You can install Servicing Stack Updates (SSU) for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 using PowerShell, without downtime. Because they must be installed prior to your normal Windows Server security updates, you can install them anytime you want to during the day. Here’s a small PowerShell example to do so. Did this post helped…
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Microsoft is pleased to announce the final release of the security configuration baseline settings for Windows 10 version 1903 (a.k.a., “19H1”), and for Windows Server version 1903. Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North with a direct donation via Paypal of by bank…
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In a previous post I explained that clearing PHP opcode caches before WordPress Updates helps in streamlining the update process. WordPress updates no longer fail because of cached file locations. Did you know you can automatically flush opcode caches like Redis when you publishing a post or page in WordPress? Doing so ensures you and…
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A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog article about setting up Monit monitoring on an Ubuntu VM on Hyper-V. Now it’s time to do the same, but then in Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL. So, without further ado, here is how to install and configure Monit monitoring in Windows 10 WSL. Did…
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To add a .reg file silently to your Windows registry, you can use the regedit command. As almost always, the /s parameter is for silent and /q for quiet. Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North with a direct donation via Paypal of by bank wire…
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Ever wondered why Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) offers Flash updates for Windows Server? Adobe Flash Player is installed on Windows Server 2016 / 2019 if you have the Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) role installed. Yikes! I can imagine you want to delete Adobe Flash Player without deleting the RDSH role, and here is how.…
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Umbraco is a popular, ASP.NET powered, content management system (CMS). Even though it performs pretty well, here are 11+ tips to optimize the performance of Umbraco powered websites on IIS. Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North with a direct donation via Paypal…
Apache Access Control done right in WordPress .htaccess, ‘Allow/Deny from all’ versus ‘Require All Granted/Denied’ Since Apache 2.4.6, a new module is used to configure and set up access control for websites: mod_authz_core. This means you have to use a different syntax for allowing or blocking hosts and IP addresses to your website. But unfortunately,…
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On a newly installed workstation or server, you might encountered the following subversion error when you commit a change: Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North with a direct donation via Paypal of by bank wire transfer IBAN: NL31 ABNA 0432217258 (Jan Reilink).…
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How to manually failover an SQL Server database mirroring session? How to manual failover mirrored SQL Server databases using Transact-SQL (T-SQL) in SQL Server 2017+. This can only be initiated from the principal server, and the mirrored database must be synchronized (that is, when the database is in the SYNCHRONIZED state). In this article I’ll show you…
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A connection string is sometimes a bit obscure. Do I need ODBC or OLE DB? When you need one and Google for it, you often find old ones that either don’t work at all anymore, or are not optimal. This article provides you with a couple of ASP.NET to SQL Server connection string examples, and…
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Whenever you need to test your ASP.NET connection to your MySQL database, using ODBC, you can use the following C# test script. Currently it uses MySQL ODBC 8.0 Unicode Driver, but you can easily change the version used. As a bonus it prints some connection information and it requires an SSL connection to your MySQL…
Working with PowerShell’s Get-ItemProperty to get file attributes may boost your work productivity. It’s often easier to getting things done if you have a more generic way of doing something. Here is how to use Get-ItemProperty in PowerShell to perform and streamline day to day tasks like installing or updating software based on file versions. Did this…
If you want to connect securely to your MySQL database over SSL using PHP Data Objects (PDO), here is how… Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North with a direct donation via Paypal of by bank wire transfer IBAN: NL31 ABNA 0432217258 (Jan Reilink).…
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Ryan McFarland writes on his blog: “Privilege escalation always comes down to proper enumeration. But to accomplish proper enumeration you need to know what to check and look for. This takes familiarity with systems that normally comes along with experience. At first privilege escalation can seem like a daunting task, but after a while you…
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