Mar 15

Automated checking of external IP

You host your own mailserver (and the provider even lets you), but the external IP address of your DSL/Cable connection is dynamic. So after a few days suddenly you realise there is no connection to the mailserver, and all the mail is bounced back to the senders. Sure makes for a quiet weekend, but not what you intended with this setup.

If you are somehow unable or unwilling to use Dynamic DNS setups, you can use the script below to periodically lookup the external IP address and send it via email, on the internal side of the mailserver ofcourse, to you if it has changed.

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Mar 15

Testing Exchange connectivity

Nowadays everyone wants to be able to sync their phone with email and calendars. Ofcourse you have to provide this on the widely used Windows Small Business Server or normal Exchange Servers as well. You have setup Exchange, even managed to add a certificate (as you should!) but something is not working with the phone sync, but what?

Adding remote login to an Exchange server can be a real pain, specially if something goes wrong and you are unable to find the problem via normal routes (ie. Windows event viewer). There is a good solution however to troubleshoot most problems for remote login. Go to the website below and give it a try yourself, helped me out in more than one occasion:

https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/

Mar 15

Handy backup scripts

Making backups isn’t really a priority for most of us. But if you ever had a crash you know the horror of not having one. Here’s some basic scripts for various systems that preform automatic backups. I have added scripts for Cisco devices, MySQL backups for Linux and Synctoy file synchronisation (automated).

For easy editing I have marked the options that need changing in red.

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Mar 15

57 Things every admin should know

Administrating tasks in Windows can take up a lot of our time. It doesn’t help that Microsoft decided to add more and more wizards that you basicly have to use in order to preform simple tasks. It doesn’t feel right most of the time and useing the CLI makes you look good, am I right?

Lucky for admins it is still possible to use the command line for tasks that just take up a lot of our time when doing it via the GUI. There are also some tips for Linux in here for good measure, but lets face it, as long as Windows is used in 90% of all businesses we are pretty much stuck with these tedious tasks.

Mar 15

New tech blog

Hello friends and random strangers. To keep track of some handy tools and settings in my work field I’ve decided to make a blog. On this blog you wont find any whimsical stories about my life or anything like that and it won’t be updated that often most likely. I just use this to keep track of some technical solutions I’ve had dealings with and keep anyone who is interested informed. Also from time to time I will post some general tips about IT/computer related subjects that might interest computer users, most of these will be software tips and extensions for my favorite browser which is Chrome at the moment.

If you find this site useful, or have a suggestion about a topic, feel free to add a comment anywhere on this site. You can also contact me via this website or try to stalk me a little via the social media buttons 😉