Monthly Archives: February 2017

Protect your linkedin, facebook, gmail, microsoft, dropbox and other accounts by 2fa.

February 25, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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Have you ever lost access to your linkedin, microsoft, skype, yahoo, twitter, facebook IDs? Do you know what pain is it to restore access? If the answer is yes, then you know what i mean. #2fa is what you need.

There are a lot of hardware and software keyloggers to steal your credentials (username and password). In this article i am going to give you some initial recommendations how to protect your internet accounts.

The most widespread type is surely software keyloggers inside various viruses and other malware, so good antivirus is first defensive line. Just don’t relax too early, … Read the rest

GAL/Global Address List without Exchange

February 15, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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One of the most useful features of Lotus, Exchange and so on is Global Address Directory which can be centrally maintained by IT team or delegated HR user .  GAL makes company email, phone contacts lists more adequate, freshly updated and as result more trustworthy, with less mistakes unlike manually updated on each user Outlook (after regular mass email with updated contacts for everybody in organization. Such multiple updates finally completely mess up all contacts, multiple NDR and returned email)

Advantages of GAL:

  1. new employee immediately has access to the latest updated company contacts
  2. no need manually for each user
… Read the rest

Register to new IT seminar. Bootcamp for SMB IT sysadmins.

February 13, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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Building from scratch SMB IT infrastructure. Common mistakes, pitfalls.

Intro:

This seminar was designed for IT sysadmins, IT engineers who needs to systematize own field experience and fill the gaps in practical and theoretical knowledge. The agenda of seminar deliberately organized to embrace as much as possible practical skills, specifics from real life needs in Mongolia. The topics which included in the seminar are missing in other official courses or too spread over different resources and never before collected in a such way in one place interconnected.

[spoiler effect=”blind”]

Other our courses are more formal and official, but this one … Read the rest

Video how to use Monuni v1.0 on one computer for multiple Windows users

February 8, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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It’s highly recommended to avoid assigning to ordinary user excessive rights. A such limitation considerably reduce that workstation maintenance time and efforts, creating more stable and predictable work environment.
But on other hand it’s very common that many sysadmins provide LocalAdmin rights justifying themselves that legacy programs stop working without elevated rights. It’s one of the main reasons when Active Directory implementation projects misstep.

In fact there are several resolutions for a such situations. One example is demonstrated below:

Monuni v1.0 program.

Purpose: to convert old style win1251 encoding text (created by Monkey, Monwin and others) to Unicode text directly … Read the rest

Some considerations about what is highly preferable to have for SMB companies in Mongolia:

February 5, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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1. For central office to have at least small server room – dedicated isolated room with at least consumer Air Conditioner [better japanese – about 1500000 mnt + installation fee]( when you use only RACK without server room – too loud, physically not secure even for locked RACK [anybody can hit or collide with RACK and shock damages hard drives], too much dust which will clog all fans and as consequence rise of temperature, fan speed, even more noise). Size is at least 2×2.5 meter to place RACK and be able to go around it, room door better … Read the rest

Advantages and disadvantages of Dell Optiplex as a cheap server for SMB.

February 5, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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pros:
1. considerably cheaper, more affordable
2. small size
3. later can be re-used as usual workstation

cons:
1. not so reliable as a real server
2. weak redundancy
3. not supported by vmware and so on
4. no real RAID, only fake intel matrix raid.
5. not so high quality of internal parts and so on
6. if to compare with Dell PowerEdges – no lifecycle controller, idrac and so on (poor remote management)

But what justifies such compromise approach:
1. i7 cpu is not so good as recent Xeon, but very close by performance (good enough for

… Read the rest

why it’s so important and desirable to have configured graceful shutdown for servers and hypervisors.

February 5, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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Why it’s so important and desirable to have configured graceful shutdown for DB servers and hypervisors.

From my experience it’s completely nonsense that almost all Mongolian companies are so neglect to UPS issues. Servers should be mandatory configured for graceful shutdown by USB or PCNS cards. Otherwise for long black outs there is no difference between UPS backed or not RACK systems – servers will be just cut off mercilessly damaging database files, file system, boot sectors, virtual hard disks and so on. 

In case of proper configuration and on battery event SmartUPS (or very few BackuUPS) will send

… Read the rest

Obvious, but neglected. How and why it’s important to properly configure your Outlook?

February 5, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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It’s very common that business users experience multiple issues with own company email addresses and mailboxes.

The basic recommendation is :

1. stop using ISP public smtp relays like smtp.univision.mn and so on (use only own mail hosting smtp servers)

2. stop using non-SSL or non-TSL connection for email (plaintext credentials can be easily intercepted, later misused or used for spam, or to discredit you, blackmail you, steal your correspondence, ransomware)

3. if your mail hosting (something like “anyone@magicnet.mn”) doesn’t like provide smtp server then you should configure your Outlook to use credential for other your mailbox, for example

… Read the rest

The main misunderstandings about AD/Active Directory:

February 5, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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1. The majority of Mongolian companies start to use AD just as a prerequisite for other Microsoft solution (for example for MS Dyn Nav). so that AD is considered just like part of other solution, not as a stand-alone very important security solution itself.

2. Other wrong common mistake – AD requires Microsoft licenses or that only licensed windows OS can integrated to AD. Piracy doesn’t have any direct impact on AD functionality (although not hotfixed and updated cracked OS can have problems even without AD).

3. Another mistake – AD is not free. Wrong. If you have

… Read the rest

How to update Dell firmware from Lifecycle Controller with error “The updates you are trying to apply are not Dell-authorized ..

February 5, 2017 by Munkhtuvshin Baatar
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Recently i have tried to update my R720 PE Dell servers firmware (suspecting that multiple SATA hdd damages are due to wrong not updated RAID controller firmware, btw wrong suspect), but got below error:
At first i thought that it’s temp ftp.dell.com server problem, later that it’s due some problems with DNS for ftp.dell.com in Mongolia. But everything was easier, just in wrong outdated iDRAC version (and integrated into it LC/lifecycle controller) so that LC couldn’t properly get firmware from Dell ftp.
So just go to Dell site:
  • enter your server
… Read the rest