When I first started using VMware ESX I was testing VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) to dump my virtual machines to a staging area before being copied offsite. I noticed that one of the VMs had a VMDK attached that as far as the OS (Windows Server 2003) was concerned with had all of the data deleted on that volume. After initiating a VCB dump (backup) on the VM I noticed that the VMDK that was dumped to my staging area strangely appeared to contain data. The VMDK size was considerably larger than it should have been for a disk that Windows reported as containing zero data.
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At work, people were using VPN to access their email out of the office, but I have always thought that logging into a corporate network via VPN for most users is an extra hassle that they could probably do without. I had considered setting up RPC over HTTPS for Exchange 2003 but during a meeting regarding disaster recovery it became evident it was actually now a necessity. So, after configuring the server for RPC-HTTPS I had the small problem of deploying the settings to Outlook clients en masse.
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As part of my Service Level Agreement at work I have to produce a monthly uptime report for each server. Rather than generate individual reports for each server I decided to write a KiXtart script that would generate a report for all servers and email it to me each month.
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At work there is an old web application that is managed offsite by a hosting company. It runs on Oracle 9iAS. Apparently there is an issue with Oracle 9i and the web service will frequently crash (due to a known caching problem) taking the application offline.
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Here is a registry key I run from a startup script to disable the option that allows users to invoke a "Log on using dial-up connection". Having had experience of working in a school I know how kids will use any excuse to distract them from logging onto a computer and starting the lesson!
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Here is another quick KiXtart script I wrote to backup a Microsoft SQL database on a server. I personally run it locally on the server that contains the database I want to backup using a scheduled task. It connects to the MSSQL database using the OSQL command line utility which it runs through a shell.
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Here's a quick script written using KiXtart to retrieve information for a user (object) in Active Directory. Once enumerated, object information is stored in variables to be used later.
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