Categories
Technology Windows Server

Windows Server Event Log Clean up

Event 5152 Removal

If you have these

5152 useless event log entries

And want to get rid of these entries

Do This

C:\Windows\system32>auditpol /set /subcategory:”Filtering Platform Packet Drop”
/failure:disable
The command was successfully executed.

C:\Windows\system32>auditpol /set /subcategory:”Filtering Platform Connection” /
failure:disable
The command was successfully executed.

C:\Windows\system32>net stop MPSSVC
The Windows Firewall service is stopping.
The Windows Firewall service was stopped successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>net start mpssvc
The Windows Firewall service is starting.
The Windows Firewall service was started successfully.

Categories
Phone Systems Technology

How To Beat Robo-Calls

Robo-Calls can be legal or illegal and should be expected from time to time (especially during the campaign season). And are practically impossible for small to medium businesses to stop. But you will have some options personally

Illegal Calls

  1. If the call tries to sell you something and you have not agreed to it.
  2. It’s a private company working on behalf of charity and you are not allowed to opt out

Legal Calls

  • Political adds(at least it’s an honest abuse of power), and information calls like from a school or pharmacy
  • Charities that contact you directly

Learn More details here

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0259-robocalls

And make sure your numbers are on the Dot Not Call Registry https://www.donotcall.gov/

What can you do if you get an illegal Robo-Call?

  1. Hang up
  2. Report the call to the FTC at https://www.donotcall.gov/. record the caller and any number you are told to call back. This information is not only investigated if enough reports come in but also reported to a spam call database that the carriers and other call blocking solutions use. This blocks a lot of calls before they even get to us.
  3. You also can find a list of call-blocking apps for mobile SmartPhones at ctia.org, a website for the U.S. wireless communications industry. The site lists apps specific to AndroidBlackBerryiOS (Apple).

NOTE: Small businesses don’t have many options to block these calls except encourage reporting so our carriers can improve blocking

Categories
Phone Systems Technology

Sagnoma Switchvox Third Party SSL Install

Steps

  1. Perform a Donation to https://www.sslforfree.com/
  2. Register for an account at https://www.sslforfree.com/
  3. Do custom Verification by adding a DNS txt record
  4. Once verified, Download and unzip certs
  5. Make sure you have Openssl install on your Mac/PC/Linux
  6. open terminal prompt, and navigate to your key folder
  7. run “openssl rsa -in private.key -text > private.pem”
  8. Open the new pem file, and copy only the rsa portal and past into the private key section of the Switchvox

NOTE: erroneous error will display if your server IP address is local IP, and if you have other phone network IP addresses which are not public IP address which is registered with the certificate

If an SSL certificate blocks your web access, make sure you have accepted the certificate in your browser, or try using a different browser. 

Make sure that the certificate matches the hostname on the Switchvox server (go to Server > IP Configuration > Advanced Options > Hostname (and Jabber Hostname can be the same as the Hostname).

Check under Server > Phone Networks and make sure the Host Address has the hostname there, not the IP Address of the server.

RESET SSL from Server Console

From the appliance, plug a VGA monitor and a USB keyboard into the Switchvox server. There are a few things you can do to restore service from the text menu. 

  • Unblock local IPs 
  • Restore Web Admin Access
  • Reset HTTPS certificate only IF the certificate you created and installed is still not working.
Categories
Remote Access Technology

Add AD user to remote computer RDP Group

If you admin a Microsoft domain, and users use Remote Desktop to remote into their LAN PC, you have to at times add the users account to the computers local remote desktop group.

Powershell Script

$sb = {
$members = ‘NET\persons.account’
Add-LocalGroupMember -Group ‘Remote Desktop Users’ -Member $members
}
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock $sb -Computername station60

Categories
DNS SSL Technology

Adding SSL to your GoDaddy Site for Free

Security is important, and web browser makers are making SSL pretty much mandatory. If you purchase a ssl cert you will be spending some coin, plus IMHO it is more complicated that doing it for free.

I will show you how I setup my GoDaddy sites with SSL certificates using sslforfree.com and DoDaddy DNS.

Requirements

  1. DNS Hosting on GoDaddy
  2. Web Sites Hosted on GoDaddy

Tools You May Use

  1. web site sslforfree.com Please donate for the free service relative to your income. It keeps these type of services affordable for everyone.
  2. Web site Godaddy.com
  3. Web site https://dnslookup.online/soa.html
  4. Web site https://dnschecker.org
  5. Command or terminal prompt with nslookup

Step 1

Log into GoDaddy and click on DNS >> Manage Zones

Type in your domain name you want to add SSL to

look for existing TXT records that are named _acme-challenge and you see any delete them

Next, go to the web site sslforfree.com and enter that same domain name without the www in it, click “Create Free SSL Certificates”

You will have three options, choose the Manual Verification DNS option.

Then click “Manually Verify Domain” button

  • Add a TXT record
  • Copy form sslforfree the host _acme.challenge and paste into host field of GoDaddy TXT record
  • Copy the sslforfree.com value and paste into GoDaddy TXT Value field
  • Change the GoDaddy TTL to Custom and the Seconds to 600. that is the lowest GoDaddy allows.
  • Do the same fo the www record also. It will be identical to the first one but the _acme-challenge will have .www in it also
  • No open each sslForFree verify links in a new browser tab. Normally DNS record updates are available within 60 seconds or less. You should see something like the below. Key on the first sentance “TXT Record(s) Found.” if you see that you are good.

If you do NOT see that but rather see the below error, Go To Troubleshooting below.

No TXT Record Found. Make to set the TTL to 1 second or if you cannot set the TTL then you must wait the TTL (in seconds) so it updates before verifying the domain. Contact your DNS provider if unsure.

Assuming your DNS TXT records checked out, you can now click the button “Download SSL Certificate”. This will generate the certificate, private key and CA Bundle. These three blocks of text are required to be copied and pasted into GoDaddy. It will take about 30 seconds for the certs to be generated.

Once certificate is generated

  • Go to CPanel >> Search for SSL and select SSL/TLS.
  • Now Select Manage SSL Certificates link
  • Copy and Paste your certificate in the field called Certificate (CRT) and click the AutoFill by Certificate button
  • Copy and Paste the sslforfree field called private key into the GoDaddy Private Key (KEY) Field
  • Finally click the button at the bottom Install Certificate
  • Congrats, your SSL Cert is installed.
Click SSL/TLS link
Click the AutoFill by Certificate

Troubleshooting

Steps

  1. Confirm the SOA DNS shows your text records
  2. Confirm replication is taking place throughout the world

Use the Tools to verify Replication

  1. web site https://dnslookup.online/soa.html
  2. web site https://dnschecker.org
  3. command or terminal prompt with nslookup

Confirm SOA is Correct

SOA or Start of Authority is what I call the master DNS Record holder. This is the GoDaddy name server that holds your DNS Records (what you just changed) and those changes get replicated to hundreds of DNS servers in the world. One of which SslForFree will query to see if your TXT record exists during verification.

To Get your DNS GoDaddy DNS server name you can use dnslookup.online/soa.html. Enter your domain name and click SOA Lookup. This will show you the DNS server that your master DNS Record is in. the SOA server name is the Mname.

Once you know the master SOA server name you can use a command prompt to see if the Master Server is the issue or replication of DNS is the issue.

Go to your terminal prompt or command prompt and enter nslookup -q=TXT _acme-challenge.mydomain.name and the mName from SOA lookup tool. Obviously replace mydomain.name with your actual domain name.

Example lookup

This will return either the text value of the TXT record you queried, or will return “server can’t find _acme-challenge.domain.name NXDOMAIN”. this means that your actual DNS Record may be entered incorrectly, or there is a problem with the GoDaddy DNS server, contact GoDaddy.

WARNING: GoDaddy will certainly help with the DNS, but no so much with you trying to use the ssl from SSLFor Free. The sell a product for ssl certificates, and that is what they will recommend. So keep the call about DNS only.

Once your SOA DNS server is returning both TXT records, try and refresh the sslForFree verify pages again. Could be the replication has made it to them, and you can move on to generating your cert. If not yet, check the replication of the master SOA DNS Records. Go to https://dnschecker.org and select TXT for the type and enter your full TXT Record including the domain name. You should see a map with either Green checks or red x’s. If you are green, then at this point you should be able to generate your ssl certs, and copy paste the cert, private key and ca bundle to GoDaddy and install your cert.

If you are still having issues, you should probably buy the GoDaddy certificate.