...

So my question is, most of the time SMB's can't afford tools/services like spam filter, specialized anti-malware(malwarebytes), vulnerability scanner etc., does it mean we need to leave these things since we don't have tools? Are these tools really worthy for this size of company? are they necessary?

Thanks for response!

Hi All,

Is there any focused and dedicated resource available for IT Security Awareness which is covered from Home Users to Enterprise?

When I say Home Users to Enterprise, it is covering everyone who uses Internet/Technology though which user have a risk of privacy and security, either user can be Home Makers, students, blue color worker or people working in SMEs or Giant companies, government sector, so we are talking about around 3.5 Billion people.

Myself I did research, I found most them are targeted for staff working on computer/email in companies, not all (generic users not covered), that too very expensive for some features.

I can see a lot of resource available on the web, but scattered and not focused.

Appreciate you response!

Hi all,

I set to push the Windows server shared folders data (around 6.5TB) to backup to QNAP NAS box (4 Drives - RAID 10) using EaseUS Todo Server backup software..It was okay for any kind of restoring of files requirements etc.

Later, it became insufficient space, so I got new Synology NAS Box (8 Drives - RAID 10) with increased storage and same purpose.

Only QNAP NAS Box replaced with Synology NAS Box, everything else remains same like network, server backing up data, server etc.

Now problem is, I can see some 40% low performance when I compared to QNAP earlier I was using. Now I'm having issues with recovering of data backed up, since it is too slow, and cannot rely with this performance.

What I did?

1. I tried by updating Synology firmware and restart, no progress.
2. I tried by connecting directly to Synology through LAN cable, to see if there's something making slow over the network, but even if connected directly or over the network, same performance.

Appreciate your suggestions!