Jamshed Damkewala writes on devblogs.microsoft.com: Starting in December 2020, we will be delivering .NET Core updates on Windows via Microsoft Update. We have received many requests for this, particularly from organizations that acquire and manage all of their Microsoft-related updates via Microsoft (or Windows) Update. This change will enable organizations to manage .NET Framework and .NET Core updates in the same way. If you don’t want to use Microsoft Update to update .NET on your machines, you don’t have to, and can continue using one of the existing options.
Manually install OpenSSH in Windows Server
OpenSSH is an ideal and secure way of performing remote maintenance & administration on your servers. Even on Windows Server! :) Microsoft have released their OpenSSH port for Windows Server and Windows 10 back in 2015. Here is how to install the OpenSSH Server on Windows Server 2022, 2019 and 2016.
Emulate ternary operator in PowerShell
Quickly and dirty determine if a condition is true or false in PowerShell 5.1 by emulating the ternary operator. For example when determinering if the server you are servicing is a Windows Server Desktop Experience version or not (and thus Server Core):
How to remove IIS from Windows Server using PowerShell
No more need for Windows Server IIS? Want to remove IIS completely from Windows Server using PowerShell?
Start your PowerShell console as admin, and issue the following command in PowerShell:
Force BITS to download WSUS updates in the foreground in Windows Server
When WSUS downloads are slow
WSUS uses BITS for downloading updates, and it does so in background mode. Unfortunately, this utilizes remaining bandwidth of the server instead of its full capacity. To speed up WSUS downloads, you can configure BITS in WSUS to use foreground priority.
Securing privileged access
Protect your privileged admin credentials!
Microsoft has published guidance on the easiest way to secure privileged access in Windows Server.
Hugo development environment in WSL 2
How to install and configure Hugo for static site development in WSL on Windows 10.
Do you find it too difficult to install Go or Hugo in Windows for your static site development? Have you tried Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2? Using a default Ubuntu 20.04, it is pretty easy to install Hugo, set up your development environment and configure Hugo to listen on your Ubuntu’s IP address instead of localhost / 127.0.0.1. This makes your Hugo development site accessible for browsers in Windows 10. Neat, right?
Quickly view all symbolic links, junctions points and hard links in a folder
When you are migrating a file server to a new server, and transfer data to your new SMB share, you may need to recreate junction points, as they can’t be copied using (for example) Robocopy. Therefore it’s a must to know where you have junction points, and that’s where plain old DIR comes to the rescue.
How to Fix Yoast SEO for WordPress DeleteDuplicateIndexables MySQL error
In recent days, there are a number of reports about broken Yoast SEO database operations, related to the DeleteDuplicateIndexables function. The PHP function is located in the file wordpress-seo\src\config\migrations\20200507054848_DeleteDuplicateIndexables.php, and in this post I’ll provide you with a possible fix for this statement. Read on.
Count and display number of WordPress users in your Dashboard
Show the number of registered WordPress users in At-a-Glance widget
Often when a WordPress site is compromised, the website owner doesn’t notice anything strange at first. First a lot of users are created, and it’s only later when posts filled with spam are created or existing pages/posts edited. In the time between compromise and creation of spam posts, a website owner might notice an increased number of users. If he has the means to. And that’s what this little plugin does.
Find vulnerable WordPress plugin versions fast using PowerShell
On a daily bases, new vulnerabilities are found in WordPress plugins. And when you host thousands of WordPress sites, you can count on the fact you have some customers using that vulnerable version of that particular plugin. So you need to find those vulnerable versions on your servers fast. On Windows Server, PowerShell is a perfect tool for the job!
Disallow direct access to PHP files in wp-content/uploads/
It’s recommended to disallow access to and execution of PHP files in wp-content/uploads folder. Preferably without the use of a security plugin. Blocking access to PHP files in WordPress wp-content/uploads folder is easily achieved with a .htaccess file on Linux Apache, or web.config accesssPolicy in Windows Server IIS, and here is how.
Bash function to generate a random alphanumeric string
Create a random string in Bash easily. You can use this Bash function in your .bashrc file to generate a random alphanumeric string. This comes in handy when you need to generate a long, secure password for example. Adjust to your needs.
WMI Filters for Group Policy to manage Windows Server versions
This post contains some example WMI filters for you to use in Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to target and manage specific Windows Server versions like 2012R2, 2016 and Windows Server 2019.
Basic Authentication module for Windows Server IIS 10
Basic Authentication managed HTTP module for IIS 10 with virtual users support
In my pursuit of a basic authentication alternative in IIS, other than the built-in Basic Authentication module or Helicon Ape, I came across Devbridge AzurePowerTools. It’s apparently one of few HTTP managed modules for IIS that enables HTTP Basic Authentication with support for virtual users.