Life in University Information Technology

Powershell: Update Timezone Region for Outlook.com Live@Edu Accounts

2010-11-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick script to update the Timezone and Language of all your Outlook Live Accounts using remote powershell. ### ----------------------------------------------------------------- ### Written by Matt Brown - 11/16/2010 ### ### Powershell script requires a csv text file in the following Format: ### > email ### > address1@domain.com ### > user2@domain.com ### -------------------------

Auto Logout after 1 hour of usage

2010-05-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

I recently needed a script to automatically log the user out after 1 hour of computer usage. I came up with a pretty low tech solution. Set a scheduled task to activate on user login that runs a DOS bat script. The bat script sleeps for 57 minutes and then kicks off a reboot with notice. Note: It requires sleep.exe from the Windows Resource Kit tools. @ECHO OFF REM ##############################

Remove Terminated User from GAL - Powershell

2010-02-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

Quick Powershell script to remove disabled users from the Exchange 2007 Global Address List (GAL) without deleting the account / mailbox. This uses the Quest Active Roles powershell extensions for Active Directory. ### ----------------------------------------------------------------- ### Written by Matt Brown - [mbrown@ewu.edu] ### ### Name: Remove Terminated Employees from GAL ### ### Version:

Exchange 2007 Alias update - Powershell

2010-02-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

With a recent migration from an old email system I needed to bring over aliases from the old system that would be grandfathered for those users but not new users. This Powershell script checked the accounts to see if the alias was present and if not added it to the account as an accepted Email Address.### -----------------------------------------------------------------### Written by Matt Brown -

Live @ Edu hotmail active mailboxes

2009-11-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

I run a live@edu hotmail system at our school and I needed a way to find out which mailboxes were not longer active (I.E. student hasn't logged in for 365 days). So I put together this little python script to make an SMTP connection on each address load the status into a mysql database.######################################### Written by Matt Brown## - check hotmail mailbox status active /

mysql random password

2009-11-02T17:32:00.000-08:00

I needed a quick way to create a random password for a large number of users in mysql.SELECT SUBSTRING( MD5( RAND() ) FROM 1 FOR 8 ) AS PASSWORD;

Powershell - Terminate Employee in Active Directory

2009-10-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick little script to terminate an employee in Active Directory. I'm using the quest AD Powershell command-lets in this script. This uses powershell to disable the AD Account, Change the AD password to a random password, set the description of the account and remove all the group membership from the account.Input text file looks like this:empID0879108792Powershell Script:# -------------

SMTP Relay with Exchange 2007 - part 2

2009-10-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Problem: I needed to add new applications / servers to the SMTP Relay Connector and document the additions.Solution: Powershell script that reads a csv file with needed server / application / admin info. It then adds the IP address to the connector and logs the info to another CSV file.CSV Files looks like this:IP,Server,Admin,Application,fromaddr10.0.0.1,SQL01,John Doe,SQL Mailer,jdoe@

SMTP Relay with Exchange 2007 - Part 1

2009-10-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

Problem: We needed to allow specific servers / applications to send through our Exchange servers without first authenticating.Solution: In order to do this we setup a send connector on our Exchange HUB servers that allowed any of the specified IP's to send without authentication.Powershell to setup the Exchange Connector:$remoteserver = '10.0.0.1'$emaildomain = 'mydomain.com'$HubServers =

Powershell MySQL (insert)

2009-09-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick script to write (insert) data into a mysql database using powershell.function ConnectMySQL([string]$user,[string]$pass,[string]$MySQLHost,[string]$database) { # Load MySQL .NET Connector Objects [void][system.reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("MySql.Data") # Open Connection $connStr = "server=" + $MySQLHost + ";port=3306;uid=" + $user + ";pwd=" + $pass + ";database="+$

Exchange 2007 Public Folder Setup - powershell

2009-05-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

In this example I'm setting up a Public Folder structure for departmental Absence or Leave Calendars, Giving departments an shared calendar that can be used to track vacation, sick leave, holiday's, etc. What I do first is create the top level Public Folder called Absence Calendars. I then grant my username owner rights on that new Public Folder. Now I can do the rest of the setup (create

Removing Other Users Folder from Outlook on Exchange

2009-04-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Question:How do I remove another user's data folder or inbox that I have showing up in my outlook profile? When I right click and go to close folder it tells me to go to account settings and when I go to account settings it only show's my account.Answer:1. Select your Main Outlook Profile (Mailbox - )2. Right click and go to Properties for "Mailbox - "3. Under General Tab click on the Advanced

VMWare vMotion not working on ESX VDI (VMWare View)

2009-03-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

After clean installs of my 2 ESX VDI systems (now VMWare View) I was unable to get a successful vMotion from one host to the next. I was also having issues getting HA properly configure although after a bit of moving it around, creating a new cluster with a new name and moving the host into that it finally configured. All that said, vMotion still did not work.After a bit of googling, I found that

NetApp 3040a Clustered Link Aggregation - vif

2009-02-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

I've got (2) NetApp 3040a clustered systems both running LACP Aggregated vifs (nics) for my NFS VMWare Connections. One cluster is running on Cisco Catlyist 3750's and the other is running on a Cisco Catlyist 4507. Both switches are setup redundantly. The fail over / load balance is excellent. Here's how I set it up:My switches are set to IP Load Balance (global switch setting)Commands I used to

Exchange 2007 - Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) Setup

2009-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple things I had to do to get the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) running with Exchange 2007. This stuff wasn't clear in the install guide. Especially number 1 below.1. Give the BESAdmin account permission on my exchange databases. I had to do it on all of our databases. Here's the command for Database07add-adpermission -user BESAdmin –identity “Database07” -accessrights

Powershell: Exchange 2007 - BES - Blackberry Enterprise Server

2009-01-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

Here a quick little snippet from a script I run when setting up users for our BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) environment with Exchange 2007. Essentially, the script is just giving the BESAdmin account Send-As permission on the AD Account. You could do this on your entire User OU in the domain, but for security purposes we've decided to only set the permission for the Blackberry users.# Open

Powershell Progress Bar with Time Countdown

2008-11-11T19:00:00.001-08:00

I needed to add a 15 minute pause in a script that we were using to create exchange mailboxes and this little Powershell progress bar with a countdown timer worked really nice.###===========================### Pause Program for 15 min### - Matt Brown, 2008###===========================$x = 15*60$length = $x / 100while($x -gt 0) { $min = [int](([string]($x/60)).split('.')[0]) $text = " " + $min

Powershell: Monitor IIS Application Pool or Site

2008-11-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

We have an exchange IIS Application Pool stopping every so often because of some Entourage client problems. It would cause the Application Pool to stop and therefore break owa access, which was a problem.So while we are working with Microsoft on a permanent solution I quickly put together a powershell script to run every 30 seconds and check the state of the application pool. If the

Powershell: New Active Directory Objects Report

2008-11-05T10:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick Powershell script to send you a report of the most recent additions to Active Directory.### --------------------------------------------### Written by Matt Brown - 12:13 PM 10/22/2008###### AD Report on new objects created in the### last 24 hours### Requires Quest Powershell extenstions for AD### --------------------------------------------##########################################

Update GAL Display Name - powershell

2008-11-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

We recently decided to change on how our Global Address list is displayed from using the format to the , format.Powershell made quick work of this task and took about 10 minutes with 2500 users. Here's the script.###=====================================### Update Exchange Global Address List Display### - Matt Brown, 2008###=====================================$Users = Get-User -ResultSize

Active Directory - Removing SID History

2008-11-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

I use a couple of great tools from joeware.net to remove a SID from a users SID History. I had a problem where the wrong user was mapped over during a migration when we were colasping multiple domains into one.The 2 tools I used from joeware were adfind and admod, both free. adfind -h IT-DC01 -default -f sAMAccountName=jackuser sidhistory dn:CN=Jack User,OU=Employees,OU=People,DC=mydomain,DC=edu

VMWare over NFS on a NetApp - ASIS (deduplication) WOW

2008-11-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

I have a NetApp 3040c cluster that I'm using for NFS, iSCSI and FC connectivity to my VMWare ESX Servers. NFS has proven to be fast and reliable. I'm running the following system on NFS without any problems:Active Directory Domain Controller (Server 2008) - (16,000 users)Exchange 2007 (CAS) Client Access Server on Server 2008Exchange 2007 HUB on Server 2008ILM / MIIS on Server 2003IIS on Server

ADMT Migrating Computers from 2003 to 2008

2008-11-02T15:49:00.000-08:00

In order to migrate computers from a 2000 or 2003 Active Directory Domain to a 2008 Active Directory Domain you need to set a group policy in your 2008 domain that allows cryptography algorithms compatible with Windows NT 4.0. Otherwise, the migration will bring the computer account over but will not change the domain the computer is in.You can find this Group Policy setting here:In the Group

MySQL - find bad email addresses in database

2008-10-19T21:36:00.000-07:00

I needed a quick way to find bad email addresses in my mysql database that was not being verified when the users entered them into the form. That will be the next fix.A quick select using:SELECT name,email FROM `D_User` WHERE `email` NOT LIKE '%@%.%'... and I had all the bad email addresses.

VMWare ESX VM Network Aggregation / EtherChannel / LACP

2008-09-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

I recently went through a series of tests with our VMWare ESX 3.5 environment to test link aggregation and failover. We tested a variety of Link aggregation methods including LACP, PgaP, and standard etherchannel while experimenting with different settings on the vSwitch.Here's what the lab consisted of: a Dell R900 with 8 physical nics (3 used for the test), a Cisco 4507 Switch with 2 Gig high