Category Archives: Systems Administration

Windows Updates in an Enterprise environment

I’m finding that a lot of my posts are based on things that I repeatedly have to rehash over and over again in other places – Reddit, tech forums, Twitter. This is no exception. I keep seeing people ask about managing updates in an enterprise environment. With that in mind, I decided that writing some high-level “This is how we… Read more »

A couple of IT things *everyone* should know

So, as usual, lurking on Reddit and a topic comes up about things that non-sysadmins (read: normal every day people) should know in relation to being a sysadmin. I thought this was interesting and a bit silly until I thought about it for a while – I’m somewhat amazed by the number of people who are working who have little… Read more »

Working from home – it can be done…if you’re not a jerk!

I’ve seen a lot of talk lately, as we’re coming up to the holidays, about working from home. This post is going to focus on IT workers because we can commute quite easily, no matter where we are. I’m personally all for it – I have a study of my own, with my computer and extra desk space for my… Read more »

Regular AD Maintenance & Checks

I was inspired to write this post based on a question posted on Reddit a little bit ago. While I was happy with my response (and that so many people agreed with me!) I figured it would benefit those who read my blog or go searching for this information and aren’t Reddit readers. I’ve also added in a few links,… Read more »

Issue installing .NET 3.5 on Server 2012 R2

So – interesting bug. Built some Windows Server 2012 R2 servers for someone (because I’m just nice like that) and they went on their merry way. They then came back and said they wanted .NET 3.5 installed and would do it themselves, but they didn’t know where the install media was – because (as you know…or now know) a number… Read more »

AD Security & Administration – righting the right rights

NOTE: This post is in the process of being updated due to being used in a presentation. Please let me know if there’s anything that you believe requires updating by leaving a comment, sending me an email or poking me on Twitter! (Before I launch in, try saying the title three times fast…sorry, couldn’t help myself :P) So, we recently… Read more »

The basics all sysadmins need to grok…

In light of this being published on Sysadmin Appreciation Day (psssst, HAPPY SYSADMIN APPRECIATION DAY! ^_^), I thought I’d do a post aimed at us – system administrators! Doing some recent reading, lurking in a few forums and floating about on Twitter, I’ve noticed a number of gripes from other admins regarding things their fellow admins didn’t know that they… Read more »

Passwords and security – why is it so hard to get it *right*?

I don’t understand why passwords and password management are so difficult for people…truly I don’t. Passwords are part of our every day lives. We use passwords for so many things in our day-to-day lives – to access our email, to access social media websites, to log on to our personal and work PC’s, to buy goods using our debit and… Read more »

Being on-call and how to still have a life!

So, one of the requirements of my current job is being on-call. I won’t call it an upside or a downside, because it really is a bit of both. The downside it means I have to have my work phone on me at all times when I’m on-call, make sure my laptop is with me when I plan on going… Read more »

Building up a logging server – OSS style!

So – I wanted to get Splunk but in my organisation that was never going to happen (you want something that costs MONEY?! Ludicrous!) So we had to come up with a compromise. A colleague of mine went hunting for some open source logging software and found that the combination of Elastic Search, LogStash, Kibana and nxLog worked well. He… Read more »