Posted inWindows Server
Create strong passwords in Windows
Create strong passwords in Windows using PowerShell or OpenSSL
Posted inPowerShell
Install IIS in Windows 11 using PowerShell
Do you have a need for IIS in your Windows 11 development station? And now you need to install IIS? Internet Information Services (IIS) for Windows is a secure and manageable webserver for hosting anything on the web. Here I describe how to install IIS.
Posted inWindows Server
Monitor website performance in IIS with Zabbix
Monitor your website performance in IIS with Zabbix and Performance Counters. Scripting in PowerShell and WMI.
Posted inPowerShell
Test if a port is open with PowerShell
Use PowerShell Test-NetConnection to test if a TCP port is opened. Along with ping to verify a host is online makes it ideal for scripting and automation. No need for Telnet client.
Posted inPowerShell
Calculate SHA-256 checksums in PowerShell
If you need to verify files are untampered with, you have to create a file checksum -or file hash- that you can use to verify. PowerShell offers this functionality with Get-FileHash cmdlet. Or use certutil.exe.
Posted inWindows Server
Windows SID to username and vice versa
Sometimes you need to convert a Windows SID (security identifier) to an username, or vice versa (an username to an SID). In this post I show you a couple of methods to translate the one into the other. One is using VBScript and one is using PowerShell.
Posted inWindows Server
Get SQL database backup details with PowerShell
Quickly get SQL Server backup .bak file header information using PowerShell and SQL Server Management Objects (SMO). Determine the name of the SQL server that wrote the backup set.
Posted inWindows Server
Get IIS Current Connections using PowerShell
Use PowerShell, Performance Counters and WMI to get the current number of active connections to IIS websites. Perfect for monitoring IIS webservers in Zabbix.
Posted inWindows Server
Install SSL/TLS certificates in Windows Server using PowerShell
Use PowerShell to install SSL certificate in Windows Server and change its FriendlyName property. As a bonus, I show you how to verify a certificate's Common Name (Subject) and Subject Alternative Name (SAN) using certutil.exe and PowerShell Get-PfxCertificate.
Posted inPowerShell
Install Windows Updates using PowerShell
In this post I show you how to use PowerShell to install Windows Updates. Quickly and silently. This makes the use of PSWindowsUpdate module perfect for your day to day automation. The module even supports scheduling (on remote computers too!), it has the ability to search WSUS and Windows Update for updates, scheduling and performing the download and installation of updates.
Posted inPowerShell
Send email with PowerShell
In this post I provide you with a small PowerShell function you can use to send email over a TLS secured SMTP connection with SMTP authentication. As a framework you can use in your own scripting and extend it. You can even create a PowerShell module of it.
Posted inWindows Server
Windows 11/10 and WSL 2 DevOps environment
In this post I showed you how you can turn Windows 11 and Windows 10 with WSL into a fully fledged development environment. Here are the settings and tools I use for DevOps/SysOps on Windows. It may take some getting used to, but if you're as shortcut-Ninja as I'm (I alt-tab, ctrl-c/ctrl-v a lot), you can work pretty fast in this set up.
Posted inWindows Server
Monitor .NET CLR Garbage Collected heap from your web application
Use Zabbix to monitor your web application and application pool's .NET CLR Garbage Collected heap by utilizing WMI and PowerShell. Keeping track of .NET memory usage enables you to optimize usage and performance further.
Posted inWindows Server
Quickly check EnableTrailerSupport isn’t set in your network for http.sys (CVE-2022-21907)
Find out fast if your IIS webservers have EnableTrailerSupport enabled for https.sys. Here is a small PowerShell method to check the Windows registry.
Posted inWindows Server
Adding VirtIO drivers to Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE)
Add VirtIO drivers to your Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) to recover hard disks or recover your Windows virtual machine after a hard crash. Learn to customize your Windows System Restore and rescue Windows like a pro!