SQL AlwaysOn Availability Group User Accounts

When creating SQL 2014 AlwaysOn Availability Groups, careful attention is required when provisioning the logins on each member server.

While the databases may contain user accounts for the appropriate members, the cluster member servers may not contain login information for said users. This can result in a seemingly “happy” fail over cluster (according to the dashboard in SQL Server Management Studio), but upon fail over, much pain will occur.

From a 10,000 foot view, the Logins on each server need to have the same SID, Username, and Password.

More detail (along with a script to rectify any “on-noes” that may have occurred in your environment): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/918992

This page contains some best practices for avoiding the described issue: https://aalamrangi.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/avoid-orphan-users-in-alwayson/

HP v1910 Full Command Line

  1. Telnet to the switch.
  2. Login as admin (the default password is blank)
  3. Enable “full command line” with
    _cmdline-mode on
  4. Accept the warning
  5. Set a password (Default is: 512900)
  6. ‘?’ yields a full command listing
<HPv1910>?
User view commands:
  archive        Specify archive settings
  backup         Backup next startup-configuration file to TFTP server
  boot-loader    Set boot loader
  bootrom        Update/read/backup/restore bootrom
  cd             Change current directory 
  clock          Specify the system clock
  cluster        Run cluster command
  copy           Copy from one file to another 
  debugging      Enable system debugging functions
  delete         Delete a file 
  dir            List files on a file system 
  display        Display current system information
  fixdisk        Recover lost chains in storage device
  format         Format the device
  free           Clear user terminal interface
  ftp            Open FTP connection 
  initialize     Delete the startup configuration file and reboot system
  ipsetup        Specify the IP address of the VLAN interface 1 
  lock           Lock current user terminal interface
  logfile        Specify log file configuration
  mkdir          Create a new directory 
  more           Display the contents of a file 
  move           Move the file 
  ntdp           Run NTDP commands
  password       Specify password of local user
  ping           Ping function 
  pwd            Display current working directory 
  quit           Exit from current command view
  reboot         Reboot system
  rename         Rename a file or directory 
  reset          Reset operation
  restore        Restore next startup-configuration file from TFTP server 
  rmdir          Remove an existing directory 
  save           Save current configuration
  schedule       Schedule system task
  screen-length  Specify the lines displayed on one screen
  send           Send information to other user terminal interface
  sftp           Establish one SFTP connection 
  ssh2           Establish a secure shell client connection 
  stack          Switch stack system
  startup        Specify system startup parameters 
  summary        Display summary information of the device.
  super          Set the current user priority level 
  system-view    Enter the System View
  telnet         Establish one TELNET connection 
  terminal       Set the terminal line characteristics 
  tftp           Open TFTP connection 
  tracert        Trace route function 
  undelete       Recover a deleted file 
  undo           Cancel current setting
  upgrade        Upgrade the system boot file or the Boot ROM program
system-view 
System View: return to User View with Ctrl+Z.
[HPv1910]?
System view commands:
  aaa                      Specify AAA configuration
  acl                      Specify acl configuration information
  archive                  Specify archive settings
  arp                      Specify ARP configuration information 
  bootrom-update           bootrom update
  clock                    Specify the system clock
  cluster                  Specify cluster configuration information
  command-privilege        Specify the command level 
  configuration            Specify configuration settings
  copyright-info           Copyright information configuration
  cut                      Cut connection
  delete                   Delete function
  dhcp                     DHCP configuration subcommands 
  dhcp-snooping            DHCP Snooping
  display                  Display current system information
  domain                   Add domain or modify domain attributes
  dot1x                    Specify 802.1X configuration information 
  execute                  Batch Command
  file                     Specify file system configuration information 
  ftp                      Specify FTP configuration information 
  gratuitous-arp-learning  Gratuitous Arp learning function 
  gratuitous-arp-sending   Sending gratuitous-arp packet when receiving 
                           different sub-network arp packet function 
  habp                     Specify HABP configuration information
  header                   Specify the login banner 
  hotkey                   Specify hotkey configuration information 
  igmp-snooping            IGMP snooping
  info-center              Specify information center configuration information
  interface                Specify the interface configuration view 
  ip                       Specify IP configurations for the system
  job                      Schedule a system task
  jumboframe               Jumboframe command
  lacp                     Configure LACP Protocol
  lldp                     Link Layer Discovery Protocol(802.1ab) 
  local-user               Specify local user configuration information
  logfile                  Specify log file configuration
  loopback-detection       Detect if loopback exists
  mac-address              Configure MAC address
  mirroring-group          Specify mirroring-group
  multicast-vlan           Multicast VLAN
  ndp                      Neighbor discovery protocol
  ntdp                     Specify NTDP configuration information
  ntp-service              Specify NTP(Network Time Protocol) configuration 
                           information
  ping                     Ping function 
  pki                      Specify PKI module configuration information
  port-group               Port group 
  public-key               Specify public-key module configuration information
  qos                      Command of QoS(Quality of Service)
  quit                     Exit from current command view
  radius                   Specify RADIUS configuration information
  return                   Exit to User View 
  rmon                     Specify RMON
  save                     Save current configuration
  sftp                     Specify SFTP service attribute
  snmp-agent               Specify SNMP(Simple Network Management Protocol) 
                           configuration information
  ssh                      Specify SSH (secure shell) configuration information
  ssl                      Specify SSL (Secure Socket Layer) configuration 
                           information
  stack                    Switch stack system
  storm-constrain          Port storm-constrain
  stp                      Spanning tree protocol
  super                    Modify super password parameters
  sysname                  Specify the host name 
  system-failure           System failure handling method 
  system-guard             System guard function 
  tcp                      Specify TCP(Transmission Control Protocol) 
                           configuration information 
  telnet                   Specify TELNET configuration information
  temperature-limit        Set temperature limit
  tftp                     Specify TFTP configuration information
  tftp-server              TFTP Server 
  time-range               Specify time-range configuration information
  tracert                  Trace route function 
  traffic                  Specify traffic configuration information
  undo                     Cancel current setting
  user-group               Specify user group configuration information
  user-interface           Configure the user terminal interface 
  vlan                     Configure VLAN
  voice                    Specify voice VLAN
  web                      Web configuration

Unprotect an Excel Worksheet

C/O: https://uknowit.uwgb.edu/page.php?id=28850

  1. Press ALT+F11
  2. Double Click the worksheet in question
  3. Paste the Following Code:
    
    Sub PasswordBreaker()
    
    'Breaks worksheet password protection.
    Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
    Dim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
    Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
    Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer
    On Error Resume Next
    For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66
    For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
    For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
    For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126
    ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) &#038; Chr(j) &#038; Chr(k) &#038; _
    Chr(l) &#038; Chr(m) &#038; Chr(i1) &#038; Chr(i2) &#038; Chr(i3) &#038; _
    Chr(i4) &#038; Chr(i5) &#038; Chr(i6) &#038; Chr(n)
    If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
    MsgBox "One usable password is " &#038; Chr(i) &#038; Chr(j) &#038; _
    Chr(k) &#038; Chr(l) &#038; Chr(m) &#038; Chr(i1) &#038; Chr(i2) &#038; _
    Chr(i3) &#038; Chr(i4) &#038; Chr(i5) &#038; Chr(i6) &#038; Chr(n)
    Exit Sub
    End If
    Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
    Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
    End Sub
    
  4. Press the Run button
  5. The password to unlock the form is displayed, and the sheet is no longer password protected

Root for LG D850

Re-post of http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/guide-root-method-lg-devices-t3049772

    1. Get LG Drivers Here: http://www.lg.com/us/support-mobile/lg-D850-Blue-Steel#software
    2. Download LG Root
    3. Use ADB Shell to copy the files to the temp directory on the phone
      adb.exe push busybox /data/local/t<span id="searchBubble" class="searchBubble"></span>mp/ &amp;&amp; adb.exe push lg_root.sh /data/local/tmp &amp;&amp; adb.exe push UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.46.zip /data/local/tmp
    4. Reboot into Download mode
    5. Use ports.bat to determine the DIAG port of the phone (Mine was COM 4)
    6. Use SendCommand.exe to get a shell within download mode
    7. Run the shell command to root the phone from download mode
      sh /data/local/tmp/lg_root.sh dummy 1 /data/local/tmp/UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.46.zip /data/local/tmp/busybox
    8. Reboot the phone
    9. To allow apps to write to external (http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/163/12/android-sd-card-content-cant-be-addedediteddeleted): Edit /system/etc/permissions/platform.xml
      <permission name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" >
              <group gid="sdcard_rw" />
              <group gid="media_rw"  />
          </permission>
    10. Reboot the phone

April Fools Day 2015 – What’s in Pandora’s Box

The Idea

So, I’ve seen the Upside-Down-Ternet many times, and I began thinking…How can I leverage this idea on one of my wife’s favorite websites – Pandora.

She listens to Pandora for a good part of the day from our home internet connection… Perfect! I can set up a transparent http proxy, and manipulate requests for Pandora as they come through.

Now, what should I play?   This of course. And may more things.  And maybe What does the spleen do?

The Implementation

Determining an “attack vector”

I fired up Chrome’s developer tools while listening to a pandora stream, and was quite pleasantly surprised: the audio is transferred over HTTP (correct – no encryption), in MP3 format. (And I discovered a little too late that the Pandora ONE Player will play audio/mp3 streams, while the free pandora player will only play audio/mp4 streams – This is important later on!)  How easy this will be!  All I’ll need to do is watch for the  specially crafted URL requesting resources from http://audio-*.pandora.com/ (and *.p-cdn.com) access and respond accordingly – In this case, with an mp3 pre-staged on my intercepting server.

Base Environment

My “host” in this scenario is a VM running on Hyper-V on my Windows 8.1 Desktop.  The VM is running Ubuntu 14 as a guest OS, and has  2 cores with 256 MB ram, and one network adapter.

Phase 1: Configuring Squid3 & iptables

Squid3 is a proxy server that supports something called “transparent mode.”  In conjunction with iptables, squid can be a very effective content filter, caching proxy, or the perfect tool to carry out an April fools prank.

In this scenario, we’ll be setting up our linux machine to “Masquerade” as the machines that will be passing traffic to (through) it. In much the same manner as how your existing home router works: You have one public IP address, and all of the requests from computers within your network (using private IP addresses)  appear to come from that one public IP. This is called NAT.

Since this linux machine will facilitate the transfer of all traffic from the “victim” machines to the internet, It’s in the perfect location to identify (and manipulate) Pandora requests.

OK, OK, enough theory, let’s get some code

Iptables

  1. Enable ip_forwarding (this is temporary, and will go away after a reboot of the  “host” machine)
    echo 1 &gt; /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
  2. Configure iptables to pass traffic (Never configure it this way if you’re actually building an edge device.  Since all of my devices – both “host” and “victim” machines are on the same physical network, I took some liberties with security)
    iptables -F
    iptables -t nat -F
    iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
    iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
    iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
  3. Next, we need to tell iptables to “masquerade,” or that is to “NAT” the traffic that comes from the local subnet, and is destined for the internet.
    iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 172.16.9.0/24 -j MASQUERADE
  4. Great, but what about our prank?   Let’s explicitly redirect traffic destined for the IP segment owned by Pandora (you can find this using whois)
    iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d 208.85.40.0/21 -p tcp --dport 80 -j DNAT --to-destination 172.16.9.155:3128

Squid3

  1. First, install squid using your favorite packaging tooapt-get install squid3
  2. Configure Squid.  I’ve taken the liberty of trimming down the config file as thin as possible for this scenario.  5 lines!
    redirect_program /home/administrator/pandora.pl
    http_access allow all
    http_port 3128 transparent
    strip_query_terms off
    coredump_dir /var/spool/squid3
  3. Next, we need to write the redirect_program.  Having not actually read the Squid3 documentation, and surmising based on operation – This is loaded at the time the Squid3 service is started, and continually runs in the background.  Squid3 then passes URLs from clients into the script through the pipeline.  The script then passes a URL back to Squid3.  In this circumstance, we use some regex to identify all requests for a Pandora song (http://audio.*?pandora\.com and http://.*\.p-cdn\.com)
    #!/usr/bin/perl
    use strict;
    $| = 1;
    while (&lt;&gt;) {
    my @elems = split;
    my $url = $elems[0];
    if ($url =~ m#^http://audio.*?pandora\.com#i) {
    $url = "http://172.16.9.155/test.mp4";
    print "$url\n";
    }
    if ($url =~ m#^http://.*\.p-cdn\.com#i) {
    $url = "http://172.16.9.155/test.mp4";
    print "$url\n";
    }
    else{
    print "$url\n";
    }
    }
  4. Restart Squid3
    service squid3 restart

Apache2

Since we’re actually replacing the song in Pandora with a “payload” track, we need some way of hosting this audio.  Additionally, we need the host to respond with the “payload” track for any and all incoming requests.  Queue: Apache mod_rewrite.

  1. Edit the  /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf file, and add these three lines.  This causes any inbound HTTP requests to return the test.mp4 file (with the correct MIME association, so as not to break “free” Pandora)
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteRule .* /test.mp4
    AddType audio/mp4 .mp4
  2. Place the test.mp4 file at /var/www/html

Phase 1.5: Test Proof of Concept

  1. Set a host on the LAN to use the afforementioned box as a default gateway.
  2. Launch Pandora
  3. Validate that only the payload song will play.

Phase 2: Deploy to LAN

I have a standard FiOS router as my default gateway, and the device does not give total control over the DHCP server settings.  Of particular interest here is the option routers parameter.  This allows the DHCP server to dictate to the clients what IP address they should use as a default gateway.  Obviously if this prank is going to affect more than my sandbox, I need the other devices on the LAN to pass all of their traffic through the “host”

Configure isc-dhcp-server

  1. Install isc-dhcp-server using your favorite package manager
    apt-get install isc-dhcp-server
  2. modify the lines below in the /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf file.  Define some hosts if you’d like to exclude them from the prank.  All hosts with a host block will be issued an IP in the deny unknown clients pool:  this is not; however, what determines their gateway, but rather the options routers clause in the  host  block.   One very important thing here is to set the lease time rather low.  I don’t want this prank to cause some random device to get an IP and hold onto it for the default of 8 days. Bumblebee happens to be my desktop:
    option domain-name "ccrossan.com";
    option domain-name-servers 172.16.9.1,8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4;default-lease-time 100;
    max-lease-time 100;
    
    host bumblebee
    {
    hardware ethernet 00:24:8C:93:7C:EE;
    fixed-address 172.16.9.100;
    option routers 172.16.9.1;
    }subnet 172.16.9.0 netmask 255.255.255.0
    {
    option routers 172.16.9.155;
    
    pool {
    deny unknown clients;
    range 172.16.9.100 172.16.9.150;
    option routers 172.16.9.1;
    }
    pool
    {
    allow unknown clients;
    range 172.16.9.200 172.16.9.250;
    option routers 172.16.9.155;
    }
  3. Re-start the DHCP server
  4. Disable DHCP on the FiOS router.
  5. Watch hilarity ensue as users launch Pandora in their browsers only to hear your specially selected track!

Thanks for reading.  If you stuck with it this far, you’re a trooper.

Please leave any comments or suggestions you may have below!

Pushing Calendar Events with the EWS API

We’ve had a need to populate users’ calendars with data from an internal FileMaker Database, so I dug around in the EWS API, and came up with a script that uses the FileMaker ODBC Connection, and the EWS API to accomplish the task:

First things first, we need to install the EWS Managed API on the machine that will run the script.

After the EWS Managed API is installed, we need to reference it in our PowerShell script:

Add-Type -Path “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange\Web Services\2.2\Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll”

Next, we need to set up a System.Net.NetworkCredential object for the account we’ll use to push these events.  This account must have at least modify permission on the target users’ calendar.

$Credentials = new-object system.net.NetworkCredential(“CalendarAccessAccount”,”SuperStrongPa$$w0Rd!”,”litware”)

Next, we need to Create anMicrosoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService object:

$version = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeVersion]::Exchange2013_SP1
$service = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService($version)

We don’t want to use the default credentials, Instead we want to authenticate using the service account specified earlier:

$service.UseDefaultCredentials = $false
$service.Credentials=$Credentials

And, presuming AutoDiscover is set up correctly in our domain, we want to let EWS figure out the server address, port, etc:

$service.AutodiscoverUrl(“TargetMailbox@litware.com”)

Next, we need to reference the user’s calendar (it’s really just a folder as far as the API is concerned):

$folderid = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Calendar, “TargetMailbox@litware.com”)

And finally, we build the appointment object:

$Appointment = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Appointment -ArgumentList $Service
$appointment.Subject = “Test111”
$appointment.Body = “Test111”
$appointment.Start = $(Get-Date).AddHours(6)
$appointment.End =$(Get-Date).AddHours(9)

Don’t forget to save it:

$appointment.Save($folderid)

 

All in all, we can wrap this up as a function:

Function CreateAppointment($User,$Credentials)
{
$mailboxName=$User
$version = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeVersion]::Exchange2013_SP1
$service = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService($version)
$service.UseDefaultCredentials = $false
$service.Credentials=$Credentials
$service.AutodiscoverUrl($mailboxName)

$folderid = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Calendar, $mailboxName)

$Appointment = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Appointment -ArgumentList $Service
$appointment.Subject = “Test Subject”
$appointment.Body = “Test Body”
$appointment.Start = $(Get-Date).AddHours(6)
$appointment.End =$(Get-Date).AddHours(9)

$appointment.Save($folderid)

}

Now we can call the function from, say, with a loop so as to iterate through each user in a CSV:

$users = Import-CSV “Users.csv”

$Credentials = new-object system.net.NetworkCredential(“CalendarAccessAccount”,”SuperStrongPa$$w0Rd!”,”litware”)

Foreach ($User in $Users)

{

CreateAppointment $User $Credentials

}

 

More to come later on the FileMaker ODBC Connection…

FIM Portal No Access for FIM Admin Account

Today’s adventure with Forefront Identity Manager started when I was unable to log into the FIM portal.  Some digging revealed that the accountName attribute for my admin user had been set to null (probably from too much tinkering with sync rules).

I realized that the accountName was probably the issue by two indicators: there was no account name attribute for the FIM Admin object in the FIM Synchronization Service Manager application, and because the query below referencing the ObjectValueString table lacked some attributes. The change-fimadmin.ps1 script helped me determine these SQL sanity check queries.

I had already eliminated the usual suspects for not being able to access the portal (ObjectSID, MPRs, etc), so this stumped me for a little while

Anyway, I needed a way to get back in the portal (and I didn’t want to re-install), so I came up with this script that uses the FIM PowerShell modules to set the accountName attribute of the FIM Admin user (identified by the well-known admin user GUID).

I used the script on How to Use PowerShell to Set the Required Attributes for the FIM Portal Access as a starting point, modifying it to set only the accountName attribute.

$adminAccountName=”accountNameHere”

If(@(get-pssnapin | where-object {$_.Name -eq “FIMAutomation”} ).count -eq 0) {add-pssnapin FIMAutomation}

Function SetAttribute
{
PARAM($CurObject, $AttributeName, $AttributeValue)
END
{
$ImportChange = New-Object Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Automation.ObjectModel.ImportChange
$ImportChange.Operation = 1
$ImportChange.AttributeName = $AttributeName
$ImportChange.AttributeValue = $AttributeValue
$ImportChange.FullyResolved = 1
$ImportChange.Locale = “Invariant”
If ($CurObject.Changes -eq $null) {$CurObject.Changes = (,$ImportChange)}
Else {$CurObject.Changes += $ImportChange}
}
}
$curObject= export-fimconfig -uri $URI –onlyBaseResources -customconfig (“/Person[ObjectID='{7fb2b853-24f0-4498-9534-4e10589723c4}’]”)

$ImportObject = New-Object Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Automation.ObjectModel.ImportObject

$ImportObject.ObjectType = $curObject.ResourceManagementObject.ObjectType
$ImportObject.TargetObjectIdentifier = $CurObject.ResourceManagementObject.ObjectIdentifier
$ImportObject.SourceObjectIdentifier = $CurObject.ResourceManagementObject.ObjectIdentifier
$ImportObject.State = 1

SetAttribute -CurObject $ImportObject -AttributeName “AccountName” -AttributeValue $adminAccountName
$ImportObject | Import-FIMConfig -uri $URI -ErrorVariable Err -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

 

After running this script, you should be able to log into the FIM portal again.

Helpful places to look also include the FIMService database.  Particularly the ObjectValueString and UserSecurityIdentifiers Tables.

 

The following query represents the values for the FIM Admin User, and should yield 7 rows(Attribute Keys 1,66,68,70,117,125,132)

SELECT TOP 1000 [AttributeID]
,[ObjectKey]
,[ObjectTypeKey]
,[AttributeKey]
,[SequenceID]
,[LocaleKey]
,[ValueString]
,[Multivalued]
FROM [FIMService].[fim].[ObjectValueString]

where ObjectKey =2340

The following query represents the SID, in HEX form, of the FIM Admin User, and should yield 1 row:

SELECT TOP 1000 [UserObjectKey]
,[SecurityIdentifier]
FROM [FIMService].[fim].[UserSecurityIdentifiers]
where UserObjectKey =2340

 

 

 

Stay up to date with RSS

Staying Up-To-Date

I spend spent a lot of time watching various blogs, web pages, and other online sources for updates to the many platforms I’m responsible for supporting.  Windows has a new security patch. Mac OSX needs heart-bleed remediation.  SharePoint has a new Cumulative Update.  There’s a new Linux Kernel out, and 52 commits have occurred for the ROM on my phone.

That’s a lot of moving targets, with many different pages to remember to check on a semi-regular basis.  With probability against me, the time spent loading a page (and possibly googling it if I forgot to bookmark it) and deciphering what’s changed since I last visited generally resulted in a lot of lost time.

My Solution

Recently, a co-worker turned me on to RSS feeds.  They’ve been around forever, and yet, I’ve never really used them.  That is, until I realized how valuable they can be.   Just think: superbookmarks! One “Single Pane of Glass” to view all of the content updates. Feedly is a web based RSS reader.  You can use various authentication methods ( I prefer logging in with my Google Account) to access your list of “Subscribed” RSS feeds.

Whenever new content is posted, it shows up in your “unread” subscriptions.  Just make it your homepage, and enjoy the easy reading!

Subscribing to Content

After you’ve found a content source you’d like to stay current on, You’ll need to:

  1. Identify the RSS Feed URL
    1. Most sites will have an RSS button.  It should look like this: However, some sites do not publish the RSS feed, but still make it available.
    2. The RSS Feed for WordPress sites can be accessed via http://<sitename>/feed or http://<sitename>/?feed=rss2.
    3. Reddit publishes RSS Feeds for subreddits in the form of http://reddit.com/r/<subreddit>/.rss
  2. Point Feedly at the URL
    Click the “Add Content” button in Feedly, and provide the URL you discovered in step 1.

  3. Add the Feed to one of your collections
    Click the green “+”

  4. Choose a Collection

  5. Enjoy!
    New posts from this content source will now automagically show up when you open Feedly!

My Feeds

If you’re curious what I’m following, here’s a list of the RSS feeds I choose to follow.  You could also download, and import my feeds directly into your Feedly!

  • Ars Technica
    • http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/index/
  • Michael Niehaus’ Windows and Office deployment ramblings
    • http://blogs.technet.com/mniehaus/rss.xml
  • Reddit /r/sysadmin
    • http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/.rss
  • codeinsecurity
    • http://codeinsecurity.wordpress.com/feed/
  • Krebs on Security
    • http://krebsonsecurity.com/feed/
  • In the Cloud
    • http://blogs.technet.com/b/in_the_cloud/rss.aspx
  • Ask Premier Field Engineering (PFE) Platforms
    • http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/rss.aspx
  • Errata Security
    • http://blog.erratasec.com/feeds/posts/default
  • NPR News
    • http://www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?id=1001
  • XKCD
    • http://xkcd.com/rss.xml
  • LifeHacker
    • http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/vip
  • Todd Klindt’s Blog Posts (SharePoint Patches)
    • http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/_layouts/listfeed.aspx?List={56F96349-3BB6-4087-94F4-7F95FF4CA81F}
  • Reddit /r/sharepoint
    • http://www.reddit.com/r/sharepoint/.rss
  • Stefan Goßner (SharePoint)
    • http://blogs.technet.com/b/stefan_gossner/rss.aspx

Cleaning Up Exchange Messages with Search-Mailbox

Like most sysadmins, I receive notifications from end users about SPAM showing up in their inbox.  While not all spam can be avoided, we can deal with it.  I wanted to lessen the impact of already delivered spam and potentially avert a crisis if the same phishing email is sent to all 1500 mailboxes, so I whipped up this script to search out and destroy these messages from my Exchange environment:

$Subject = “About your last transaction”
$StartDate = $(‘1/1/2015’)
$BodyLanguage = “sellam.fr”
$TargetMailbox = “spamdump”
$TargetFolder = “WHD2918”

$Search = [scriptblock]::Create(“Received>=`”$StartDate`” and Subject:`”$Subject`” and `”$BodyLanguage`””)

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Search-Mailbox -SearchQuery $Search -targetmailbox $TargetMailbox -targetfolder $TargetFolder -loglevel full -logonly

Note the last flag in the last line of the script: “-logonly.”  Be very careful to run the command with this command the first go-round.  This ensures that the query you specify does not grab messages that it shouldn’t (and you wind up deleting everyone’s entire mailbox).  The result of logonly is an excel file in the target mailbox with the headers of the resultant messages.

After reviewing the messages, replace -logonly with -deletecontent.  This will actually move the messages from the users’ mailboxes into the target mailbox.

If you want to modify the query, take a look into how Search-Mailbox actually works.   Search-Mailbox uses KQL, so be sure to brush up on the syntax.  If you’ve beocme accustomed to the powershell boolean operators such as “-and,” You’ll be unpleasantly surprised when you learn that the same operator will evaluate to “not and” in KQL

ForeFront Identity Manager (2010 R2) Synchronization Service Becomes Disabled

I had just installed FIM 2010 R2 in a lab environment – All roles on one server, and noticed that the “Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service”  Kept stopping, and being set to “Disabled.”

I had installed all of the latest patches for both FIM (4.1.3613.0) and SharePoint (14.0.7140.5000). I saw nothing in the Windows Event log to indicate there was a problem.  The “Synchronization Service Manager on FIM” application would launch fine while the service was running.  All configured management agents would synchronize no problem.  It’s just that – Every so often, the  “Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service” would just up and STOP!

After some research, I found this TechNet Blog Post which suggests that SharePoint is the culprit!

Since SharePoint is installed on this server only for the purpose of providing the FIM Portal, I had no need to set up (or otherwise use) the User Profile Service.   Consequently, SharePoint isn’t expecting the Synchronization Service to be in a running state! So, as part of the “Health Analysis Job (Hourly, Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Timer, All Servers)” SharePoint notices the service is running, and disables it!

I verified this by returning the service to the normal Automatic – Running state, and manually kicking off that Timer Job.

Sure enough, the job was stopped! ULS Viewer shows me this also:

See that? – “The SharePoint Health Analyzer found and fixed the following problem: One or more services have started or stopped unexpectedly..”  No details about which service was “started unexpectedly,” but I presume that the “Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service” was the culprit.

To prevent this from happening again, I nagivated to “Review Job Definitions” under “Monitoring” in Central Administration, located the  “Health Analysis Job (Hourly, Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Timer, All Servers)” and disabled it.

All seems well at this point in time…

My set of links for FIM installation tips, tricks, procedures, etc:

  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh332711(v=ws.10).aspx
  • http://www.harbar.net/articles/fimportal.aspx
  • http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=224
  • http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2229.fim-2010-build-overview.aspx
  • http://www.fimspecialist.com/fim-portal/installing-fim-2010-r2-sp1-portal-on-sharepoint-foundation-2013/
  • https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/76bd6012-f619-4636-8401-74cac8436f1f/fim-sync-service-keeps-disabling?forum=ilm2
  • http://www.fimspecialist.com/category/fim-hotixes-service-packs-updates/
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj200258(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh322920(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh322863(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134316(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh322877(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh332711(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh332707(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh332708(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh332710(v=ws.10).aspx
  • https://fim2010techie.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/synchronizing-active-directory-users/
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/b/connector_space/archive/2014/12/30/understanding-the-fim-service-management-agent.aspx
  • http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3610.fim-2010-wiki-articles.aspx