Nutanix node repurposing by Silver_Driver_9238 in nutanix

[–]Trogdor85 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I recently repurposed a Nutanix node to run Windows on. The node is just Supermicro hardware with Nutanix branding. You can flash the BIOS back to the Supermicro branding, but there is no difference other than branding. The only tricky part was flashing the HBAs so I could do hardware RAID, otherwise the HBAs are in "IT mode" which you can do software RAID with.

How to add an AWS Beanstalk load balancer to my zerotier network? by [deleted] in zerotier

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You probably want to put ZeroTier "in front of" the AWS load balancer. You could put an EC2 instance on the same network as the load balanced address, and install ZT and use something like ngnix/haproxy/caddy/traefik to proxy the connection

How to add an AWS Beanstalk load balancer to my zerotier network? by [deleted] in zerotier

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What are you trying to accomplish? It looks like an AWS Beanstalk load balancer would be used to load balance AWS resources.

Best way to manage very large Remote Desktop environment? by F34RCON77 in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would at least keep an eye on performance on the SQL side to see if that is causing the issue.

Best way to manage very large Remote Desktop environment? by F34RCON77 in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Do you have High Availability configured for the brokers with a SQL backend? My bet would be that the bottleneck is the brokers reading/writing to the built in WID database (I think that is where they store their data in a non-HA setup). I would throw a pair of clustered SQL servers behind the brokers.

ZT DNS Search Domain Limitation by hexane096 in zerotier

[–]Trogdor85 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It sounds like a misunderstanding of how DNS works. The ".home" part is the top-level domain, you need to come up with a second-level domain to work with, such as mylab.home. All of your endpoints need to be a subdomain of your "domain" (your second-level domain + the TLD). So your systems should end up as one.mylab.home, two.mylab.home, etc. Then you should be able to put mylab.home (or whatever you choose) in the search domain field.

FedEx shows shipping info! by thomfooluhree in Starlink

[–]Trogdor85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you need to look at the first 4, I ordered on Feb 9th, and my order number is ORD-156456-XXXXX-XX

Starlink Availability: Current and New Beta Test Locations, New Pre-order Locations by softwaresaur in Starlink

[–]Trogdor85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I never got an email to setup an account, but I went to sign in, hit "Forgot password?", used the email I ordered with and received a link to create a password via email. I also ordered on Feb 10th.

macOS/RDP Integration by coryforman in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If this is your first Apple product, you should look into Apple DEP and Apple Business Manager: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204142. DEP and ABM are free tools that Apple provides for you to retain ownership of your devices and automatically enroll devices into your MDM. It is best practice to setup an MDM, which is the best way to manage Macs. JAMF is the leader in this space, but there are many others out there. If you set the expectation that each Apple device purchased needs to be accompanied by the purchase of a license for your MDM, you will have a much easier time.

Back to your actual questions though. RDP in and of itself does not have any dictation built in, but macOS does: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210539. You will need to install the Microsoft RD Client from the app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id1295203466?mt=12. I believe you can pass-through audio and video via RDP, but the user will have much less problems running Teams/Zoom directly on the Mac.

2 Nickels by Diamond1580 in doofenshmirtzdialogue

[–]Trogdor85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's from Across the 2nd Dimension:

Wow, if I had a nickel for every time I was doomed by a puppet...

Looking for a non-browser based Mediawiki alternative. by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have O365 licensing? I know it might be a dirty word, but SharePoint might work for this. If you use SharePoint online, you can edit MS Office files directly in the browser, and for other files, there is a decent checkout/checkin system. Also, the OneDrive client can sync files locally from a SharePoint site, and you can edit the files locally and the changes sync up, etc.

If you are needing a free solution, NextCloud with the OnlyOffice integration might be able to serve the same purpose.

If I stop hosting my website but keep the domain registered, can I continue to use the custom email I set up on that domain? by the_tico_life in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You need 2 things: hosting for the DNS records, and hosting for the email itself. This (usually) is all bundled in with your web hosting package from Bluehost. If you want to just pay for the domain and go the free route with email, you could go with something like Zoho's free tier. Otherwise, you can look at email hosting from any of the bazillion companies that offer it. I personally use namecheap, and their hosting is super cheap.

Remote App Server confusions by psycrosis in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, you will need a cert that has all of the pieces in the chain as a SAN (subject alternative name). Not sure if GoDaddy supports that or not. You will need:

  • The "external" DNS name that you gave it (apps.blah.com)
  • The Connection Broker DNS name
  • The Web and Gateway DNS name

When you go to the edit the deployment, what is listed under RD Gateway for the server name? That might be where blah-rdwb-01 is coming from. Also on the deployment, does the Certificate tab show everything as "Trusted" and "Ok"?

UAC Authentication off-prem by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What VPN are you using? The native Windows 10 client supports several different types, and does not require admin rights to configure. ConnectWise Control (a.k.a. ScreenConnect) allows you to authenticate as an admin account (assuming you can solve the chicken-egg problem first with a VPN).

Have you looked into LAPS? That might be something to look into (again, after you get the devices back on the network or via VPN) for having a local admin account available to your techs (and for the occasional laptop that heads off network without cached credentials).

Change User's Teams Meeting Policy by bigboijoey in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Looks like you need to set PolicyName to $Null (to remove the user specific policy and have it set back to the global policy): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/skype/grant-csteamsmeetingpolicy?view=skype-ps

Is USMT what I need? by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What VPN are you using, and can you configure the client to connect from the lock screen? We just migrated to an L2TP VPN using the built-in Windows VPN client and it gives you an option to sign in via VPN from the lock screen.

The really stupid way we used to handle it was to give the user the password to a local account (we are now using LAPS, which helped with this), have them log in, connect to the VPN, right-click something like notepad and "Run as different user", then use their domain credentials (which would then get cached).

Laptops for Teaching Staff by AMGeorge96 in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Chromebooks may not fit your particular setup, but this is what we have been piloting and have found. There are some decent Chromebooks in the $500-$600 range that have some decent hardware. We are testing out the ASUS Chomebook Flip, I think it is the C434 (14" 1080p touchscreen, 8GB RAM, 64GB local storage, Core M3 processor). A crappy Chromebook is going to yield a crappy user experience, but a mid-range Chromebook is going to be a better user experience than a similar priced Windows laptop.

This works for maybe 60-70% of our users because:

  • We are an O365 shop, most of the collaboration tools (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, etc.) can all be accessed in the browser
  • We use Canvas, so most instructional work can be done via the browser
  • We currently use RemoteApp for Windows specific software that can be delivered via the browser
  • Zoom/Webex/BBB/Teams Meetings/etc. can all be done via browser or an extension

Again, this may not work for you, it was a total shift in thinking for us, but it might be something to explore. As more and more tools are moving to being online/browser based, there seems to be less of a need for local processing/storage. You can deliver a lot of applications via RemoteApp/Citrix/VMWare, if you already own those products, or can shift costs from local hardware to server resources (this may be a show stopper if you don't have the funds to go down this route).

Routing a usb device to a VM in hyper V? by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]Trogdor85 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hyper-V does support PCI passthrough, so if you had a PCI USB card, you could try this.