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Showing posts from April, 2014

Monitoring rotating text files in real time with Powershell

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So I needed a way to monitor some log files in a folder where a new log file gets created when the current one gets too large. All I'm interested in is checking the latest one for certain strings and then alerting if they occur. Powershell to the rescue: #folder to be watched $folder = 'C:\Temp\logger' #file types to be watched for $filter = '*.log' # <-- set this according to your requirements #strings to find in log $matchstring="My matching string" #variable to hold background powershell job $catjob #start a cat task as background process Function StartCat ($filepath) { #stop job is already monitoring a file if ($Global:catjob -ne $null) { stop-job -job $catjob remove-job -job $catjob } $scriptblock = { param ($file, $matchstring) cat $file -wait | ?{$_ -match $matchstring} } #start new job when file changed $Global:catjob = sta
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Wildcard Subdomains in Windows DNS

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On a test web server you may have the need to host multiple websites under several subdomains: site1.server.domain.local site2.server.domain.local site3.server.domain.local Setting up the host headers is straightforward, but a bit of work is required in Windows DNS to get the subdomains working correctly. Launch DNS console Expand Forward Lookup Zones Right click on your domain and click "New Domain" Enter the name of your server (if that's what you're using as the top level of the sub domain) Right click the new domain and click "New Host (A or AAAA)" Enter "*" (without the quotes) for the name and then the IP address of your server Click OK On the server in a raised cmd prompt:  ipconfig /flushdns ipconfig /registerdns All done and your your subdomains will be resolved.
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Cleaning up Sharepoint 2013 backups

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Sharepoint is pretty horrible when it comes to backups, but presuming that you're doing Farm backups rather than just your content database, you'll have to deal with them. I do one full backup per week and differentials in between from Task Scheduler. This generates a lot of data that needs cleaning up, so here's a bit of script. Most of this is directly lifted from a script by  Meat Head Nerd  which I changed to look at the full backups rather than just age of backup. This will remove all full and differential backups prior to the number of full backups you want to keep. # Number of full back ups you want to keep $numfullbackups = 1 # Import the Sharepoint backup report xml file $spbrtoc = “c:\temp\spbrtoc.xml” [xml]$sp = gc $spbrtoc # Find the full backups in spbrtoc.xml $fullbackups = $sp.SPBackupRestoreHistory.SPHistoryObject | ? { $_.SPBackupMethod -eq 'Full' } # Get the start time of the last full backup $lastfullstarttime = $fu
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Popular posts from this blog

Avoid Microsoft Intune if you use G-Suite and Android

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Like me, you might have considered Intune to be your one stop MDM solution if you're an Office/Microsoft 365 user. On the whole it is pretty good, but it's got one massive failing: It doesn't support Google accounts on Android Work Profiles. You might think that if you're a Microsoft shop it's not a big deal, but there two major reasons why you might want to use Google alongside Azure Active Directory: SSO. Many companies charge extra for SSO with Azure but include it for free with Google, e.g. Slack and Atlassian. Chrome. Let's face it, everyone uses Chrome rather than Edge so signing in with a Google account to sync your favourites is pretty handy. Managing this setup in an organisation is pretty easy. Sign up for G-Suite account, sync all your users from Azure AD, configure G-Suite to use AAD for authentication and you're done. Enterprise managed Google accounts for everyone at zero cost if you don't actually need G-Suite. Given the abo
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DFS "Waiting for Initial Replication"

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Taken directly from  Technet Forum  post by  scorprio_milo . Pop along and give them an up vote! You may encounter the error message "waiting for initial replication" when no primary member is currently specified on the DFS Replication. This DFS member is waiting for initial replication for replicated share folder Public and is not currently participating in replication. This delay can occur because the member is waiting for the DFS Replication service to retrieve replication settings from Active Directory. After the member detects that it is part of replication group, the member will begin initial replication.  Besides, there is also possiblity that DFS servers cannot contact domain controller which could result in the issue. 1. Please first verify that all the target folder of Public folder is enabled.   2. Please use Dfsradmin to set the primary member in the situation where there is an existing replication group that is waiting for initial replication and no primary
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Setting Wallpaper for a Remote Desktop Session

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Ah, the fun I had trawling around trying to find out how to set the wallpaper on a remote desktop session! The (seemingly) most obvious answer was changing the Wallpaper setting under Desktop in a GPO, but no. That setting explicitly states that it doesn't apply to RDP sessions, so back to the registry we go... I'm presuming here that we want these settings to apply to all the computers within a specific OU rather than to individual users. Create a new GPO "Wallpaper" Navigate to Computer Config/Policies/Admin Templates/System/Group Policy Set "Configure user Group Policy loopback processing mode" to Enabled with Mode as "Merge" Navigate to Computer Config/Policies/Admin Templates/Windows Components/Remote Desktop Services/Remote Desktop Session Host/Remote Session Environment Set "Always show desktop on connection" to Enabled Set "Enforce Removal of Remote Desktop Wallpaper" to Disabled Navigate to Computer Con
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