Codebase

The Codebase category is a curated repository of scripts, snippets, and programming insights designed to automate the mundane and solve the complex. Rather than generic examples, these posts focus on functional logic in PowerShell, PHP, Python, and Batch-tailored for system administrators and DevOps engineers who need code that works in production environments.

From deep-dives into regular expressions and API integrations to optimizing legacy scripts for modern kernels, this section serves as a technical reference for building more efficient workflows. Whether you are refactoring a deployment script or debugging a niche environment variable, you’ll find the practical code blocks and logic needed to bridge the gap between development and operations.

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Send email with PowerShell

Easily send your DevOps reporting using SMTP email with this PowerShell function, because the Send-MailMessage cmdlet is obsolete. Of course you'll be using StartTLS and authenticated SMTP as additional security.

apt-cache search monit lists "monit - utility for monitoring and managing daemons or similar programs"

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MySQL Connector/ODBC C# test script

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

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PowerShell return value, exit code, or ErrorLevel equivalent

Verifying PowerShell exit code using the $? operator or $LASTEXITCODE is how you find out whether an external command was executed successfully in PowerShell. The operator $? contains True if the last operation succeeded and False otherwise.

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Convert PHP ext/mysql to MySQLi

Learn how to convert a PHP class using the old ext/mysql functions to MySQLi, one function at a time, with a list of MySQLi equivalents.

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Find all files owned by a particular user using PowerShell

Sometimes you need to find all files owned by a specific user, recursively on your Windows Server NTFS file system. PowerShell has some neat cmdlets to automate this task for you and here is how.

a rusted iron gate with a chain hanging from it

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Test SMTP authentication and StartTLS

Investigate SMTP authentication issues like a boss! When using TLS encrypted SMTP connections, it's always handy if you are able to create a SMTP logon credentials and test SMTP authentication over a TLS/StartTLS connection. Preferably from your command-prompt.

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Validate MIME types with PHP Fileinfo

How to check the file type in PHP and secure file uploads: validate MIME types with the PHP Fileinfo extension, not by file extension.

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Add (custom) headers to MailMessage class

The System.Net.Mail Namespace leaves out the required Message-ID header in email. Here is how you can add this important header to your email, to make sure email arrives.

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