Why “Patch Tuesday” is only every four weeks – or never

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Today, this tweet caught my attention.

Patch management is currently a hot topic, primarily because of the latest ransomware attacks.

After appearance of WannaCry, one of my older blog posts got unfamiliar attention: WSUS on Windows 2012 (R2) and KB3159706 – WSUS console fails to connect. Why? My guess: Many admins started updating their Windows servers after appearance of WannaCry. Nearly a year after Microsoft has published KB3159706, their WSUS servers ran into this issue. read more

Why “Patch Tuesday” is only every four weeks – or never
5 (100%) 4 votes

Roaming of AppData\Local breaks Windows 10 Start Menu

3 Replies

One of my customers has started a project to create a Windows 10 Enterprise (LTSB 2016) master for their VMware Horizon View environment. Beside the fact (okay, it is more a personal feeling), that Windows 10 is a real PITA for VDI, I noticed an interesting issue during tests.

The issue

For convenience, I adopted some settings of the current Persona Management GPO for Windows 7 for the new Windows 10 environment. During the tests, the customer and I noticed a strange behaviour: After login, the start menu won’t open. The only solution was to logoff and delete the persona folder (most folders are redirected using native Folder Redirections, not the redirection feature of the View Persona Management). While debugging this issue, I found this error in the eventlog.

If you google this, you will find many, many threads about this. Most solutions describe, that you have to delete the profile due to wrong permissions on profile folders and/ or registry hives. I used Microsofts Procmon to verify this, but I was unable to confirm that. After further investigations, I found hints, that the TileDataLayer database could be the problem. The database is located in AppData\Local\TileDataLayer\Database and stores the installed apps, programs, and tiles for the Start Menu. AFAIK it also includes the Start Menu layout. read more

Roaming of AppData\Local breaks Windows 10 Start Menu
5 (100%) 2 votes

Simplemonitor – Python-based monitoring

2 Replies

While searching for a simple monitoring für my root servers, I’m stumbled over a python-based software called Simplemonitor. Other alternatives, like Nagios, or forks like Incinga etc., were a bit too much for my needs.

What is SimpleMonitor?

SimpleMonitor is a Python script which monitors hosts and network connectivity. It is designed to be quick and easy to set up and lacks complex features that can make things like Nagios, OpenNMS and Zenoss overkill for a small business or home network. Remote monitor instances can send their results back to a central location. read more

Simplemonitor – Python-based monitoring
4.5 (90%) 6 votes

Stunnel and Squid on FreeBSD 11

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I don’t like to use untrusted networks. When I have to use such a network, e.g. an open WiFi network, I use a TLS encrypted tunnel connection to encrypt all web traffic that travels through the untrusted network. I’m using a simple stunnel/ Squid setup for this. My setup consists of three components:

  • Stunnel (server mode)
  • Squid proxy
  • Stunnel (client mode)

What is stunnel?

Stunnel is an OSS project that uses OpenSSL to encrypt traffic. The website describes Stunnel as follows:

Stunnel is a proxy designed to add TLS encryption functionality to existing clients and servers without any changes in the programs’ code. Its architecture is optimized for security, portability, and scalability (including load-balancing), making it suitable for large deployments. read more

Stunnel and Squid on FreeBSD 11
4 (80%) 5 votes

How to set a WiFi connection as metered on Windows 10

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I switched my mobile carrier and my new carrier doesn’t offer multi SIM (but hey, it’s cheap and sufficient for my needs). Now I have to use my iPhone as WiFi hotspot. No big deal, works perfect. Except one thing: When I was using the built-in 4G modem in my laptop, Windows 10 knew that it was using a mobile (metered) connection, and suspended some services like OneDrive sync, download of Windows Updates etc. That is pretty handy in times of “flatrates” with single digit GB highspeed data volume. read more

How to set a WiFi connection as metered on Windows 10
4.3 (86.67%) 3 votes

Wrong iovDisableIR setting on ProLiant Gen8 might cause a PSOD

5 Replies

TL;DR: There’s a script at the bottom of the page that fixes the issue.

Some days ago, this HPE customer advisory caught my attention:

Advisory: (Revision) VMware – HPE ProLiant Gen8 Servers running VMware ESXi 5.5 Patch 10, VMware ESXi 6.0 Patch 4, Or VMware ESXi 6.5 May Experience Purple Screen Of Death (PSOD): LINT1 Motherboard Interrupt

And there is also a corrosponding VMware KB article:

ESXi host fails with intermittent NMI PSOD on HP ProLiant Gen8 servers

It isn’t clear WHY this setting was changed, but in VMware ESXi 5.5 patch 10, 6.0  patch 4, 6.0 U3 and, 6.5 the Intel IOMMU’s interrupt remapper functionality was disabled. So if you are running these ESXi versions on a HPE ProLiant Gen8, you might want to check if you are affected. read more

Wrong iovDisableIR setting on ProLiant Gen8 might cause a PSOD
5 (100%) 11 votes

Creating console screenshots with Get-ScreenshotFromVM.ps1

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Today, I had a very interesting discussion. As part of an ongoing troubleshooting process, console screenshots of virtual machines should be created.

The colleagues, who were working on the problem, already found a PowerCLI script that was able to create screenshots using the Managed Object Reference (MoRef). But unfortunately all they got were black screens and/ or login prompts. Latter were the reason why they were unable to run the script unattended. They used the Get-VMScreenshot script, which was written by Martin Pugh. read more

Creating console screenshots with Get-ScreenshotFromVM.ps1
5 (100%) 6 votes

Secure your Azure deployment with Palo Alto VM-Series for Azure

1 Reply

When I talk to customers and colleagues about cloud offerings, most of them are still concerned about the cloud, and especially about the security of public cloud offerings. One of the most mentioned concerns is based on the belief, that each and every cloud-based VM is publicly reachable over the internet. This can be so, but it does not have to. It relies on your design. Maybe that is only a problem in germany. German privacy policies are the reason for the two german Azure datacenters. They are run by Deutsche Telekom, not by Microsoft. read more

Secure your Azure deployment with Palo Alto VM-Series for Azure
4.3 (86.67%) 3 votes

vExpert 2017 – My 2 cents about the increasing number of vExperts

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Last Wednesday, VMware has published a list with the vExperts for 2017.

I’m on this list. I’m on this list for the fourth time, which makes me very happy and proud. I was surprised that I’m on this list. I have written only a few blog posts last year. I sometimes tweet about VMware, and I am active in some forums. The focus of this blog has shifted. read more

vExpert 2017 – My 2 cents about the increasing number of vExperts
3.8 (75%) 4 votes

Checking the 3PAR Quorum Witness appliance

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Two 3PAR StoreServs running in a Peer Persistence setup lost the connection to the Quorum Witness appliance. The appliance is an important part of a 3PAR Peer Persistence setup, because it acts as a tie-breaker in a split-brain scenario.

While analyzing this issue, I saw this message in the 3PAR Management Console:

In addition to that, the customer got e-mails that the 3PAR StoreServ arrays lost the connection to the Quorum Witness appliance. In my case, the CouchDB process died. A restart of the appliance brought it back online. read more

Checking the 3PAR Quorum Witness appliance
3.8 (75%) 4 votes