cat brain | grep interesting >> blog

line editing tricks and shortcuts for powershell

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:44:53 -0500

line editing tricks and shortcuts for powershell:

I’ve been using PowerShell for a couple years now and I didn’t know hitting Esc cleared the current line…

export and import ou's and users from ad

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:53:51 -0500

export and import ou's and users from ad:

Perfect for setting up a lab.

install any version of vsphere client on win8

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:47:13 -0500

install any version of vsphere client on win8

change win7 explorer default view to my computer

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:10:58 -0500

change win7 explorer default view to my computer:

This always bugged me but it’s taken me this long to actually google how to fix it…

change windows server edition with dism

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:57:13 -0500

change windows server edition with dism

spiceworks - free monitoring and alerting for windows and linux

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:44:00 -0600

spiceworks - free monitoring and alerting for windows and linux:

How am I just now discovering Spiceworks? This is amazing, can’t believe it’s free*.

*they do collect info/data but it’s supposedly anonymized

change time zone for all computers in an ou with powershell

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:39:49 -0600

Here’s a little PowerShell script you can use to change the time zone for all computers in a certain OU.

Start-Transcript

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

$cred = Get-Credential

$arr = Get-ADComputer -SearchBase ‘OU=Servers,OU=example,dc=blah,dc=com’ -Filter ‘*’ | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name

#for debugging - manually set the array for testing

#$arr = “server01”, “server02”

foreach ($a in $arr)

{

Write $a

Write “current time zone is”

invoke-command -cn $a -cred $cred {tzutil /g}

Write “———————”

Write “overwriting time zone”

invoke-command -cn $a -cred $cred {tzutil /s “Central Standard Time”}

Write “———————”

}

Stop-Transcript

vmware file level restores with netapp datastores

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:56:18 -0600

vmware file level restores with netapp datastores:

Works great for Windows MBR disks, but not so much for GPT disks. Anyone have a solution for GPT disks?

add users to a group based on an ad attribute

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:28:06 -0600

Props to TechNet forums user philldogger for this one. If you want to build a group in AD based on the value of an attribute that the users will have (e.g. make a DFS group based on Department) you can do this:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

Get-ADUser -filter{department -like “Accounting”} | %{Add-ADGroupMember dfs_dept_Accounting $_.SamAccountName}

In this example I am specifying the “department” AD attribute and looking for anyone who’s Department is set to “Accounting” and adding them to my AD group named “dfs_dept_Accounting”.

If you want to script it so the group membership is updated as new people join, add this line below the importing of the AD PowerShell module.

Get-ADGroupMember dfs_dept_Accounting | %{remove-adgroupmember dfs_dept_Accounting $_.SamAccountName -Confirm:$false}

This will wipe out the group and then re-add everyone. You can have one script per group you’d like to be updated, or combine multiple into one script. Fair warning though, if you have a good sized AD the script’s could take a long time to run and may hammer your DC’s so do due diligence.

wpkg - free software deployment and management for windows

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 09:51:55 -0600

wpkg - free software deployment and management for windows:

Haven’t tried it out yet but this looks really handy.

deprecated linux commands and their replacements

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 09:49:58 -0600

deprecated linux commands and their replacements

the rosetta stone for unix - common equivalents across *nix

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 09:49:00 -0600

the rosetta stone for unix - common equivalents across *nix:

This is so god damn handy that anyone who works on any kind of *nix system should bookmark it.

bginfo and group policy preferences

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:09:00 -0600

After you download BgInfo and get your configuration file created you can easily create a GPO using Group Policy Preferences to have it load on any computer on your domain.

Copy the BgInfo.exe and your config.bgi to \your.domain\NETLOGON share.
Create a new GPO and goto Computer > Preferences > Windows Settings > Files
Right and click and goto New > File
Under Action make sure it says Update
Under source file put “\your.domain\NETLOGON\Bginfo.exe”
Under destination file put “C:\Program Files\BgInfo\Bginfo.exe”
Click OK to close and then repeat step 3 to add another file
Again under Action make sure it says Update
Under source file put “\your.domain\NETLOGON\yourConfig.bgi”
Under destination file put “C:\Program Files\BgInfo\yourConfig.bgi”
Click OK to close
Now back in the GPO window goto the Registry section (Computer > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry)
Right and click and goto New > Registry Item
Under Action make sure it says Update
Change Hive to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”
For key path add “SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run”
For Value Name add “BgInfo”
For Value Type set it to “REG_SZ”
In Value Data put (including the quotes) “C:\Program Files\BgInfo\Bginfo.exe” “C:\Program Files\BgInfo\yourConfig.bgi” /silent /timer:0 /NOLICPROMPT”

Your GPO is now ready, add a scope and test it out.

how to use perfmon to checkout your server

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 13:38:16 -0600

how to use perfmon to checkout your server:

Great summary article on what to look for using a handful of useful counters in perfmon on a Windows server.

various sccm 2012 device collection queries

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:23:27 -0600

various sccm 2012 device collection queries

my recent job interviewing experience

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:28:25 -0600

I’m happy to say that I’ve just accepted a position with a great company and will be relocating to Chicago for it. I started looking for a job pretty seriously about 8 months ago after having been with a previous employer over six years (my first job out of college). I actually accepted a new position about 3 months ago, and now I’m leaving it. Yes I know in the traditional sense this looks bad, but does it really? Beyond my initial call with the recruiter, the job I’m taking now they didn’t seem to care I had only been there a short time. Hell when I did my first phone interview it hadn’t even been a month!

In the last 8 months I’ve done probably 30 phone interviews (including multiple with the same potential employer), I’ve had 3 in person interviews (all of which I was offered the job), and sent my resume out to over 50 job advertisements. I’m not posting this to brag, but rather to share my experiences in the recent job hunt and maybe give some advice. I’ve interviewed with some big companies (Amazon Web Services) and lots of smaller to medium sized ones too, and for the most part it was a similar experience across the board.

I’m a SysAdmin if you don’t know already so that’s the type of jobs I’ve been applying for. All the initial phone interviews are the same. Always a technical benchmark, with mostly straightforward answers with the occasional open ended or “what would you do” type of scenario question. These are the minimum barrier of entry, weed out the crap type interviews, and I can only remember one from a security company that was difficult for me because quite honestly the job was out of my league (they called me back and said no thanks). If you are applying for a job you better be able to answer questions on every single technology they list in the advertisement because you can pretty much count on being asked about each during a phone interview.

What I learned most was that personality is everything. Today there are so many IT professionals and, especially with big companies, the only thing to differentiate you from everyone else is your personality. There is always someone better and smarter than you, so if you can meet the qualifications, speak with confidence, and mesh well with the team you stand a good chance. I talked to several employers who complained of finding very smart people, but they always ended up being egotistical jerks. If you’re an IT guy with a big ego and you’re looking for a job you better learn to tone it down or I can guarantee you won’t land your dream gig for awesome_startup_01. Nobody wants to work with you no matter how good you are, and they know there are at least 5 other people out there with a similar skill-set to yours who aren’t assholes. The exception being if the job is in some rural craphole, but then again that probably isn’t your dream job. At least try and wait 6 months before you turn into a jerk at your new job, don’t scoff at interview questions or try to show anyone up. They won’t be impressed, they won’t call you back. Speak with confidence, but not with attitude.

The other important thing I learned is that people really only look for the job requirements within your resume. First line HR types will screen it looking for key information matching the required section of the job ad. The hiring manager will probably read it all, but everyone else will skim picking out what they want to quiz you on or what they care about most (usually where the most help is needed). Same goes for the cover letter. I can only recall one person mentioning something I put in my cover letter. Not to say that they aren’t reading it and that you shouldn’t put effort into it because if you have spelling mistakes or write like a 3rd grader you’ll probably get filtered, but more to the point that you need to really make sure you are targetting the skills they are interested in inside them. I thought I had a couple cool things on my resume, and out of all the places I talked to not once were they brought up in any capacity. The first was a Research Grant I was awarded from a university (I think it’s cool and it’s IT security related), and the other was a time when I was invited to MS headquarters in Redmond as a “Subject Matter Expert.” These are two things you won’t find on everyone’s resume and I was expecting SOMEONE to mention them, but nope never. The hiring teams/panels only care about what you will do for them and their immediate needs.

My last bit of advice is to listen carefully during phone interviews and take note of the questions they are asking. Repeatedly asked SQL or VMware questions? They likely need help there badly. Pick up on that and be ready to use that if you’re invited for an in-person interview to capitalize on it. Then when they inevitably ask you what you bring to the table or what makes you stand out you can say, “It sounds like you guys really need someone with VMware experience and…”

I guess the short version of my ramblings is this:

(resume focused on the job advertisement + demonstrated knowledge to backup claims + ability to pick up on employers needs and ask pointed/relevant questions back + confidence factor) * (personality index) = chance of success for obtaining job

script to launch armitage teamserver quickly

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:14:27 -0600

Quickly launch an Armitage teamserver with the servers IP address (eth0 by default, modify the script accordingly) automatically detected and with a pre-set password:

#!/bin/bash

echo “launching multiplayer hacking ;)”

echo “…”

ipaddr=`ip addr show eth0 | grep -w “inet” | gawk ‘{ print $2 }’ | cut -f1 -d\/`

echo “IP is $ipaddr”

echo “…”

cd /opt/metasploit/msf3/data/armitage/

/opt/metasploit/msf3/data/armitage/teamserver $ipaddr password

adb driver for samsung galaxy s3 for windows

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:51:00 -0600

adb driver for samsung galaxy s3 for windows

install adb driver for nexus 7 on windows

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 15:25:33 -0600

If you have a Nexus 7 and you are following the developer.android.com tutorial and trying to run your first Android app you may be wondering why ADT won’t see your device. Thanks to this helpful article I found the solution:

In ADT go to the ‘Window’ menu at the top and then select ‘Android SDK Manager’ from the dropdown. A new window should open and start loading available things to download.
Under the ‘Extras’ section, look for ‘Google USB Driver’ then install it by ticking the box and clicking “Install packages…”.
Go to Device Manager in Windows and you should see your Nexus under ‘Other devices’ with a yellow exclamation mark indicating its missing a driver. Right click on it and choose ‘Update driver software’. When it asks for the driver location it will be in your ADT bundle directory at ”adt-bundle-windows\sdk\extras\google\usb_driver”.
Finish through the driver wizard and plug in your Nexus 7. Be sure USB debugging is enabled.

lunch at the hp cafeteria

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:10:05 -0600

lunch at the hp cafeteria