Posts made by openit

Appreciate, if someone can provide me with any script to install Zabbix on CentOS (if available).

Installing CentOS 8 as Hyper-V guest, for Zabbix server.

I'm typing......

@IRJ said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

@gjacobse said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

@Pete-S said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

Maybe I'm alone but on the top of my list:

1. Only use Microsoft as a last resort when all other options have been explored.
2. If you get paid by the hour disregard #1.

Option 1. - What do you say / do when the Owner specifically states, Windows Only environment. NIX and Apply need not apply -

Look for another job

Lol

@scottalanmiller said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

@openit said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

but at least some of points from your bitter experience can lead me to understand different perspectives to study or research etc

Those are tough, because our experiences are unlikely to help you. They will be with specific tech, versions, installations, configurations, etc. and following our experience might not only be non-applicable, but it might be backwards for you.

Example... I've lost data on a RAID 5 that had no business being a RAID 5. If you try to learn from my experience, you might just avoid RAID 5, but your drives, your server, your use case have essentially zero chance of being similar to mine and RAID 5 on modern SSDs might be exactly what you need.

Or you might think from someone's experience that doing an AD DC restore is bad and can't be done, but in your case it might easily be the right thing to do and work just fine.

The point is, in IT you can't ever learn from peoples' experience in this way. Learning the under the hood details and understanding how things work and why experiences mean what they do is necessary for the experiences to be useful. So my RAID 5 experience would be useful to you only when you understand all the ins and outs of RAID and can see my mistake in context of both my setup and how it may or may not apply to yours.

This given me clarification and agreed!

@scottalanmiller said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

@PhlipElder said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

3: The subnet should be documented somewhere. MAC addresses, IP addresses, DHCP scope(s), DHCP settings, and so on. Advanced IP Scanner is free and is a good place to start if none exist. There are other tools out there.

I realize that you (OpenIT) were just making examples

Exactly, those are just some examples, so you people can thrown some valuable info for me, from your past experience, I understand, there could be 100s or 1000s of Don'ts kind of things, but at least some of points from your bitter experience can lead me to understand different perspectives to study or research etc. while I continue my learning through reading articles online, attending courses on Udemy, doing things on my LAB.

@Dashrender @IRJ @JaredBusch @Obsolesce @PhlipElder @scottalanmiller

@scottalanmiller said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

underlying technical reasons

@scottalanmiller
I understand about "figure out underlying technical reasons ", I have been trying for the same, let's say, yesterday I was going deep about BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery), which given me clarification on In and Out.

@PhlipElder said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

@openit said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

1. Not recommended to convert Physical Server which has Domain Controller to Virtual Machine.
2. Need to choose right Generation (1 or 2) type VM on Hyper-V, because later we can't change the generation.
3. Don't set Static IP of some server/machine without consulting Network Team, to avoid conflicts with existing DHCP scope.

Your inputs matters a lot to me, and might help others in community as well.

Thanks!

4: Group Policy: Follow best practices. Don't touch the Default Domain and Default Domain Controllers policies. Always set up the OU/GPO structure and settings according to the org's needs.

5: Hyper-V standalone: We don't join the host to the guest's domain. It presents a barrier to a ransomware compromise.

6: Backup: A backup is not considered "Good" until it is fully bare metal/hypervisor restored. Spot file/folder restores are not a verification method.

7: No Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port forwards (NAT) from the Internet (alternate port) to 3389 on the intended destination. Ever. Use Remote Desktop Gateway and add DUO or other 2FA to the mix.

Thanks @PhlipElder

This kind of reply was my expectation.

Others may say, there could be 100s of Don'ts if we keep discussing, I understand that, but I'm asking you which is very important for Don'ts because you can't revert back, because it could lead to a disaster, or something you learned from your Bitter Experience in past etc.

@JaredBusch
Here I understand, you found me wrong, when it comes to my intention of this thread, I'm not expecting response for 3 points I mentioned, it's just few examples for your reference. Obviously I learned those Don't points while I work, learn on tutorials and LAB.

Those above 3 points are just as example, so you can understand my expectations and throw some valid or important or Don't points.

@Obsolesce said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

@openit said in System Admin - checklist for Don'ts and Important points please!:

I want to make a checklist of Don'ts and important things to consider from your experience, which are necessary for me to play smooth in next System Admin job.
Following are few examples of Don'ts or important things to consider, please add your point:

Not recommended to convert Physical Server which has Domain Controller to Virtual Machine.
Need to choose right Generation (1 or 2) type VM on Hyper-V, because later we can't change the generation.
Don't set Static IP of some server/machine without consulting Network Team, to avoid conflicts with existing DHCP scope.

Your inputs matters a lot to me, and might help others in community as well.
Thanks!

In addition to not P2Ving a DC:

4. Don't pee on your servers.

I'm not sure where you want to draw the line as far as what not to do...

Thanks for advise, Lol

While I learn from tutorials, LAB etc,. obviously I can't come across the real world scenarios or problems, so was asking you people to throw any points which comes to your mind in System Admin area, based on your past experience or bitter experience let's say.

Because, my next step could be in any enterprise firm as a System Admin, just to be prepared other than learning from tutorials, LAB etc.

@IRJ
I have no idea, if I opened any dumb or stupid kind of thread, but still receiving informative responses.

study and research in areas where you want expertise - Yes, it is obvious

Rome was not built in a day - agreed, neither me expecting to build my career a day

Hi there,

I have been working as IT Administrator for 6 years and you know in SMB, "IT is Jack of All Trades and master of none".

While we get knowledge on wide range of things like managing Server, Antivirus, Backups, Firewall, IT Support, Email Administration and list goes on, but the
downside is, I don't have expertise or not focused position as System Administrator (lets say).

Because of no expertise in something, I don't feel myself more than just some Sr. IT Support.

I'm practicing things to focus as core System Admin, since I wasn't been in real, depth, focus System Admin post, and that too in SMB (you know limitations), other than doing courses and practicing by building LAB, I want to make a checklist of Don'ts and important things to consider from your experience, which are necessary for me to play smooth in next System Admin job.

Following are few examples of Don'ts or important things to consider, please add your point:

1. Not recommended to convert Physical Server which has Domain Controller to Virtual Machine.
2. Need to choose right Generation (1 or 2) type VM on Hyper-V, because later we can't change the generation.
3. Don't set Static IP of some server/machine without consulting Network Team, to avoid conflicts with existing DHCP scope.

Your inputs matters a lot to me, and might help others in community as well.

Thanks!

Hi there,

OpenVPN is older or normal.

WireGuard, I'm wondering if it really some 5 times faster than normal vpn? as it promises, if I need to use it, I may want use it in VeeamPN form.

Zero Tier is new thing for me. How competitive to above two VPNs?

I was looking at OPNSense firewall, which has above three VPNs options through plug in, from there I thought to discuss which one is right for what scenario?

Hi there,

For new server setup, I wanted to know which one is recommended?

Option 1:

RAID Array 1 = RAID 1 with 500 GB SSD [ for Windows Server Host]
RAID Array 2 = RAID 10 with SAS/SATA drives (not confirmed about size and type of drives yet) [ for VMs and Data]

Option 2:

RAID Array 1 = RAID 10 with SAS/SATA [ for Windows Host, VMs and Data]

Thanks!
@scottalanmiller @Obsolesce @Pete-S @Dashrender @stacksofplates @dbeato

@Obsolesce Thanks for clarification.

@Dashrender said in Window server standard edition on Hyper V- means two Wins VMs ?:

KVM

With Windows one, I can use Veeam B&R community edition, for smooth management for free. I assume community edition has option for the replication as well upto 10 VMs, it is important for me.

Not sure about backup options on KVM and XCP-NG.

How number of Physical Processors and number of cores on each processor will impact Windows Server licenses?

This server I'm going to procure is going to host huge sized File Server, due to huge size storage requirement, cost is going very high with SAS drives. Is using SATA hard drives on Server is bad idea? because it SATA can fulfill our requirements of storage size and can match the budget.

@Obsolesce said in Window server standard edition on Hyper V- means two Wins VMs ?:

@openit said in Window server standard edition on Hyper V- means two Wins VMs ?:

Hi all,

I'm about have a setup of Windows Server 2019 Standard as a Host and two Windows server 2019 VMs on it by using Hyper-V in it.

Current requirement is to have two Windows servers as Guest, one for DC and second one for File Server.

In future, I may need to add more servers on it, so I thought of Data Center, but it is damn expensive for us.

So it is fine to go with Standard Edition for current requirement and buy one more Standard Edition in future to add two more VMs. Standard allows 2 VMs never means, it will not allow to create a 3rd VM etc.

Obviously, if the 3rd VM is linux, no discussion at all? it is just about license and compliance of Microsoft for Windows server?

Thanks!

Yes, that is correct regarding licensing. If you want to add a 3rd Windows Server VM, you'll need to purchase another Standard Windows Server license. If your 3rd VM is Linux, then no problem, no license purchase required.

Something to note, is that your Windows server HOST can only act as a host. This means you can't, for example, have it act as a Domain Controller server as well as a Hyper-V host. (but your VMs can, obviously, as you mentioned... just not the host)

Thanks for clarification.

I will just use the Host to server Hyper-V role, I will not run any services on Host, but only on two VM's Windows servers.

@DustinB3403 said in Window server standard edition on Hyper V- means two Wins VMs ?:

Install hyper-v as the base, don't install Windows and enable the role.

Then you can add two windows vms using a standard license.

I don't want to go with Hyper-V as base, I was using earlier for other thing, I had issues of connecting to server with Hyper-V Manager on windows 10, it was working and after few days different issues.

I'm not good at PowerShell to overcome the problems.

I'm here as all-in-one IT, got many things to manage, so better I go with GUI and not require to spend time on why I can't connect to Hyper-V base.