Sys Admin Tales » Websites

Windows 3-Tier Certificate Authority

Tom Thrush — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:35:59 +0000

Many months ago I was tasked with implementing a 3-tier Certificate Authority for a large Windows domain environment. Unfortunately there is surprisingly little information for the nitty-gritty questions one may have. The Microsoft Press book Windows Server® 2008 PKI and Certificate Security (this book seems to have been discontinued, thus outrageous pricing) proved quite useful, but at times lacking. The Corelan Team site added more insight and was quite useful as well.

Here is the document I created detailing our setup and configuration process (using generic server names and Contoso as the company). Please review the entire document first, should use it for reference. Please note: this document is unsupported and is meant only as a guide.

Should you post questions here, I will do my best to answer them or help point you in the correct direction. This project took place almost a year ago and I’m no longer on site to examine the configuration, so please understand if I may not be able to shed light into the darkest corners of CA voodoo.

Ps. Thanks to SL @ TM for his time and trust with this project.

AD Recycle Bin Tool

Tom Thrush — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:53:20 +0000

Last year Windows IT Pro magazine highlighted ADRecycleBin from Overall Solutions. It’s an excellent free utility to bring back deleted items (or reanimate for earlier Active Directory installations than 2008 R2).

It’s a very nice alternative to the built-in feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 and is a drastic improvement over item recovery in earlier versions of Active Directory with a great GUI interface.

They have a couple of other interesting products in Maven, ResetPass and Action Engine, not everything is free, but it’s close.

Jetable E-mail Addresses

Tom Thrush — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:31:17 +0000

I’m not sure if there’s another industry out there that requires the sheer amount of access-based content that the IT industry does. What I mean by access-based content is information that requires a a login, signup or tithe (in the form of your e-mail address) for entrance to, or downloads of, eBooks, white-papers, files, blogs, forums, webcasts, trial applications, etc.

Many of the sites that require some sort of access, I will never visit again. So why give access to any of my mailboxes for a possible endless stream of unread mail? And why chance winding up on a spam list or having my address sold to “industry partners”?

This is where Jetable comes in. You can create a disposal e-mail address that will expire in one hour to one month, your choice. Jetable’s service creates a time-limited e-mail forward to a real address. Just put in your real e-mail address, choose a Life Span based on how long you need (I usually choose one day) and click Create…

They support ten languages and have a Firefox plug-in (if you’re into that sort of thing). Oh yeah, it’s free.

Microsoft Case Studies

Tom Thrush — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:51:57 +0000

Need that extra push to get a budget approved. Perhaps you need ammo to bring into fruition (or shoot down) the latest whim of those in executive row. Microsoft Case Studies may have your answer.

Divided by Industry, Business Need, IT Issue, etc., with searchable fields as expected, there is a good amount of video and downloadable content to help make or break a case.

Microsoft Learning Snacks

Tom Thrush — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:07:09 +0000

You may have guessed it already, but they’re bite-sized videos for learning quite a few of Microsoft’s products.

Click here for a full list of what’s available, all that is required is Silverlight for viewing.

I’m currently watching the eleven videos for Windows 7, part of my studies for an upcoming certification exam, and they’ve been pretty good so far. And of course, they’re free :)

Say Ninite

Tom Thrush — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:29:35 +0000

(Re)building systems can be quite a drag, especially once you get to the part when it’s time for downloading all the 3rd party software. This would include: Flash, Java, Firefox, Skype, etc., etc.

Enter Ninite, an amazing, time saving, utility website. It works as advertised, allowing you to choose your choice of applications, whereupon it generates a custom installer that with one-click, installs everything you wanted, without toolbars and crapware that would normally be installed by default.

There’s also a corporate option for using with scripts or automated deployments. This is definitely a time saver and worth a look. Did I mention it’s free :)

Google Website Backup

Tom Thrush — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:53:24 +0000

Google offers a lot of things, and I mean a lot, but this isn’t really one of them. And yet, in a fashion they do.

A good friend of mine recently lost a rather good blog post due to a server issue (it was on a Linux box, so I’m not sure how that could ever happen ;^) and there wasn’t a backup.

In a moment of brilliance (or just a misfiring synapse) I suggested he do a Google search for his lost post and see if they had a cached version of it. And low and behold, they did, crisis averted. If I could come up with great ideas like this more often, having a job would be unnecessary :)

What kind of file is that?

Tom Thrush — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:56:11 +0000

Many of us have experienced the annoyance of receiving a file that we don’t have the appropriate software to view or in a format we do not know or recognize, e.g., “What is a .xxe file and how do I open it?”

(Disclaimer: Make sure you have up to date virus scan and check with the sender when receiving an unknown file. You have been warned.)

Many sites offer a list of file extensions describing the file type, but the one I like to use is Openwith.org because it also provides a link to the appropriate application for viewing or editing the file.

And in case you are curious, an XXE file is a Compressed ASCII Archive and can be opened with WinRAR.

Right-Click, Registry Access Denied

Tom Thrush — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:07:15 +0000

Yesterday I had an odd issue with a Windows laptop. Every time the user would right-click on a file or folder, an error message would pop-up saying “Registry Access Denied“, after acknowledging the message, the context menu would appear and function normally.

I did numerous searches, examined permissions, removed/added the user from groups, nothing worked. Then it hit me, it was the context menu that was having an issue, perhaps I should take a look at all the items that are listed in the registry to see how they matched the right-click menu after it appeared.

Doing yet another search, Online Tech Tips had info on editing the right-click menu. Following the registry path mentioned: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\ I was able to see that there was an entry for a zip program that wasn’t appearing on the context menu. After backing up the registry, I removed that entry and viola, no more error. Simpler than I thought…

Gmail Unleashed

Tom Thrush — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:50:39 +0000

Great googly moogly! After five years Gmail (and Apps) is no longer in beta. And instead of yelling it from the rooftops (since many businesses won’t rely on beta products) they are just mumbling it quietly.

I guess Google doesn’t need the business since they are pretty much just printing money at this point.