Category: Servers
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Using Windows Server 2012 R2 for Shared Storage via iSCSI with Microsoft Failover Clustering (Video How-to)
In this video I give a basic break down of how to install and configure shared storage on Windows Server 2012 R2 and then use that storage with a Microsoft Failover Cluster with Multi-path I/O (MPIO) support and 100% validation in cluster manager. Shared storage is often the biggest hurdle when getting into building your…
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Veeam Backup & Replication 8 fails when accessing ESXi 6 hosts directly – Failed to login Unknown API version format: “dev”
Veeam Backup & Replication is great tool for when you don’t have vCenter available for whatever reason and you need to move some VMs and/or datastores. It has bailed me out of many sticky situations in the past. However in my most recent bind, I found I absolutely could not get it to connect directly…
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Hardening SSL & TLS connections on Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2012 R2
Hardening your SSL/TLS connections is a pretty common thing to do on any Windows Server running IIS and web applications that utilize HTTPS, especially if they require some sort of compliance. It is generally a good idea to do this on all of your servers though, to ensure your secure connections really are secure. On…
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Dell CS24-SC BMC Remote Control not working? Try 32-bit Java 7!
When it comes to Java and Dell Remote Access Cards or BMCs, a simple Java update can render remote access completely useless. The older the hardware the more likely an update is going to break the KVM software. In this case with the Dell CS24-SC, I have found the BMC tends to specifically like 32-bit…
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Disabling TLS 1.0 with MS SQL 2012/2014 – Services won’t start & SSMS fails to connect
Update – 2.1.2016 – I would really only use this as a last resort and I highly recommend testing this solution prior to putting it into production. At this time it does not appear that all of SQL’s features fully support disabling TLS 1.0 and you may run into issues with things like Reporting Services(SSRS).…
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Fix the obsolete cryptography warning in Chrome on IIS 7 & 8
Update – 2.2.2016 – The ciphers originally listed in this post no longer work to fix the obsolete cryptography warning as Google has upped the requirement from DHE with AES_128_GCM to ECDHE with AES_128_GCM or CHACHA20_POLY1305. The only ciphers we have on Windows that are close to this requirement are all ECDHE-ECDSA which will require…
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Testing SMTP with Telnet and PowerShell (Cheat Sheet)
This is my cheat sheet for sending E-Mail through a SMTP Server. This is particularly useful when configuring and testing a new SMTP server. PowerShell: Send-MailMessage -SMTPServer hostname -To youremail@domain.com -From none@none.com -Subject “This is a test email” -Body “This is the body of the test email sent via PS.” Telnet: C:\>telnet hostname 25 220…
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PowerShell Script: Find the largest files and folders for any drive
Update – 04.06.2021 – I have an updated version of this script that is a little more flexible and has better output, you can find the new script here: https://robwillis.info/2021/04/powershell-script-quickly-find-the-largest-files/ This is a super easy to use and flexible PowerShell script to find out what the largest files and folders are on a single drive.…
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Dell CS24-SC BIOS & BMC v2.5 Firmware Download
Here are the most current BIOS and BMC firmwares available for the Dell CS24-SC that I know of. The BMC upgrade makes the fans considerably less loud and has a few upgrades to the BMC Software/Web GUI. With the Bios update I am now able to run Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.1 on the…
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Home Server Stack v2
It has been a year or so since I have done an update on my home server stack, there have been a considerable amount of changes and of course a lot of lessons learned. I recently changed jobs and had to move my stack over 1500 miles away, which ended up in a complete rethink…
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