I’ve become quite the minimalist in my environments, mostly because I’ve been doing a lot of compliance & security work. Speaking generally, most hardware management tools don’t & won’t pass any form of compliance audit and in that context are way more trouble than they’re worth (negative ROI, see my post “Free, Like a Puppy“). […] The post Easy Dell PowerEdge Firmware Updates, 2019 Edition appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

There’s a lot of talk lately about the terrible, horrible, sexist, racist, misogynist, and generally unconstructive feedback that presenters get at conferences: This is on top of feedback where an attendee gives a presenter one star because the food wasn’t what they wanted, or they sat next to someone smelly, the room was cold, an […] The post End Anonymous Conference Feedback appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

Every once in a while I get asked why I don’t have an out-of-office message for my email or voice mail. Truth is, I’ll often monitor my email even when I’m out, though I often practice good operations discipline by not responding. Just as intermittent problems with computer systems are hard to deal with, a […] The post Out-of-Office Messages are a Security Risk appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

I’ve found that things that are free of charge are often not a good deal. TANSTAAFL, or “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” You’re always paying in some way. Maybe the piece of hardware is marked up more to cover the development cost of the “free” software that comes with it. Perhaps […] The post Free, Like a Puppy appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

I was setting up VMware vRealize Automation’s Active Directory connections the other day and I needed the public SSL certificate for the AD DCs to authenticate correctly. You can use OpenSSL to get that information. I used a Linux shell but this should be do-able from a Mac or with OpenSSL installed on Windows, too. […] The post Retrieve an SSL Certificate from a Server With OpenSSL appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

I just got a new iPhone Xs Max. I had an iPhone 6s which I liked a lot, but it’s been a few years and with more travel I thought I’d enjoy having a better device with me. There are a few things that bit me in the duff. Some two-factor authentication (2FA) apps like […] The post What You Need to Know About Upgrading to an iPhone Xs or Xr appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

“You spent $150 on a keyboard?” – My wife There are two kinds of people in technology: those with an opinion about their keyboard, and everybody else. I happen to be one of the first. I grew up using the IBM Model F and M keyboards. They have a spring in the key switches that […] The post CODE Keyboard appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.” – Pip, Great Expectations Growing up the son of a firefighter and homemaker, I was fortunate to have been […] The post Joining VMware appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

X11 forwarding over SSH not working? Not setting $DISPLAY correctly in your shell? Having problems with X11 and sudo? Yeah, me too. Total pain in the duff. Here’s what I do to fix it. I’m thinking about Linux when I write stuff like this but a lot of this has worked on AIX and Solaris, […] The post Fixing X11 Forwarding Over SSH and with Sudo appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more

Every once in a while I struggle a little to add a new Veeam Backup & Replication hot-add proxy. If you’re like me and seeing proxy install errors maybe some of these will fix you up. This is what worked for me on Windows Server 2016 when I was getting error 0x00000057, “Failed to create persistent […] The post Fixing Veeam Backup & Replication Proxy Install Errors appeared first on The Lone Sysadmin. Head over to the source to read the full post ..read more