XFS on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

This is just a quick post. I've used the XFS filesystem on many, many Linux hosts for a great many years now. I've used it on CentOS6 since that OS was first released, and XFS is now the default filesystem for RHEL7. So, I went to make a new XFS filesystem on a new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 system in the past week, I more than a little bit surprised...

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CentOS 6 to CentOS 7: Upgrade of my Desktop

Deciding that the best way to learn a system is to use it, I recently decided to move my primary Desktop system at work from CentOS6 to CentOS7. This is the story of that upgrade. Running the Upgrade Tool So, after some planning and system prep work, I ran the CentOS upgrade tool. This caused me many false starts - including the fact that my...

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Gnome 3 on CentOS 7 - How I Made It Lovely and Usable

I generally really liked Gnome2 in RHEL6 - it was stable and worked well, and it's shortcomings had been largely addressed over the years. I promised I wouldn't fall prey to everyone else's griping about GNOME3 - but it's quite hard not to. For example, I have to use the command line to configure many of the GUI settings - Seriously?? I won't...

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Importing a SSL Wildcard Certificate from an Apache Webserver onto a Cisco ASA 5500

I recently needed to use the same wildcard certificate on both a Linux Apache host (Apache 2.2, RHEL6) and a Cisco ASA (5505), and this is how I did it. This blog post starts _after_ I have the certificate generated, signed, installed, working & tested on the Apache host (which was just a standard CSR + install process, documented in thousands...

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FirewallD: Adding Services and Direct Rules

This post will expand somewhat upon the firewall rules in my RHEL7-install blogpost. I'm trying to make an IPsec connection between two machines (CentOS6 & CentOS7) - I'll detail the IPsec in another post, but this covers adding the FirewallD rules on the CentOS7 box. I did have quite a few of these commands in my RHEL7 post, but Blogger somehow...

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Red Hat Enterprise 7: This Train Has Now Arrived on Multiple Platforms, All Change

I am just preparing my first Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 server - installed on Hyper-V, no less. Here is a collection of notes I have made along the way. Guest VM on Hyper-V (Server 2012 R2) I've used a Generation 2  VM for my RHEL7 guest - this is supposedly fully supported by both Microsoft and Red Hat, although fairly poorly documented by...

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Powershell: OS Detection

What OS am I executing on? What bitness? Some Handy Functions to Use Sometimes, it's important to know what OS you are running on, and/or how many bits that OS has. Here are some useful functions which can be reused in other Powershell scripts (a future post may include putting such things into a Powershell Module). Please note that this hasn't been...

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Windows Update Client - Useful Commands

Windows Update is a key tool in diagnosing many Windows-related problems. It's handy to know a few shortcuts to assist in diagnosis. GUI There is a basic GUI built into Windows (since Vista). This can be instantly accessed by typing the command  "wuapp", which works if you type this word into a Cmd window, into the Win7 Start Menu and also...

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Android SMS on 4.4 KitKat - Goodbye Hangouts, Hello 8sms

I tried, I really tried, to like Hangouts. I even tried to simply live with it. But, enough is enough, and it has now been replaced. Did I fail? No, this time, it's not me - so Goodbye Google Hangouts, Hello 8sms. For those not in posession of a new-ish Android device, Google has replaced the standard SMS app in the current latest version of Android...

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Git: Just Getting Started, Barely Scratching the Surface

Scene: In my (precious-little) spare time, I'm working on Project Euler. I haven't done any proper mathematics since I left Uni >10 years ago (when_where I completed a Major in Pure Mathematics), so it's all feeling more than a little rusty. I'm also teaching myself Python and again working on projects bigger than 10-line infrastructure scripts,...

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Configuring a new Windows Machine

Today I learnt a new way to configure a new Windows machine: with a PowerShell package manager. A bit like like YUM for Windows! All thanks to https://chocolatey.org/. As a side-note, this package manager, although currently third-party, will be built into Windows itself fairly soon, via One-Get in Powershell v5. This assumes you have Powershell...

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Modifying Web Server SSL settings to current modern web standards

This is not a post talking about the whys and wherefores of the settings below; nor is it mean to be a discussion of SSL security in general - just a quick reference guide to setting SSL responses in different web servers & OSes. This post will be edited as I find the need to configure different servers and software. Apache on Linux: Edit...

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NTP on Cisco IOS

To round out my NTP notes, here is NTP on Cisco IOS. Timezone is  Adelaide time, GMT+930 (Australian Central Standard, ie ACST). Remote NTP server is Internode's - substitute for (or add to) your preferred ISP/pool.ntp server. ! Set timezone clock timezone ACST 9 30clock summer-time ACDT recurring 1 Sun Oct 2:00 1 Sun Apr 3:00 !Set NTP for local...

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NTP on Linux

A Linux host needs NTP set to ensure correct time sync. These commands below set this for Linux systems, with an emphasis on Australian settings (swap in other NTP servers for non-Australian servers). This can be set simply by pasting the commands below into a Bash prompt (as root). This guide makes no attempt to check/enforce the security of the...

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NTP on Windows

A Windows Domain needs NTP set on it's PDC Emulator to ensure the domain has correct time sync. These commands set this for Windows systems, with an emphasis on Australian settings. This can be set simply by pasting the commands into a cmd window (I recommend setting NTP1 to your actual local NTP server/router if you have one). These commands...

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Outlook: Migrate Outlook Profiles to Office 365 (Wave 15)

Office 365, the current Exchange-2013-based incarnation ("Wave 15"), has (semi-)easy migration options from on-premises... except for the client-side, if your client-side is an existing Outlook 2007/10/13 based setup. Third-party tools, such as MigrationWiz, can fill the gap (possibly quite well), but if these are not an option, then read on. Wipe...

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The Start

Hello and welcome, This blog is primarily dedicated to small notes on IT stuff as I find it - in 15+ years in IT, I've found, used and implemented more tidbits than I could possibly remember. I have often found myself needing to refer to them 10+ years later, and wished I had recorded the more arcane bits earlier, rather than re-finding them again....

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