The latest in tech, SysOps, personal growth, scripting, servers, virtualization and databases curated for you daily.
Vibe coding WordPress plugins: I used Google Gemini to create a Gutenberg block for inserting Google AdSense ads into posts. One automatically after the more tag and add where you want them to appear The post Gutenberg block for adding AdSense ads appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Being unable to open SQL Server Configuration Manager is often caused by a corrupt or removed WMI provider for SQL Server. This post explains how to resolve this. The post Fix broken WMI provider in SQL Server appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Never forget an OpenSSL command again. This comprehensive cheat sheet covers certificate conversion (PFX, PEM, DER), CSR generation, and remote SSL / TLS verification for Windows and Linux admins. The post OpenSSL Cheat Sheet: Common SSL / TLS Commands appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
The fire-and-forget method to update SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) automatically by uninstalling any installed version and downloading & installing the newest available version from Microsoft. The post Update SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) automatically appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Learn how to use the Twilio SendGrid Web API v3 to send email with PowerShell The post Send mail through SendGrid Web API using PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Windows Server IIS is known for reusing DH key values, but there is a way to disable ECDH public server param reuse in Windows Server IIS and here is how. The post Disable ECDH public server param reuse in Windows Server IIS appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Learn how to create strong and unique passwords in Windows using PowerShell, because the use of those unique and strong passwords is important. The post Create strong passwords in Windows appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Have a need for IIS in your Windows 11 development station, and now you wonder how to install IIS? Here I describe how you can easily install IIS and some modules using PowerShell The post Install IIS in Windows 11 using PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Zabbix is a great tool to monitor your website performance on IIS using Performance Counters, PowerShell and WMI. The post Monitor website performance in IIS with Zabbix appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Use a specific TLS certifictate or thumbprint for outgoing HTTPS connections because of endpoint restrictions using PowerShell. The post Use PowerShell with SSL client certificates for HTTPS GET requests appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Learn how to calculate and create file checksums with PowerShell's Get-FileHash and certutil.exe. Use this to validate file integrity in Windows (Windows Server). The post Calculate SHA-256 checksums in PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Learn how to use PowerShell Test-NetConnection to test if a TCP port is open The post Test open TCP ports with PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 now has native support for IPv6! 🥳 The post IPv6 support for WSL2! 🥳 appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Old school: learn how to convert a Windows SID (security identifier) to an username, or vice versa (username to SID) using PowerShell and VBScript. Because sometimes you just need to convert a Windows SID to an username, don't you? The post Windows SID to username and vice versa appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Whenever I need to restore an SQL Server .bak backup file, I want to know some properties of the backup file to make sure I'm working with the correct file(s). Luckily, the .bak file and PowerShell provide all the information I need, so I don't have to start a Restore procedure in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) just to view the header information. As you know, SSMS is slow... The post Get SQL…
Use PowerShell, Performance Counters and WMI to get the current number of active connections to IIS websites. Monitor IIS servers in Zabbix The post Get IIS Current Connections using PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
The following PowerShell snippet can be used to quickly install an SSL (or TLS) certificate in Windows Server. It assumes you have a PFX file and its password. The default location is Cert:\LocalMachine\My, to use for IIS websites. The post Install SSL / TLS certificates in Windows Server using PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
In this small post I'll guide you through the various Windows Server and IIS configuration settings, for an optimized network performance, high performance websites and high volume of web requests. The post Tune Windows Server TCP/IP and IIS appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
You can use PowerShell to install Windows Updates automatically, unattended and simple. Neat, right? For this, you don't have to have an enterprise environment with WSUS, or Windows Server, but since this is Sysadmins of the North, I assume you do. In this post I show you how to install Windows Updates with PowerShell and the PSWindowsUpdate module. The post Install Windows Updates using…
Easily send your DevOps reporting by email with this PowerShell function, because the Send-MailMessage cmdlet is obsolete. Of course you'll be using StartTLS and authenticated SMTP as additional security. The post Send email with PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Sometimes you need to create an additional SQL Server Login (user) for your database (databases). Here is a small T-SQL snippet that creates such a login for contained databases in SQL Server and adds memberships. The post Create an additional SQL Server Login appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Monitor Microsoft SQL Server, databases and performance with Zabbix, PowerShell, Performance Counters and WMI. Keep SQL Server and databases in top shape and performance up! In this post I show you how you can use Zabbix to monitor those important aspects for database administrators (DBA). The post Monitor SQL Server and databases in depth using Zabbix appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Query all posts in WordPress not having a Yoast SEO meta description yet. You can run this on your MySQL prompt or in phpMyAdmin The post Query all WordPress posts in MySQL not having a Yoast SEO meta description appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Set up debugging symbols for WinDbg in Windows and debug BSOD like a boss. Set symbol path for WinDbg. The post Configure Windows Debugging Symbols in WinDbg appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Stop hunting for command-line arguments. Learn the definitive way to extract files from an MSI package using the msiexec /a switch, TARGETDIR, and PowerShell for automated deployments. The post Extract files from an MSI package appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Take control of your server resources by learning how to block aggressive bots and unwanted search engines using .htaccess and mod_rewrite. This guide provides copy-paste ready configurations to prevent bandwidth theft, stop scrapers, and ensure that only relevant search engines crawl your website. The post Blocking bad bots and search engines using .htaccess appeared first on Sysadmins of the…
Connect virt-manager to a KVM host through an ssh tunnel and arbitrary port in Windows using Windows 11 and WSL 2. The post Connect to a KVM host through an ssh tunnel and arbitrary port in Windows 11 and WSL 2 appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
In this post I describe some of the settings and changes I made to make my Windows 11 and Ubuntu WSL2 into a fully fledged development environment. Here are the settings and tools I use for DevOps / SysOps on Windows. The post Windows 11 and WSL 2 DevOps environment appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Secure your Windows 11 environment by moving SSH private keys to hardware. Learn how to configure YubiKey FIDO2/U2F support in native OpenSSH, manage the ssh-agent, and eliminate file-based credential risks. The post YubiKey support in OpenSSH for Windows 11 appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Display full username in ps. The ps output truncates usernames to 7 characters and a +. If you need full usernames in Bash ps, here is how. The post How to display longer username in ps appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Use Zabbix to monitor your web application and application pool's .NET CLR Garbage Collected heap by utilizing WMI and PowerShell. The post Monitor .NET CLR Garbage Collected heap from your web application appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Find out fast if your IIS webservers have EnableTrailerSupport enabled for https.sys in the registry. Here is a small PowerShell method. The post Quickly check EnableTrailerSupport isn’t set in your network for http.sys (CVE-2022-21907) appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
How can I convert an SqlCe database to Microsoft SQL Server? The post Convert SqlCe database to SQL Server appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Out of the box, Umbraco is a well built and pretty fast content management system. However, it is still important you perform some steps to further optimize Umbraco's performance and loading speed. The post How to optimize Umbraco 8 performance appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Here are 3 ways of blocking access to a PHP sendmail.php script on your Windows Server IIS webserver. This comes in handy if a websites on your webserver sends out spam and you need to block access to a script on a specific website or globally in IIS. The post 3 Ways of blocking sendmail.php on IIS webserver appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Add a trailing slash to URL's in Umbraco 8, using IIS URL Rewrite Module, without breaking the Umbraco backend. Forcing one particular URL avoids duplicate content, which is important for SEO. The post How to add a trailing slash in Umbraco 8 appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Learn how to add VirtIO drivers to your Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) to recover your Windows virtual machines. Using Powershell of course and Windows Server 2022. The post Add VirtIO drivers to Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Storing SSH public keys in Windows Server Active Directory gives you a single location where you manage public SSH keys instead of on numerous separate servers. This is easier than distributing and managing numerous unmanaged authorized_keys files across your network and servers. The post Retrieve SSH public key from Active Directory for SSH authentication appeared first on Sysadmins of the North…
Learn how to install SQL Server cumulative updates (CU) silently using PowerShell opposed to the cumbersome task of running the GUI installer. The post Install SQL Server cumulative updates silently appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
short PowerShell snippet for you to remove a computer object from Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) The post Remove computer object from Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) in PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
How to bulk add IP addresses in Windows Firewall, list an IP address and how to remove all IP addresses from Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security The post Add, list and remove IP addresses in Windows Firewall appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
For the time being, some manual labor is involved, but it is still manageable. You can use this to create your own solution to block offending IP addresses in SQL Server’s firewall. The post Block brute force attacks on SQL Server, block IP addresses in Windows Firewall using PowerShell appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Native support for HTTP/3 in Windows Server 2022, jeej! Host HTTP/3 web services in Windows The post How to enable HTTP/3 in Windows Server 2022 appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Turn off Windows Defender routine remediation using a GPO setting called "DisableRoutinelyTakingAction". This policy setting allows you to configure whether Microsoft Defender Antivirus automatically takes action on all detected threats. The post Windows Defender: Turn off routine remediation (DisableRoutinelyTakingAction) appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Here is how you can share your SSH keys between Windows 11/10 and WSL 2 if you don't want to copy over your ssh keys from Windows to WSL 2 Linux, or generate new ones. The post How to share OpenSSH keys with WSL in Windows appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Learn how to fix memory issues and subsequent crashes in WMI / WmiPrvse.exe by increasing available memory and handles The post Increase WMI memory to support large volume of queries appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Enabling Windows Defender per GPO failed with the error message "Get-MpComputerStatus : The extrinsic Method could not be executed.", here is how to resolve this issue. The post How-to fix Windows Defender error “Get-MpComputerStatus : The extrinsic Method could not be executed.” appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Use IIS Manager to administer various components of your website through a graphical user interface (GUI) if it's hosted in Windows Server IIS. In this article you'll learn how to install and setup IIS Manager in Windows 11/10 to manage your website(s). The post Install and setup IIS Manager for Remote Administration in Windows Server IIS (step by step) appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
If you want to quickly delete all saved Remote Desktop credentials from your Windows 10 Credentials Manager, here... The post Delete saved RDP credentials from Windows 10 Credentials Manager, using cmdkey appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .
Zabbix monitoring for your websites and ASP.NET applications in IIS using _Process Performance Counter. The post Getting more out your Windows Performance Counters monitoring for web applications – part 3 appeared first on Sysadmins of the North .