On modern Windows servers, you can create a self-signed certificate with powershell, using the new-selfsignedcertificate command. By default, this certificate will only last for 1 year before expiring. To create a certificate that lasts a little longer, fire up an admin powershell, and do this:

$fromtoday = get-date
$5years = $fromtoday.addyears(5)
new-selfsignedcertificate -dnsname mycertname.mydomainname.com -notafter $5years -certstorelocation cert:\localmachine\my

By default, when you add a hard drive to a VMWare virtual machine, the SCSI adapter default choice is LSI Logic SAS. For speed and optimization, the VMWare Paravirtual driver is the better choice. However, you need to have the driver installed in the guest OS before just flipping your controller to a new type. If you just change the controller type to VMWare Paravirtual, and the driver is not installed in the guest OS, your VM may not boot.

1. Edit settings on the VM, and add a new SCSI controller to slot 1, selecting “VMWare Paravirtual” as the type.
2. Add a 1gb disk to the VM, adding it to the new slot 1 controller you created in step 1.
3. Check compmgmt.msc on the VM to ensure that you see the new SCSI controller driver under “Storage Controllers”
4. Optionally, update the driver on the guest OS by searching online for an updated version. I found one from 2019.
5. Shut the machine down, and edit settings again. Remove the 1gb disk you created earlier.
6. Click on the old SCSI controller in slot 0 and expand it. Change the type to “VMware Paravirtual”
7. Remove the additional SCSI controller added in step 1.
8. Click OK, and boot the server again.
9. Once the server is booted, it should report that it found and installed a new driver, (again) and will request a reboot.
10. Reboot the server.

Recently, I was asked to find all emails sent to and from a particular user, from an external email address. The mailbox exists in Office365, so I hopped into Compliance Center, and started a new Content Search. In trying to fill out the form for the recipient, or participant, I realized that I could not choose or enter an external email address. When I try to enter an external SMTP address, it says that there is “No User Chosen”, and you cannot continue with creating the search.

To get around this, you can enter your search parameters in the “Keywords” box, and ignore the other fields, like so:

KEYWORDS:

(date=2019-07-30..2020-09-17)(senderauthor=localuser@localdomain.com)(senderauthor=remoteuser@externaldomain.com)(participants=localuser@localdomain.com)(participants=remoteuser@externaldomain.com)(participants=remoteuser2@otherexternaldomain.com)

You might notice that we’ve now got a lock in the address bar when you visit. Our site is now protected by LetsEncrypt.org. LetsEncrypt offers free, 3-month SSL certificates, provided that your DNS host supports CAA records. I’ll do a full write-up on how to install and use certbot to automate your SSL certificate requests and installation soon.

Good read: Mark Russinovich lays it out

On this day in 1989, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee presented to CERN management a proposal for a “universal linked information system” called Mesh, meant to help staff at the Swiss research center coordinate their work. Today, what we now know as the World Wide Web turns 25. Berners-Lee gave several interviews for the occasion. Looking back on his creation, he told CNet he’s glad the Web has developed as a “non-national” entity but deplores that most people on the Web still stick to their own cultures and their own ways, using the technology to reinforce their biases rather than open their world:

“I’d like it if developers on the Web could tackle the question of how to make Web sites that actually make us more friendly to people we don’t know so well,” he said.

I’m almost *giggling* while I post this..
FREE ATARI!!!
THANK YOU, Archive!!

The general gist of the message is that this attack will be in retaliation for war crimes committed by the USA against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The attack is supposedly to “wipe the US government off the cyber map” and is being organized from a nation (according to Wikipedia) known for lots of not-so-good stuff:

## From Wikipedia ##
The government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d’etat led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On 16 April 2009, General Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the 19 July elections, which he won. In Mauritania about 20% of the population live on less than US$1.25 per day. Slavery in Mauritania has been called a major human rights issue as well as female genital mutilation, child labor, and human trafficking.
##

According to the FBI, Open Source reporting claims that their previous attempt to “wipe Israel off the cyber map” was a total failure, with little to no impact.

A new, wild Nancy beat her husband hard.
ADDRESS – Get IP address 172.32.45.36 = 10101100.00100000.00101101.00100100
NETMASK – Get subnet mask 255.255.248.0 = 11111111.11111111.11111000.00000000 = /21
WILDCARD – Find wildcard mask/bits = 00000000.00000000.00000111.11111111 = 0.0.7.255 (11 bits)
NETWORK – Drop wildcard mask from IP address = 10101100.00100000.00101000.00000000 = 172.32.40.0
BROADCST – Add wildcard to the IP address = 10101100.00100000.00101111.11111111 = 172.32.47.255
HOSTMIN – Drop the wildcard mask, and add 1 = 10101100.00100000.00101000.00000001 = 172.32.40.1
HOSTMAX – Add the wildcard mask, minus 1 = 10101100.00100000.00101111.11111110 = 172.32.47.254
HOSTS/NET – 2*(WILDCARD_BITS)-2 = 2(11)-2 = 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2 = 2048-2 = 2046
Find hosts per net using the formula 2 to the power of the bits in the wildcard mask, minus 2.

32-bit IPv4 Network Address
Octet1 Octet2 Octet3 Octet4
128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1.128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1.128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1.128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1
11111111 . 11111111 . 11111000 . 00000000 = 255.255.248.0
10101100 . 00100000 . 00101101 . 00100100 = 172.32.45.36

And I’m sorry, but no. I can’t make it ANY simpler than that. ;)

Have you ever deleted the old administrative group, before moving your public folders?
(me too) To recreate the Folder Hierarchies, and get your Offline Address Book publishing again, fire up ADSIedit.msc, and keep reading.

Create the “Folder Hierarchies” object under the Exchange Administrative Group
1. Right click on Exchange Administrative Group
2. Select New Object
3. Select msExchPublicFolderTreeContainer for the class and click Next
4. Enter the following for the value: Folder Hierarchies, click Next
5. Click Finish

Create the Public Folder Tree Object
1. Right click CN=Folder Hierarchies -> New Object
2. Selected msExchPFTree for the class
3. For the value we entered, “Public Folders” and clicked next
4. Click on the “More Attributes” button, selected msExchPFTreeType and set the
value to 1. Note: This is very important that this value is set to a value of 1 as
this tells Exchange that this is a MAPI Tree
5. Click Ok and then finish

Assign the pwner of the public folders:
1. Get the properties of the newly created “Public Folders” Tree object in ADSIEdit.
2. Copy the distinguishedname value to the clipboard.
3. Navigate to the Storage group that contains the Public Folder Store for this
server and get properties of the server.
4. Locate the msExchOwningPFTree attribute and paste in the value that was copied
to the clipboard in step 2. Click OK.
5. Restart the Information Store Service.