O365 Connector stopped working without any good reason / Always check the spam-lists...

Whoo boy do i have a doozey of a Scooby Doo mystery for you guys this time...

I received an urgent ticket about a week ago. One of our clients was complaining that a printer of theirs was not sending email to any of the recipients after scanning.

Our client uses O365 which is managed by us. The printer sends email through a connector we have setup by using the onsite Gateway IP.

A quick look into the logs showed a mysterious Error #806. After some google-fu I was able to find Canon's error code listing that stated the printer was using a bad address? 

Uh what???

I double and triple checked the address book and yes, they were completely fine. 

Okay so what now? It has to be a DNS problem right? Nope. I checked the printer DNS setup and saw it was using google's own DNS server. I even went as far as changed the DNS settings to our company's own DNS servers it was still a no go.

I tried adding the Gateway IP to the clients allowed IP-list in O365, still a no go. 

I was getting desperate. It had been three days at this point and I was not able to keep working on this same case for long periods at a time, plus the client was getting antsy...

An accurate imagery of an Sysadmin getting swamped by clients tickets

I finally resulted in asking help from my colleagues from the company chat but didn't receive any concrete advice until two of y colleagues came up with a really far fetched idea....

We remoted to a computer located inside the domain and launched putty.exe. We then opened a telnet session with the O365 connector setup and finally tried to send a test message when we received the following error:
"550 5.7.1 Service unavailable, Client host [REDACTED] blocked using Spamhaus. To request removal from this list see http://www.spamhaus.org/lookup.lasso (REDACTED) [DB3EUR04FT053.eop-eur04.prod.protection.outlook.com]"

Huh that is most certainly strange. 

We followed the link and lo and behold! Our clients gateway-ip was blocked. It would seem that our customer had been sending emails to outside of their designated domain. Controllers are not meant for this kind of use and this resulted in the ip of our client's firewall getting banned.

We promptly removed the ban and after a few hours everything worked like a charm again.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids...

So there you have it. If your printer suddenly stops sending email; always remember to check the spam-lists from the internet.

Next time: The gang solves the mystery of a spooky Cryptolocker!

ALERT: latest Windows Security update will break your F-Secure web-reporting or other systems!

Okay a quick warning to all of you who are using F-Secure's Policy manager and especially it's Web Reporting Tool.

Windows' newest Security update KB3061518 will prevent the web reporting tool from launching. 

This update seems to affect other systems too so I would suggest that you wait on this patch to be fixed. We uninstalled this patch and our systems were back online after a boot.

Other companies are also reporting problems with their applications:
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/05/adobe-microsoft-push-critical-security-fixes-7/

http://www.askwoody.com/2015/windows-schannel-patch-kb-3061518-problems-dsls-catia-enovia/

Thats all for now. 

O365 Managing Identities and services / 70-346 certification passed

Whoo we! I finally managed to pull it off! I went down to the test centre yesterday and took my second ever certification exam and I passed! I would be lying if i told you guys that I weren't ecstatic when I got the results.

I ended up using just one brain dump for my studies:
http://examsforall.com/exams/microsoft/70-346/Microsoft.Actualtests.70-346.v2015-03-08.by.115.115q.vce/#.VRT1n47LdcQ

I would however strongly recommend also using:
http://examsforall.com/exams/microsoft/70-346/Microsoft.Certkiller.70-346.v2015-03-09.by.Anthony.140q.vce/#.VRT2S47LdcQ
Since it is the newest version as I am writing this.

Anyways. Take it easy and keep reading. I'm off to celebrate!

Next time: I will teach you a rad party trick!

70-346 / Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements / Microsoft certification

Okay! Time for another post!

So I have been busy studying for MS 70-346 certification aka. Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements.

I thought I could share the study materials I have been using with you guys. I am going to give you a short list of:

- What do I need to study?
- What materials can I use?
- Braindumps and software.

Okay lets begin.

1. What do I need to study?

According to Microsoft the test will be comprised of the following segments:

------------------------------------------------------------

Provision Office 365 (15–20%)
Monitor and troubleshoot Office 365 availability and usage (15–20%)
Manage cloud identities (15–20%)
Implement and manage identities by using DirSync (15–20%)
Implement and manage federated identities (single sign-on [SSO]) (15–20%)
Plan and implement networking and security in Office 365 (15–20%)

------------------------------------------------------------

More information can be found from:
https://anderseideblog.wordpress.com/reading-lists/ms-exam-70-346-managing-office-365-identities-and-requirements/ (Has links to study materials!)

2. What materials can I use?

What to use while studying? I personally prefer watching videos to reading random articles.

You have a few options:
Microsoft Virtual Academy, Youtube, or blog-posts.

Microsoft Virtual academy:
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/product-training/office-365Just basic o365 training courses.

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/office-365-identity-management*a bit more on the 70-346 topic.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1F4i0_nIE4&list=PLLSYDbVCiCj401UxKh90FeiAMGeko6U0D&index=1
The best video source for studying for the test. I recommend you take at least look in this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKvVU2Fz10
a prep guide for the 70-346 and 347 tests.

Blog-posts:

https://anderseideblog.wordpress.com/reading-lists/ms-exam-70-346-managing-office-365-identities-and-requirements/ (yeah it's the same as previously)

Braindumps and software:

To those who dont yet know what a braindump is:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_dump
"Generally, the transfer of a large quantity of information from one person to another or to a piece of paper can be referred to as a 'brain dump'."

With certification tests this means essentially that you can download the certification exam questions in either a PDF- or a VCE reader ready file. The difference with PDF and VCE is that the PDF-file is basically just a virtual question paper and answers with no interactivity. The VCE -file recreates the test situation on your device to make memorizing the questions easier.

Software:

A word of warning first:

I recommend that you avoid using Avanset Exam simulators. They have recently gained bad reputation with their questionable business policies. They tend to update their software often and the make the user who has already bought their product buy the newer version so that they can use the latest VCE-files.

I personally found A+ VCE Player good and reliable. The program is made for Android devices.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.on_labs.android.aplus&hl=en

VCE Files:

I got my files from http://examsforall.com/exams/microsoft/70-346/

They are working with Avanset but the files still tend to work with A+ VCE Player and they are free to download.

To get the files on my device I used Dropbox.

Summary:

1. If you are android use I recommend you buy A+ VCE Player from 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.on_labs.android.aplus&hl=en

2. Download VCE -files from http://examsforall.com/exams/microsoft/70-346/

3. Move files to dropbox and open in VCE Player.

Next time: We will wonder what happened to our careers...

All Macbook pro / Air / Retina with Thunderbolt are vulnerable for virus that can not be removed

So I found this article while browsing /r/sysadmin in Reddit today. Apparently there is a new attack called "Thunderstrike" which installs malicious code through thunderbolt device in the BOOT Rom.

I'm not too well versed in the secrets of this issue since I don't own a mac so I would suggest you to read on the article linked up in this post.
I will however post a small description (taken from the article) on how serious this vulnerability is.

Off-topic:
I have been busy with studying for 70-346 or Managing Office 365 Identities and Services -certification test. I am however going to be posting a short study guide for this test once I have managed to pass it. I already failed the test once with 609 / 700 (700 points needed) so I am fairly confident that I am going to pass next time).

I will be including a link to Microsoft video series for this test in YouTube, some other studyguide links and a small description on how I studied for the test.

Until then. Stay safe!

WARNING: OsX Yosemite patch might brick your macbook! / Updated with a fix

Ouch!

Okay. A quick warning to all you mac people! As the title states the new Yosemite patch might break your mac! I have already had several customers call and let me know that their mac is stuck updating OsX to he latest release of Yosemite.

In this article the issue is being discussed a bit more in detail.
Here is a small list of things to try out. These did not work with my clients but maybe they might help you!

1. WAIT. Yes wait. In some cases it has been reported in internet that albeit slow, the update is actually happening. So being patient might be the best first choice.
2. Press command + L to bring up the Install log. If the log  is moving. WAIT. Although desperately slow, it's still updating and not stuck as the progress bar might let you think.
   
   
3. Safe boot. If the update has not finished after several hours (one of my customers let his Macbook sit at their office for 48h and the update was still stuck at halfway.)
   Reboot the machine and press down Shift-key. This should boot your computer in safe-mode. It might take time, so sit tight.. On one of the machines I was given to fix, it just kept booting straight back to the update screen. I was getting ready to re-install the machine when it suddenly popped in the login screen. So make sure to wait at least 30 minutes to give the machine time to reboot in safe-mode!
4. Network repair. Press Command + R when rebooting. This will launch mac's online repair tool. Try it out.
5. Re-install. Unfortunately this might be the only thing you can do. If the machine doesn't respond to any of the give commands your only way is to re-install from the dvd given with the machine. Insert it to the DVD-drive and boot while pressind letted C down.

I hope one of these helped someone.

UPDATE:

Okay!  I just finished one Macbook that was stuck in the loading screen with the Apple logo after Yosemite update. I used the command + r method. It took a couple of minutes of pressing and holding command + r but finally the diagnostics menu popped up. In there I simply turned WiFi off (yours might not be on so don't worry if its not on) and chose restart from upper left corner of the screen. After this the computer booted normally and loaded up to the system! Hope this helps!

A short update on the state of "things"

I have been busy. Like really busy... So... I thought I might make a short update of content that I plan on posting in the future.

So lately I have been working on the script that I mentioned in my previous posts. I managed to find a sipping script from internet that doesn't require me to install third party PS-modules.

I also managed to figure out how to send email with attachments through Google's gmail so that is going to be another post.

I got a few other topics that I am working on but I will tell about them later.

Until next time; keep calm and code on....