@dafyre said in PowerShell - Script never completes. Is there a session timeout?:

@anthonyh said in PowerShell - Script never completes. Is there a session timeout?:

@dafyre said in PowerShell - Script never completes. Is there a session timeout?:

Could it be the transfer is actually still running?

Have you tried to restore from any of the backups recently to make sure they work?

I don't think the copy is hanging. I find the complete backup on the remote share the following morning and it appears to be in tact. If I verify the file, MS-SQL reports it as valid. I have not done a flat out restore though.

Even though you have likely found the problem, it would probably be a good idea to test a restore of one of those backup files every now and again.

I agree 100%. I plan to test for sure.

I think I found what may be the culprit!

@dafyre said in PowerShell - Script never completes. Is there a session timeout?:

Could it be the transfer is actually still running?

Have you tried to restore from any of the backups recently to make sure they work?

I don't think the copy is hanging. I find the complete backup on the remote share the following morning and it appears to be in tact. If I verify the file, MS-SQL reports it as valid. I have not done a flat out restore though.

I hacked together a PowerShell script that backs up a very large MS-SQL database, copies it to a remote location, verifies the copy is complete, then emails me a report to let me know whether or not the run was successful.

Script: https://pastebin.com/vWuCzEP3

The SQL backup is ~600 GB (it's a database of document images). The script gets to the Copy-Item step and then seems to just quit running. The copy does complete, but the remaining steps in the script are never executed. The source/destination backup files are never compared post copy, the source file is not deleted (which means I have no disk space to run the subsequent full backup :-D), I don't get the success/failure email, and it doesn't "clean up" after itself (delete the log files). All of the logging I do also seems to indicate that the script up and "stops" at the Copy-Item stage (no log entries after this step is executed).

The SQL backup takes ~1.5 hours to complete and the copy takes ~1.5 hours to complete. Am I hitting a PowerShell session timeout of some sort? If so, how can I extend the timeout?

QUICK ADD: I forgot to add that this script was working in the past. I don't recall when this started happening (maybe a month ago), but I suspect it has something to do with some threshold I've hit in terms of how long the script is running (the database backup was ~400 GB when I hacked this script together some 2 years ago).

QUICK ADD 2: The script actually runs longer as it also verifies that the backup is good with SQL before initiating the copy, and it looks like that takes an hour. So 1.5 hours to run the backup, another hour for SQL to verify the backup, then another 1.5 hours for the backup to be copied to a remote location. So we're looking at ~4 hours.

I don't know if this will be of much help, but here is an article that details how to get true "root" access to CUCM. Under the hood it's basically a RHEL/CentOS install.

http://www.uccollaborationgeek.com/root-access-cucm/

Skimming the article it is a bit involved, but maybe will lead you to the access you need to fix the SSH issue? shrugs

If I had to guess, I bet the same process will work for Unity as well.

@dashrender said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@scottalanmiller said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@dashrender said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@travisdh1 said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@nerdydad said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@brianlittlejohn said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@nerdydad said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@brianlittlejohn said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

You are going to use private IP addresses, so all of you subs will be double nat'ed ?

That's what I'm considering. What are the potential problems with this?

It will work for most things, but what if a sub wants incoming traffic?

I guess they can submit a request and I'll just forward it to their IP address only.

So long as your terms of service has the standard "You're not allowed to run a server" in it, who cares. Personally I'd like an online form I could fill out for any exceptions, even better to have it linked to in the TOS.

Most don't consider there using an Xbox as a server - not sure if it requires direct access or not? Just one consideration.

I don't know anyone opening ports for their XBox to work.

It was a stab in the dark.

I know at one point in time under strict NAT scenarios Xbox Live is unhappy. It's possible a double NAT may anger it. I don't know if that's true today though.

@nerdydad said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

@anthonyh said in How to choose public DNS provider for an ISP:

If one of the arguments is to increase security, why not simply do a separate management VLAN using private IP addressing? You can have the customer facing network, aka the Internet, on say VLAN A, and then have the private management network on VLAN B? Implement the appropriate firewalling/ACLs so the two VLANs cannot talk to each other.

That is the plan anyways. The question here really wasn't about public versus private IP addresses (though that is going to raise my overhead $500/year), but more about whether I should just hand the customer Google dns addresses via dhcp or should I give them something that is more privacy focused but might also restrict their access to the internet.

You are right. My bad.

If one of the arguments is to increase security, why not simply do a separate management VLAN using private IP addressing? You can have the customer facing network, aka the Internet, on say VLAN A, and then have the private management network on VLAN B? Implement the appropriate firewalling/ACLs so the two VLANs cannot talk to each other.

@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:

@anthonyh said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:

TL;DR - It doesn't work out for everyone.

It's not quite as simple as how @PenguinWrangler may be explaining it. I work for the gov't (state) and have looked into this (I have way more student loan debt that I'm willing to admit, unfortunately)...

You must make 120 qualifying payments towards a federal student loan before they will forgive the loan. They will forgive the remainder of the federal loan once that requirement is met. And these qualifying payments do not start until you're on an Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan.

If you leave the public sector that clock resets, so you must work for the public sector for the entire 120 payment stint.

You must also be on an Income Based Repayment plan. In my case, because I have so much friggin' student loan debt, my IBR payment was astronomical. And, for some reason I could never understand, the calculations for my IBR payment made it so that I'd have the loan paid off in ~120 payments anyway. so there would have been minimal, if any, money to be forgiven. I think it was due to not having any dependents at the time (wasn't yet married nor had any kids). This was in 2010.

I did have, however, a substantial (to me) mortgage that I valued more than paying my student loans off early (which worked out well for us fortunately).

Fast forward to 2013 where I was happily married and had newborn twins. Oooh, great, time to look into the student loan forgiveness plan! Nope. Given the 3 years of payments I had already put in (which did not count since it wasn't on an IBR plan), the calculations still balanced to where I'd have the loans paid off within the ~120 payment timeframe.

It would've been a nice perk, but I have to think of it in terms that I'm lucky to be able to afford to pay off my student loans and still live a somewhat middle-class life.

You are correct. I didn't dive into the deep details. I worked for the State of Missouri for 6 years and none of that counts. I am paying more than my income-based repayment plan requires each month, which I will probably just pay the IBR amount now, however, I still have to make 120 on-time payments which are 10 years of payments. This all supposes they don't end this program before I work for 10 years as well.

I'd hope I'm correct given I've worked in the public sector since 2006 and have looked into this multiple times really really hoping to benefit from it.

TL;DR - It doesn't work out for everyone.

It's not quite as simple as how @PenguinWrangler may be explaining it. I work for the gov't (state) and have looked into this (I have way more student loan debt that I'm willing to admit, unfortunately)...

You must make 120 qualifying payments towards a federal student loan before they will forgive the loan. They will forgive the remainder of the federal loan once that requirement is met. And these qualifying payments do not start until you're on an Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan.

If you leave the public sector that clock resets, so you must work for the public sector for the entire 120 payment stint.

You must also be on an Income Based Repayment plan. In my case, because I have so much friggin' student loan debt, my IBR payment was astronomical. And, for some reason I could never understand, the calculations for my IBR payment made it so that I'd have the loan paid off in ~120 payments anyway. so there would have been minimal, if any, money to be forgiven. I think it was due to not having any dependents at the time (wasn't yet married nor had any kids). This was in 2010.

I did have, however, a substantial (to me) mortgage that I valued more than paying my student loans off early (which worked out well for us fortunately).

Fast forward to 2013 where I was happily married and had newborn twins. Oooh, great, time to look into the student loan forgiveness plan! Nope. Given the 3 years of payments I had already put in (which did not count since it wasn't on an IBR plan), the calculations still balanced to where I'd have the loans paid off within the ~120 payment timeframe.

It would've been a nice perk, but I have to think of it in terms that I'm lucky to be able to afford to pay off my student loans and still live a somewhat middle-class life.

@travisdh1 said in I could be a mule! Another bad job posting.:

It is also a part time position, so it can be easily combined with your full-time job, but you will have to be at home at the time of the delivery from 8AM to 5PM.

I mean, I guess if you work from home already....but...

In an attempt to post something helpful...

We have a few wireless links in our WAN topology using Ubiquiti AirFiber radios. When we planned our deployment, we budgeted to have two spare radios on hand in the event we had a failure of some sort. Perhaps it's as simple as having a spare set stored somewhere safe (not likely to be swept away by a hurricane) so that you can re-deploy as soon as the storm passes?

Congratulations!

@nerdydad said in Category 5 Hurricane DSL Antenna:

So, first of all, DSL works off of POTS lines and needs copper, it doesn't go wireless. I'm guessing you are using microwaves or wifi for backhaul?

Perhaps it's DSL like service emulated over some form of wireless backhaul. Kinda like how you can get PRIs over IP now days. That's my only guess.

Welp, as near as I can tell my cluster of a script does exactly what I'm looking for. I've updated the Pastebin link for those who are curious (https://pastebin.com/0JvUrzQU).

It will analyze existing group memberships and remove users if they do not meet all of the following requirements:

• The account no longer matches the specified $fileString
• The account is disabled
• The account does not reside within the $searchBase

Next, it will pull all accounts from the system, excludes existing members, and adds the remaining users to the group if they meet all of the following requirements:

• The account is enabled
• The account matches the specified $fileString
• The account resides within the $searchBase
• The sAMAccountName does not contain a 1 (something we use internally)
• The Display Name does not contain the string 'test' (we do not have any users who have 'test' in their name yet :-D)

After the above is done, it writes the changes to a log file (which is overwritten each time the script runs) and if emails it off to a specified email address.

@dafyre said in Active Directory - Scripting the adding/removal of users to group:

@anthonyh said in Active Directory - Scripting the adding/removal of users to group:

@dafyre said in Active Directory - Scripting the adding/removal of users to group:

@anthonyh Is this code you are currently testing, or are you still working on it?

It looks like it should work.

I've tested everything but the actual "remove-adgroupmember" and "add-adgroupmember" bits.

I'm going to do that this morning.

*hides under nearest desk*

lolz

@dafyre said in Active Directory - Scripting the adding/removal of users to group:

@anthonyh Is this code you are currently testing, or are you still working on it?

It looks like it should work.

I've tested everything but the actual "remove-adgroupmember" and "add-adgroupmember" bits.

I'm going to do that this morning.

It's not completely finished yet, but the framework is more-or-less there.

I couldn't figure out how to cleanly paste it directly into this post, so here is a pastebin link:

https://pastebin.com/0JvUrzQU

I wasn't involved in the vetting of SIP providers, but we use Vodex Communications (based out of SoCal) and have had a great 3 years so far. I can't speak to their pricing or anything as I'm not involved with that, but in terms of service and support they've been top notch.

@jrc I re-read my OP a few times to make sure I didn't misspeak. I don't think you missed anything. Unless I'm missing something...