!NSFW

How to tell what distro you are running?

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:09:04 +0000

So you inherit a box running linux and you have no idea which flavor of linux it is. How do you find out?

If all you need the kernel version you can try
uname -a

This outputs something like this

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.20-31.9 #1 Tue Apr 13 18:04:23 EDT 2004 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

If you need the actual distro name you can try
cat /etc/*release

In Ubuntu it shows up as

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=”Ubuntu 9.04″

Or even
cat /etc/issue

which spits out the following on Ubuntu

Ubuntu 9.04 \n \l

You can combine all three to get the following
uname -a && cat /etc/*release && cat /etc/issue

Batch editing Dial-up or VPN access settings in Active Directory

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Active Directory doesn’t let you edit the Dial-up of VPN access policies for multiple users at once through the GUI. You have to edit this setting one at a time for each user. This can be painstaking if you a lot of users. Luckily there is a VB script available like for almost everything else in AD.
Dim aConnection, aCommand, aResult, strLDAPPath, user, objUser Const ADS_PROPERTY_CLEAR = 1 strLDAPPath = InputBox("Please enter the LDAP path of the OU:") WScript.Echo strLDAPPath Set aConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection") Set aCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command") aConnection.Provider = "ADsDSOObject" aConnection.Open aCommand.ActiveConnection = aConnection aCommand.CommandText=";(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User));distinguishedName;subTree" Set aResult = aCommand.Execute() Do While Not aResult.EOF strDN = aResult.Fields("distinguishedName") WScript.Echo strDN Set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://" & strDN) ' Comment the following line to manage connection through Remote Access Policy objUser.Put "msNPAllowDialin", FALSE ' Uncomment the following line to manage connection through Remote Access Policy ' objUser.PutEx ADS_PROPERTY_CLEAR, "msNPAllowDialin", 0 objUser.SetInfo aResult.MoveNext Loop

This script will update the access settings for a group of users in a particular OU. Once you run the script, a dialog box will ask you for this OU. Once this is set all users in that OU will be updated.

The AD property this script modifies is ‘msNPAllowDialin’. This property is accepts boolean values. So the three options are

TRUE (to allow access)

FALSE (to deny access)

To manage access via the Remote Access Policy, comment out the
objUser.Put "msNPAllowDialin", FALSE
and uncomment the
' objUser.PutEx ADS_PROPERTY_CLEAR, "msNPAllowDialin", 0
line.

SNMP on OpenSolaris

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:46:05 +0000

SNMP is not installed by default on Open Solaris but really easy to set up. You don’t need to compile it from source as some would suggest.

All you’ll need is to install the SUNWsmmgr package.
pkg install SUNWsmmgr
All of the config files, including snmpd.conf are in /etc/sma/snmp.

The service to enable snmp is called sma.
svcadm enable svc:/application/management/sma:default

To install utilities like snmpwalk and snmpget, you can install the SUNWsmcmd package.

Installing VirtualBoxAdditions in Ubuntu

admin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:56:24 +0000

In order to install Virtual Box Additions on your newly install Ubuntu virtual machine, you will need to fulfill the following dependencies.

Install dkms and the GNU C Compiler using the following command:

sudo apt-get install dkms gcc

Install the build and header files for Ubuntu using the following command:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

$(uname -r) in the above command just passes your kernel version to apt-get

How to tell if .Net Framework is installed

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:59:35 +0000

The officially supported method of detecting the presence of the .NET Framework 2.0 is to check the following registry key/value:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Net Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727] Install = 1 (REG_DWORD)

Change password from the command line

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:50:04 +0000

net user
Or if you want to hide the password and enter it at a prompt
net user *

Allowing non-admin Windows users to change IP addresses

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:34:32 +0000

If you want to allow non-admin users in Windows to change the IP address settings on their PCs, you can add them to the built-in “Network Configuration Operators” group. This can be done from the command line as

net localgroup "Network Configuration Operators" /add

Install Office 2003 without a CD key ..sort of

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:21:43 +0000

Office 2003 wont install unless you supply a valid license key, unlike Office 2007 which lets you enter the key once you’re done installing. This is very inconvenient when you’re trying to create a base image of a system to deploy on multiple PCs. You can’t have the same Office license key for all the PCs.

In order to get somewhat similar functionality as Office 2007, i.e., install without key to be filled in later, use the following method. You will still need a valid serial key for the first install, but it will be cleared after its completed.

setup.exe /QB PIDKEY=YOURSERIALHERE regedit /S clear-key.reg

The first line installs office silently with the specified key, and second line clears the registration information. The clear-key.reg file contains the following registry key

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Registration]

Now when you run Office, it’ll ask you for a license key.

Allowing non-admins to manage services in Windows

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:39:21 +0000

This Microsoft KB article lists 3 ways to grant non-admin users the rights to manage services on a windows machine.

Method 1: Grant rights using Group Policy
Method 2: Grant rights using Security templates
Method 3: Grant rights using Subinacl.exe

The easiest and fastest method? Method 3 using subinacl.
SUBINACL /SERVICE \\MachineName\ServiceName /GRANT=[DomainName\]UserName[=Access]

[Source: How to grant users rights to manage services in Windows 2000]

Manage Exchange mailboxes from the command-line

admin — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:58:21 +0000

ExchMbx is a command-line utility that lets you create user mailboxes, mail enable an AD object, move mailboxes and delete mailboxes among other tasks that can be done using the GUI.

Ex1:
ExchMbx -b cn=joe,dc=joe,dc=net -cr srv1:sg1:db2
Create mailbox for joe in Server srv1, storage group sg1, database db2.

Ex2:
ExchMbx -b cn=joe,dc=joe,dc=net -move srv1:sg1:db2
Ditto ex1 but move.

Ex3:
ExchMbx -b cn=joe,cn=users,dc=joe,dc=net -clear
Clear Exchange attrs for joe, will delete mailbox or
clean email addresses of mailenabled objects.

Ex4:
ExchMbx -b cn=gr1,cn=users,dc=joe,dc=net -me
Mail Enable group gr1

Ex5:
ExchMbx -b cn=con1,cn=users,dc=joe,dc=net -me joe@joeware.net
Mail Enable contact con1 with email address joe@joeware.net

ExchMbx can be obtained from joeware.net along with many other useful tools.

[examples sourced from the ExchMbx Usage page]