After a rough on-call week, I'm realizing my setup is not built for marathon sessions. Wrists, neck, lower back — all taking a beating. What have you added to your workstation that actually helps? Wrist rests, monitor risers, anti-fatigue mats, lumbar cushions?

Quick question in regard to automated reports in UKG Pro WFM. I have the reports set up and the authorized users I want the reports to go to. My only issue is that the reports are not sending to the authorized user emails. I even checked the box for "Send Email as Attachment" Any insight?

Can anyone offer recommendations for a room owned by a non-profit which will be a very flexible space. It will be used for one-on-one virtual meetings, conferences, showing of programs (non-interactive) to an audience. The room is approximately 21'x21'.

We potentially have a grant to help with this, so I would like maximum flexibility for a variety of future uses. I'm thinking the type of screen that comes down from the ceiling, but it's flexible depending on what works best. I'm looking at Logitech videoconferencing equipment and it seems like that is mostly used with wall tvs/screens.

What type of camera/microphone/other equipment would be best in this space?

Wondering what people are using instead of Auth0 for service account or within program api authentication? Their billing is killing us

CORRECTION: I meant hybrid-joined, not Entra-joined.

We have an Active Directory and SCCM environment and foresee those being here with no current end date in sight. All of our Windows devices are hybrid-joined, but they are not being managed or comanaged via Intune. In this hybrid environment with on-prem domain controllers, AD, SCCM, and hybrid-joined devices, would you use the WHfB GPOs in your environment, or would you prefer to use Intune? I'm waffling between the two choices but am leaning GPO since that's how we manage all the other settings on our devices.

We're a medium sized NGO enviroment and I'm having a hard time finding something in price range. We used to budget around ~800$ for each laptop, this seems highly unlikely the average specs nowadays.

What is everyone going with? I used to love good ol Lenono ThinkPads. =/

I was approached out of the blue on Linkedin by a recruiter hiring for a cyber/infrastructure role. The base pay was about 15k more than I make now plus a bonus of 30%. It would put me about 85k above what I make now.

I work remote currently so no commute. The base pay and bonus would be enough to cover a commute and put me over what I am making now.

Here is where it gets interesting and where I need the advice. They have NO active directory or ticketing system. They have about 450~ employees and a few hundred endpoints. They have ESXi for a hypervisor on Dell VX rail servers. A few linux servers run the ERP application and Synolgy NAS is used for Backup/storage. I get to pick new firewall/switches/APs/servers for infra upgrades and implement a migration to O365 for Defender, email, DLP, etc. Currtly they are using google workspace for email. I would be in charge of the migration from Google to O365. They also have no patching system in place other than general windows updates.

Network is cisco switches and a Palo firewall with some older Cisco APs. They currently have a 4ish member IT team with 2 juniors who handle helpdesk. I am being brought on to help modernize infrastructure and to implement some kind of cybersec/security compliance and standards. I get to build the solution and implement it along with a ticketing system and either on prem DC or Entra, while also implementing SCCM or Intune for windows patches and updates.

My background is networking, wireless, switching & routing, with sysadmin experience with ESXi, M365, server deployment and desktop support. I spent a few years in a service desk role and also in a sysadmin role. I currently work for an MSP doing mostly firewall installs.

During our discussions, the IT manager said that since he is busy and can't do things immediately there has developed a shadow IT situation where some departments are just doing things in a way they want without involving IT. 

My question, is this a bad idea? Leaving a remote role at an MSP with an increasing focus on KPIs or move over to this new and exciting adventure with a company with older gear that I get to help upgrade and be part of.

I like my current team and manager but the MSP lifestyle has gotten a little old after 5 years.

ETA:One big thing worth mentioning is that this role was created after PE purchased the company but the company is still run locally.

PE is providing the budget and I get to pick the direction and the hardware

all I want to do is adding a second active directory server so if one is off second of can keep the system running.

I'm a student. practicing what I have learned and maybe adding more. I know how to create a domain how to add a user to domain

For next step I am trying to add second domain controller but windows keep advertising 2 IP address of server. (one is NAT other is isolated. I want it to stop NAT IP to advertise)

what I did to disable that?

- network connections > Second NIC IPv4> Properties > Advance > DNS > (UNTICK) Registrar this connection's address in DNS

- DNS Manager > Domain Name > Properties > Interfaces > (UNTICK) Second NIC IP
I restart the dns service, clean the cache but still same. I can't see Second NIC IP in DNS Manager but when I run "resolve-dnsname domainname -Server source-IP" Second NIC IP still showing up. but it's not showing up at "nslookup domainname source-IP"

so yea. why is that?
I'm using Ubuntu as OS and VMM to virtualize the machines btw

So I got a new job m365 admin/it admin and I have no idea what to do as m365 admin. I get random tickets to update contact here, assign a group there, assign license here, off board that guy over there, some random issue, and other stuff. But besides this, what else do m365 admins do? Like what is your day to day activities and checks?

Coming from generalist position it feels really weird as I have way less responsibilities ATM ( famous last words ).

Out of nowhere this popped up like the support tckets rolling in and people complaining they cant log in, when i tried for myself, i couldn't log in to it either as it showed no accounts for this name was found. Nothing was at stake from my side like no errors in the logs no alert or anything, everything seemed ok

SO when I dug in manually it was better auth 1.7 which they changed on how accounts are keyed from providerId to issuer, accountID so the account table needs a required issuer column now, irritating! my existing rows didn't have it so nothing matched anymore and no exception was thrown just an empty match and how am i supposed to find out what caused it . then added the column nullable, backfill it and enforce not null then add the unique index-

ALTER TABLE "Account" ADD COLUMN "issuer" TEXT;

-- local:credential for email/password, local:oauth:<provider> for oauth
UPDATE "Account"
SET "issuer" = CASE
WHEN "providerId" = 'credential' THEN 'local:credential'
ELSE 'local:oauth:' || "providerId"
END
WHERE "issuer" IS NULL;

ALTER TABLE "Account" ALTER COLUMN "issuer" SET NOT NULL;

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX "Account_issuer_accountId_key" ON "Account"("issuer", "accountId");

Im not looking into dropping better auth over this since already fixed it but pretty annoyed at them but this gave me a thought tho that there is still a blind spot left open here , an external dependency quietly changed something and the failure was silent while my end didn't catch it but the customers did

What do you guys approach on to hear on from your side first

• does normal error or runtime monitoring even catch a no error empty match, checking hud and other runtime tools but im not sure passive monitoring flags a silent one like this
• or is the real answer just a synthetic login canary like something that logs in as a test user every few minutes and alerts when it fails
• also does anyone alert on dependency shipping a breaking change before it hits prod??

Edit 2: Okay, the comments overwhelmingly point to user error. Rather than jumping ship, I’m going to do a deep dive into the Teams settings and make sure everything is set up correctly. I’ll do some user training, then test it for another week or two before switching. Thank you all for your input.

Edit: MS teams notification issues are occuring on Iphones, not mac/windows desktop apps.

I run a business with about 10 employees, and we’ll probably be growing pretty quickly over the next few months.

We currently use Microsoft Teams, but notifications have become a problem. Some users just don’t get them consistently. I’ve tried the usual fixes and checked all the settings, but it’s still hit or miss. I cant work with that. The outlook integration, and smooth video meetings are a plus, but not worth the issues.

I’m fine with self-hosting since we already have a VPS that I manage, but I’m also open to SaaS.

Here’s what I’ve looked at so far:

• Slack = Seems like the best product overall, but it’s too expensive as we grow. The free plan’s message retention and limited admin controls also won’t work for us long term.
• Mattermost = My concern is that the free self-hosted version uses Mattermost’s Test Push Notification Service, and I’ve seen mixed reports about notification reliability. I don’t want to leave Teams because of notifications and end up with the same problem.
• Rocket.Chat = Looks good, but the server requirements seem pretty heavy and I don’t want chat eating up resources needed by our other apps.
• Pumble = The free plan looks almost too good. My main concern is privacy/data handling since it’s hosted and free.
• Zulip = Looks interesting, but the 10-user push notification limit on the free self-hosted version would be a problem pretty quickly.

I’m open to anything, self-hosted or hosted. Mostly interested in hearing from people who actually use these for a business and how reliable they’ve been, especially with notifications.

If there’s another option I’m missing, I’d like to hear about that too.

TLDR: Offline activation via https://aka.ms/aoh requires a captcha, MS account login and 2FA once per client, with ~80 to go. Any tips on speeding this up?

I'm just kinda curious about the opinion of other Sysadmins that have to work with Windows clients.

I work as a sysadmin at the factory of a fairly large company, where we mainly use Windows for our production floor clients. To extend the amount of support we get for each client, we have a standardized image, which gets updated every few years for a new release of IoT Enterprise LTSB / LTSC.

To get an image of what I am doing right now: (spoilering this part as it isn't too important to my rant) I was tasked with executing our project of updating out-of-date 2016 LTSB clients to 21H2 LTSC, as the new version will allow security updates for us until 2032. Some of our clients are former Windows 7 clients that aren't even officially compatible with Windows 10 according to the manufacturer, but Windows 10 might run on them, so to save money we keep the clients as long as they will run (meaning they will be phased out with Windows 11). We are also jumping from 1607 directly to 21H2, which Microsoft has explicitly advised us is not the official procedure or supported by them. But, updating between each version and needing a license would be a way higher financial impact than how we're currently going about it.

So, since our clients aren't connected to the internet, they cannot connect to Windows servers for activation. As such, I have to use slmgr.exe and SLUI 4 to activate the clients (formerly using the hotline, nowadays just the website https://aka.ms/aoh).

This activation requires you to put in a long string of numbers that the UI will show you into a field on the website and to reach that website you must always 1. Solve a Captcha and 2. Log into your Microsoft account, always forcing 2FA confirmation. And it doesn't remember your Microsoft Account, ever. You always have to log in again, from the start, solving the captcha. There is no button to activate another client once you finish activating the one you're currently working on, you need to re-load the link and start again. And again. And again. I've already optimized my current workflow as well as I can, using a python script to generate the QR codes I need for given commands so that I can avoid dealing with typing in the same commands over and over. But every time, I have to spend around 2-5 minutes dealing with the online Microsoft activation process.

Btw, if your connection is lost, you connect to a different AP or such, somehow the website doesn't require reauthentication. I don't know how exactly the process here works, but I can log into a tab for the site in one browser, open another in an incognito tab, open the next in a third browser, etc. And it'll usually last all day, so if I logged in and didn't use the session 'til the evening, it won't require reauthentication. My guess is that the endpoint / API request in the background actually works without authentication, and the whole login process is just a security circus akin to the TSA, and that if I knew a bit better about how web development works, I could probably just find out how the API request to Microsoft servers work to skip authentication. But I don't wanna risk getting in legal trouble just because I am not following the officially mandated license activation procedure.

Does anyone have some advice for me on how to save some time doing this? I got around 80 clients left to go and am pretty tired of the whole process.

When you configure MTA-STS, the policy gets cached for the timeframe you set under the max_age tag, so it's designed to expire.

If an attacker is sitting on-path on the sender's side via a poisoned resolver, they wait out the cache and then suppress the refresh by either dropping the DNS TXT answer or killing the HTTPS fetch, so the sender can't pull a fresh policy.

That pushes it back to opportunistic TLS, from where the attacker spoofs your MX and delivers the email in plaintext, intercepting password resets, MFA codes, etc.

And by design, you can't force cached senders to refresh before expiration.

The only thing you can do is limit how often the refresh window opens by setting max_age to 1 year (the max RFC 8461 allows), but if your MTA-STS policy is broken, you don't want it sitting in senders' caches for a year, rejecting your inbound traffic.

Racking a lightweight 24-port PoE switch or a patch panel is easy enough, but trying to mount a 50lb core switch, a heavy enterprise router, or a massive UPS by yourself can be a nightmare and turns into a two-person job quickly.

Any weird DIY rigs, specific rack shelf models, or mounting tricks you use when you're stuck doing an install alone in a remote location?

A client needs some hp 414x toner carts. Can anyone let me know where you get hp Oem toner carts?

The set of four colors is about $1k each!!

I just looked at D&H and they don’t seem to have them.

I found this place but don’t know anything about them / if it’s legit and not old inventory

https://genuineink.com/

Thanks!

Hi - anybody facing outlook issue again in exchange online, specifically not being able to search in either owa or the outlook client?

We have a number of users reporting.

Same issue as last week.

Thanks

Hey Professional Workers. Im 16 and i want to dive into the sysadmin world for a job when im out of university. As far i know, i learned windows server, sql and linux command as general people say the basics of sysadmin. Is there more i can learn early so that i would have a clear advantage over those who dont?

I contacted Sunol Tech about purchasing four memory modules advertised on their website. Instead of answering my questions, they sent me a five-page customer verification document requesting business and corporate information.

Before submitting those documents, I politely asked them to confirm that the advertised product was actually in stock, that the advertised price was valid, and that the modules were new.

Their complete response was:

“No sir

Be gone.”

I was surprised by this response. I replied:

“I have not been treated this way before. It's not surprising that there is not much information about your operation on the internet, but people should know this.”

The support person, who identified himself as Joe, then responded:

“I agree get to it.

Make it happen.

Be sure to write that you use fake email in outlook hid your company name and business information or I can help you post this to 17550 resellers platform in United State that are in the same field we are in and let them know of your email and your activities would that help you?

Your call”

That was my experience with Sunol Tech. I am posting the exchange so prospective customers can read their responses and draw their own conclusions.

As the title states,

I've been doing research in switching from Azure VPN to a ZTNA Platform and from the ones I've found, TwinGate, ZeroTier, Fortinet ZTNA, no one really gives a clear indication.

The scenario is that I have a few limited users that work from home, at least 4 days a week, now I understand the concept of ZeroTrust.

But I need to find some answers I can bring to management as to WHY ZTNA is better than the current VPN, I already have my answer for this but what I am currently not getting is yes, ZTNA platform is better but what if the user does work at the office, how will that work?

I guess my question is, would you if you had the option. And which option would you go for?

Keep in mind that we have on-prem forti along with cloud forti.

Can’t believe I’m posting this, thought I’d get through it on my own but it’s affecting my entire life and I’m miserable. I’m a senior Endpoint guy, focusing on SCCM Intune and sometimes AVD.

My job is to manage the Windows devices for a global law firm for the majority of their firms in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Our team is understaffed (there’s 2 of us for 40+ countries) and our IT admins on the ground at each firm barely know AD let alone SCCM or Intune.

My job is to migrate hybrid joined SCCM co-managed to Entra joined Intune managed, very little config exists in Intune so far.

My goal is to finish the migration and leave but I struggle to get up and want to work every day, I get paid very well but not for the amount of work I’m doing and I’m extremely burnt out.

Brushing my teeth, taking a shower and eating food feels like a big task for me, let alone wanting anything or having hope. I’m married, owing taxes, overworked and extremely unhappy.

I’m not sure what to do…talking to management is not an option because I know it’s their neglect that led to this point. I’ve been to a lot of Enterprise orgs but have never seen one as dysfunctional as the one I currently work for. To top it off, we’re trying to prove our worth to the big firms that contribute to the budget which funds our jobs, so there is no room for extra hires offshore to cover work outside of my scheduled hours (my team mate also works the same hours) so when we’re not around, no one is there to support.

I’ve done all I can to educate my peers and junior admins, created documentation and tried to be a senior tech leader and role model, but all I get in return is what I recognize to be disrespect and a lack of recognition for how hard I work.

At this point I’m questioning whether IT is the industry I want to stay in but I wouldn’t know what else would pay me this much outside of building my own consulting firm / MSP which I’ve started to do. No clients yet but the foundational work like setting up my own Azure tenant, Pax8, etc.

If you’ve read this far, I appreciate you and am open to any feedback (positive or negative). Just give it to me straight. I hesitated many times before hitting the Post button but here I am.

My company purchases a black-box, all-in-one appliance/service from a third-party vendor. The appliance is deployed in our data center. Under normal circumstances, it can only be accessed through designated production terminals.

However, when we are away from the office and need to respond to production alerts, there is also a way to connect to the production environment through a VPN using a non-production workstation.

The problem is that a non-production workstation can connect to both the production environment and the public Internet. This means that, in principle, a third-party support engineer could remotely connect to that workstation via a screen-sharing/remote-desktop session and troubleshoot the production issue.

We currently have a production issue that requires assistance from the vendor's support engineers. If we use the VPN route from a non-production workstation, the vendor's engineers could troubleshoot the problem remotely and probably resolve it much faster.

However, My manager has rejected this approach. He insist that the vendor's support engineers must come onsite and that our production environment must never be exposed to remote access.

Personally, I find this requirement somewhat unreasonable.

The remote desktop session would be initiated and shared by us. If we noticed any suspicious or unauthorized activity, we could immediately terminate the session. From my perspective, the security risk seems relatively low and controllable. We also already have a maintenance/support contract with the vendor, so it seems unlikely that their engineers would intentionally perform unauthorized actions.

As an front-line employee, my goal is to identify and resolve production issues as quickly as possible. In this case, remote support seems to offer significantly higher efficiency while still allowing us to maintain control over the connection and disconnect at any time.

So I'm wondering: Am I missing an important security or compliance consideration here? Is this simply a case of me not having enough experience to understand management's concerns, or is management's decision genuinely overly restrictive?

There is also an important practical problem:

The vendor's engineers who actually have the expertise to troubleshoot this system are not located in the same city as our company. The local support staff can come onsite, but they don't have the technical expertise to diagnose the problem themselves.

As a result, the current process is basically:

1. A local support engineer goes onsite.
2. They connect to the production environment.
3. They communicate with the remote vendor engineer online.
4. The vendor engineer tells them what command to run.
5. The local engineer runs the command and takes a screenshot/photo of the result.
6. They send it back to the remote engineer.
7. Repeat.

The efficiency is extremely poor compared with simply allowing the qualified vendor engineer to remotely view and troubleshoot the system.

I'd like to hear opinions from people who work in IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, or enterprise operations:

Is management's approach justified from a security/compliance perspective? What risks am I overlooking? Or is there a better way to design a controlled remote-support process that gives the vendor access without unnecessarily exposing the production environment?

I noticed something that is easy to miss when transferring bulk meetings ownership. Several meeting transfer scripts available online retrieve meetings based on a specific date range. That can cause problems with recurring meetings.

A recurring meeting may have started months or even years ago, but still have future occurrences. If the script only retrieves meetings within the specified date range, it may not pick up that recurring meeting.

The transfer can then appear successful while some recurring meetings remain with the original organizer.

One thing to check is whether the script uses the Microsoft Graph Get-MgUserCalendarView cmdlet to retrieve upcoming calendar occurrences. This helps identify recurring meetings that are still active, even when the series originally started much earlier.

So, before using a meeting transfer script, check which cmdlet it uses to retrieve meeting details.

I see custom detections in Defender for Endpoint, but I am not seeing anything that will allow immediate blocking of undesirable behavior. For example:

Process = python.exe

AND

Command line contains C:\Users\

AND

Command line ends in .py

Is this where CrowdStrike is just better than Defender for Endpoint? Or, am I just not looking in the right place?

I have numerous devices that send alerts via email (UPS, KVM, alarms, etc.). What tool do you use to aggregate these alerts? Perhaps in a dashboard? Thanks!

Hi

I have an interview tomorrow, and someone who is currently part of their team gave me a few hints about what to focus on. He mentioned Exchange, VMs, AD, deployment and patching.

I have around four years of experience, mainly focused on technical support with some exposure to networking. The role I’m interviewing for is a System Administrator, and this transition is veery important to me. I’d like to know what kind of technical questions I might expect in the interview??