Posts made by PhlipElder

@Obsolesce said in Mango hot sauce:

Does anyone know of a real good widely available mango flavored hot sauce? Nothing super hot, but some spice to it.

https://hotsauce.com has some amazing stuff.

@Pete-S said in Dell Server: The server power action is initiated because the host device initiated a warm-reset operation.:

@scottalanmiller said in Dell Server: The server power action is initiated because the host device initiated a warm-reset operation.:

Just verifying that this log entry tells us that a human hit the power button on the server? This is a log entry in the iDrac.

I don't think so. Warm reset is a reset, like the reset button or alt+ctrl+del.

If you press the power button you get a shutdown / power down but not reset, because after power off it will not start again.

If you have another Dell server available maybe you can verify.

Power button press = Graceful Shutdown
Power button press and hold = Power Off

@scottalanmiller said in Easy Computer to Computer File Transfer Over Internet:

This is probably not hard, I just don't know what product to use. I don't want to use IBM Aspera (no native MacOS client for current Macs) and FireFox Send is gone. But those types of products are what I want.

Goal: Move large video files from my desktop or laptop (MacOS ARM64) to a distant computer (Fedora, Ubuntu or Windows - any is fine) directly. Don't want to go through an intermediary server. Remote machine can have a fixed IP. Can open ports, but trying to avoid that type of thing. Can do ZT or similar VPN, but trying to avoid that type of thing. Only need to send one direction.

Reason: I generate large media files (typically 3GB+) locally and often need to upload them 3-5 different places once generated and this puts an unnecessary load on my WAN here. I want to move them to a location with a lot more WAN bandwidth once, and do all the uploads from there (and RE-uploads get way easier.)

We just got forced into Microsoft's O365 Basic because they terminated OneDrive Consumer.

Set up an encryption container that the files go into. Seal it, move it to OD and it will upload. Files are already encrypted so whatever on Microsoft's side.

We have a lot of machines set up this way and it just works. Having the extra 875GB of space makes it easier for me to distribute the .ISO files we use regularly with Standalone, Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) cluster hosts, and Hyper-V cluster hosts. Drop a new one into the repository and it shows up across the board.

It's great for the home lab system as the .ISO files will be in the lab by the time I get back so no mucking about getting the file(s) off a flash drive and subsequently the hops into the lab setting.

@gjacobse Sorry I wasn't clear. At some point the user was looking for something and clicked on a link in the results that then inserted something into Edge that causes the pop-ups.

We've seen it often enough that we've added search training to our Train the Human regimen.

@gjacobse said in MS Edge and pop-ups:

I don't use Edge... and for many good reasons. Even with it being build off of Chromium / Chrome.

I've used it mainly as a MS / Azure / O365 Admin since I had to have user and Admin level sessions going over using incognito mode in Chrome.

User is having a site issue that it doesn't work in Chrome but works in Edge - but they are getting Pop-ups in Edge even with the Pop-Up blocker enabled under settings.

I've cycled through a few things but haven't gotten to the cache / reset as they are sloow to respond.

What else could I have them try - because else it's Edge and I haven't much of a care....

Time for a full reset of the browser. They clicked on a search result or something else that pulled in an extension that is probably hidden.

Elevated PowerShell:

CD C:\Users\%username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml” -Verbose}

@JasGot Interesting.

Other than the custom systems we build on ASRock Rack and TYAN boards that have HDMI and/or DisplayPort all of the server platforms we deploy have one graphics output and that's VGA.

SIP = Server endpoint?

@JasGot said in Rack LCD Console with Digital KVM:

@PhlipElder That dell unit is analog only.

Am I missing something? Is the title misleading?

@ElecEng said in Rack LCD Console with Digital KVM:

Does anyone know who makes a rack LCD console with an integrated digital KVM? with 8 or 16 ports?

Finding many with integrated analog KVM but not digital. APC used to have one, but it was discontinued and not replaced.

Rack space is extremely limited, thus why I am looking for an integrated unit versus two pieces of gear.

Something like this? Dell Digital KVM Switch DMPU108e - TAA Compliant
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-digital-kvm-switch-dmpu108e-taa-compliant/apd/a7546773

Made by Avocent.

@Pete-S said in Force password change on first login over RDP:

Great, so it works if you use RDWeb.

But if you RDP directly to any Windows server or workstation it won't.

Nope. It won't. There's no way around that.

We also have Exchange on-premises so OWA works for that password change.

@PhlipElder

Logged in.

@PhlipElder said in Force password change on first login over RDP:

@Pete-S said in Force password change on first login over RDP:

@PhlipElder

I don't know about RDWeb but it's happens for example when you reset the password in AD, give the user a temporary password and select "Users must change password at next logon".

If you connect with RDP directly to a windows OS (applies to all of them) you can never change your password and you can't login.

I believe it's because RDP need to authenticate the user before the client is allowed to connect and then change their password.

It's been like this since forever, at least Windows 7.

IT support that has remote users should know this. I just need a source from Microsoft I can point them to that explains it to people so they know what to do.

I'm working on getting a test RD Farm set up. I'll follow-up once I've tested.

I think the RDWeb prompt should happen when that variable is set in AD.

Setting in place:

Yup. Works.

@Pete-S said in Force password change on first login over RDP:

@PhlipElder

I don't know about RDWeb but it's happens for example when you reset the password in AD, give the user a temporary password and select "Users must change password at next logon".

If you connect with RDP directly to a windows OS (applies to all of them) you can never change your password and you can't login.

I believe it's because RDP need to authenticate the user before the client is allowed to connect and then change their password.

It's been like this since forever, at least Windows 7.

IT support that has remote users should know this. I just need a source from Microsoft I can point them to that explains it to people so they know what to do.

I'm working on getting a test RD Farm set up. I'll follow-up once I've tested.

I think the RDWeb prompt should happen when that variable is set in AD.

@Pete-S said in Force password change on first login over RDP:

Is there are Microsoft blog post, tech article or whatever place of authority that I can send to IT support people?

I need it for those that doesn't know that you can't force users to change their passwords on first login (or after password reset) when they connect over RDP only.

Users get this error:

As far as I know there is no reasonable workaround around this catch-22 problem.
Except don't force users to change password on first login...

Is this after they have been given a temporary password?

Is PasswordChangeEnabled set to true on the RDWeb server?

Albeit, I'm not sure if that would prompt the user to actually change the password like it does if their password is expired.

We don't have an RDS Lab up at the moment so I'm not able to test.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@PhlipElder said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

We got them to start moving on their licensing then they dug in and decided we were no longer needed.
It was a bit of a messy divorce but only reenforced that we'll never work with a company that rips off other companies.

Yup, it's a weird theory that a thief will only steal from others, but will treat you well. Um... that doesn't make any logical sense.

I'm old school. When visiting for the first time the situation was pretty clear so there was a full-stop without a commitment to get legit which was both a handshake (initially) and in writing. The benefit of the doubt was given.

@nadnerB said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Heh ... we had one of those.

Note the "had" in the above sentence.

It was years ago. We sent them an ultimatum: Get legit or we're out. We'd deployed a robust Small Business Server solution that was tailored to their needs. Their productivity skyrocketed.

We got them to start moving on their licensing then they dug in and decided we were no longer needed.

It was a bit of a messy divorce but only reenforced that we'll never work with a company that rips off other companies.

@PhlipElder
Don't forget to ground that sucker.

@gjacobse said in Eaton Rack Mount 5P: power on issue:

Found the issue with the assistance of Eaton Support.

The Remote Power On/Off connector - jumper- is missing.

Needs this jumper to power on

Going to be blunt here: That's just a plain fucking stupid, asinine, head up the ass design.

The only connectors on the back of the APC units we deploy are network, sensors, Network RJ45, Serial via RJ45, Female Extension Battery Pack connector, and some fans. Oh, and a ground screw. That's important too.

@gjacobse said in Eaton Rack Mount 5P: power on issue:

@scottalanmiller said in Eaton Rack Mount 5P: power on issue:

@gjacobse said in Eaton Rack Mount 5P: power on issue:

@jt1001001 said in Eaton Rack Mount 5P: power on issue:

@gjacobse Could just need new batteries maybe one of the cell's is low

While possible- it’s a new unit.

But might have been on a shelf for a while?

True,
Pulled it down and testing it… likely will need to exchange it. Reset, pulled the battery,.. still doesn’t want to turn on… but you clearly hear it ‘running’ while charging.

Does it have a network management card installed so that you can look at the logs? It could be a controller fault, a charging circuit fault, battery, and others.

@Pete-S said in Local Storage vs SAN ...:

@scottalanmiller said in Local Storage vs SAN ...:

vSAN is any SAN run virtualized

I think that is incorrect. The definition is virtual storage area network. A software defined storage area network if you will.

That is not the same as a virtualized storage area network.

There's some contention around the "vSAN"/"VSAN" designation.

StarWind and VMware adopted the vSAN designation for their Hyper-Converged Infrastructure solution sets IIRC. Both did.

HCI means local storage on each node, a dedicated network fabric for node to node storage I/O, and resilience/redundancy for the disks based on how many nodes and what kind of performance is needed.

Fault Domains are at the disk and node level while some products allow for a form of Stretch Cluster which could be rack to rack, DC to DC, or intra-DC within a certain amount of latency (S2D/AzSHCI is 5ms or less).

@BraswellJay said in Local Storage vs SAN ...:

We are planning a server upgrade and I find myself faced with the question of whether a SAN is necessary. I know there have been many posts both here and on other forums about SANs being oversold in situations where they are not needed. My gut instinct is that my situation is one that really doesn't require a SAN, yet I still find myself unsure that I understand the various questions that I should be considering when making this decision.

I bought a copy of Linux Administration Best Practices by @scottalanmiller and am reviewing the chapters on system storage, in particular the parts on SANs, local storage and replicated local storage.

Our needs are not sophisticated. We will have only a handful of VMs. A file server, sql server, freepbx, inventory management system server, security system server and an internal application server for a few internal tools. For most of these we can afford some downtime in the event of a host failure. The exception is really the SQL server. While it would not be catastrophic for some downtime it would be far superior from a continuity perspective if it could fail over to a secondary host if necessary.

With that in mind, I had planned for two hosts so we could survive a failure of one of them. My primary confusion though is how would I accomplish replicated local storage. Is this functionality that the hypervisor must provide? The best practices book mentions several technologies (DRBD, Gluster, CEPH) that can be used for RLS but I would think that these would have to run in the hypervisor itself and not as separate VMs on the host. Is that correct?

In general, for relatively small environments such as mine, is it feasible to even attempt local storage replication? Our MSP has quoted an EMC SAN device to the tune of $25k so that VMs could be migrated between hosts with storage being on the SAN. What would an implementation without the SAN look like if I wanted to maintain the replication and the ability for the VMs to be migrated between hosts?

A Hyper-Converged Infrastructure setup would be the best way to go IMO.

Two nodes with decent AMD EPYC 16 Core 155 Watt+ CPU and 8x 64GB ECC if Rome/Milan based or 12x 64GB ECC if Genoa based.

We only do Microsoft's Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and Azure Stack HCI with most of our HCI platforms being S2D.

The first place to start is here: www.liveoptics.com

Get a baseline for each VM. Daily highs and lows, weekly, and monthly. Get an idea of what the demands are on the current infrastructure.

With solid evidence on-hand, go to planning the HCI setup with enough IOPS to live today and into a 5 year future. That means knowing some company history to get an idea of growth.