When you host multiple websites in IIS, and you need to monitor them, Zabbix is one of your options. In Zabbix, you can take advantage of Windows Servers performance counters using perf_counter and perf_counter_en. In this article, I’ll show you some important Windows performance counters to monitor your ASP.NET web application in Zabbix
Read More »ASP.NET web application monitoring in Zabbix, part 2 Zabbix can harnas the powers of WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) to query the Windows system for data. In Zabbix you use wmi.getall for this. Here is a small introduction to query the number of running w3wp.exe processes per application pool in Zabbix. In this example I’ll be using a Plesk server running IIS 10.0.
Read More »Monitor IIS application pools in Zabbix, part 1
How to install OpenSSH Server in Windows Server 2019 Core using PowerShell, or Windows Server 2016
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 2016 and 2019.
Read More »Manually install OpenSSH in Windows Server 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):
Read More »Emulate ternary operator in PowerShell No more need for Windows Server IIS?
Start your PowerShell console as admin, and issue the following command in PowerShell:
Read More »How to remove IIS from Windows Server using PowerShell 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.
Read More »Force BITS to download WSUS updates in the foreground in Windows Server
How to find all symbolic links, junction points and hard links in a folder in Windows Server quickly? Use dir /al /s /b.
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!
Read More »Find vulnerable WordPress plugin versions fast using PowerShell
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.
Read More »WMI Filters for Group Policy to manage Windows Server versions
How to create an IP restrictions allow list for your IIS FTP Server with Powershell.
When you set up a new public facing FTP server in IIS, it is important to properly secure it. Of course there’s authentication and authorization, but in this post I’ll show you how to configure an IP allow list for FTP using PowerShell.
Read More »IIS 10.0 FTP IP Security allow list Thank you Ronald as I needed exactly this today. Here is how to remove phantom application folders from websites in IIS using PowerShell.
Read More »Removing phantom application folders from website configuration in IIS This might be specific to my Windows Server environment and PoSH scripting, but using -SeachBase with PowerShell’s Get-ADComputer gives me faster results. You can use this for your own advantage, here is a little example to speed up AD DS queries.
You can install Servicing Stack Updates (SSU) for Windows Server 2012R2, 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.
Read More »Install Windows Server Servicing Stack Updates (SSU) using PowerShell 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.
Read More »How to uninstall and remove Adobe Flash Player in Windows Server How to use the Windows PowerShell cmdlet Get-ItemProperty to work with file attributes.
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-Item and Get-ItemProperty in PowerShell to perform and streamline day to day tasks like installing or updating software based on file versions. I also address changing timestamps on files in short.