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A Guide to Installing and Using the step-ca Certificate Authority Client
The previous article discussed installing an ACME-compatible certificate authority server. This post explains how to install step-cli (ACME client) on a client system to install the new certificate authority (CA), make it trusted, and request a TLS certificate. Install step-cli on a client. Pre-built packages for many operating systems and CPU platforms are on the…
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Step-by-Step Guide on Creating an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for an EC2 Instance using Bash and PowerShell Scripts
The provided Bash and PowerShell script helps automate the creation of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) from existing AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances. This is particularly useful for creating point-in-time backups or disaster recovery. I mostly use the script to quickly clone an EC2 instance for testing or troubleshooting. Create an AMI in the AWS…
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Review: Achieving Mastery over Outlook Data Files with Stellar Toolkit for Outlook
The Stellar Toolkit for Outlook is a comprehensive suite of tools designed to manage and optimize the performance of Microsoft Outlook. It includes various functionalities such as repairing PST files, recovering lost or deleted emails, merging PST files, and converting OST files to PST format. Additionally, it offers features to remove duplicate emails and compact…
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How to Run Your Own Certificate Authority with ACME Support Using Step-ca
Step-ca is a Certificate Authority (CA) management tool for Windows, Linux, and macOS designed to simplify the process of creation, management, and revocation of certificates for use with TLS, mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication, document signing, and other X.509 authentication as well as SSH keys through a variety of provisioners. A provisioner is a method with…
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How to Retrieve All SMTP (Email) Addresses Using PowerShell in Exchange
Occasionally, it may be necessary to export a complete list of email addresses in your Exchange organization. This article will guide you on how to obtain and export all assigned SMTP addresses to a CSV file in Exchange Server or Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online) using PowerShell. Here’s how to connect to your Exchange organization: The…
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Highlights from Microsoft Ignite 2023: Windows Server and SQL Server Updates
This year, Microsoft Ignite 2023 took place in Seattle, Washington from November 12 to 15, 2023 and it was such a wonderful experience to meet and interact with nearly 5,000 of you in person, and many more online across the globe. One common theme stood out throughout the event: the potential of AI is becoming…
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Tailoring and Implementing the Windows 11 Taskbar: A Guide on Using GPO or Intune
Organizations have the ability to control the look of the Windows taskbar on every networked computer, mainly by pinning vital applications. Administrators achieve this by setting up the applications in an XML file that is then distributed to each terminal using GPO or Microsoft Intune. Pinning important company applications isn’t the only reason for taskbar…
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A Comprehensive Guide to Installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Various Windows Editions and Server Core
For some time now, Microsoft has been offering a simplified installation of WSL via the wsl.exe utility. Hence, most guides refer to this method. However, in practice, it is not quite as straightforward because this command does not work on Server Core and is only suitable for WSL 2. Ideally, the Windows Subsystem should be…
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A Comprehensive Guide to Installing Cronicle Task Scheduler with Nginx Proxy
Cronicle is a web-based, multi-server task scheduling and automation platform designed to handle complex job scheduling and workflow management across multiple servers. It offers a user-friendly interface for creating, managing, and monitoring tasks, supporting a wide range of job types, including shell scripts, commands, and custom plugins. With features like real-time logging, error notification, and…
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Exploring Features of Windows Server 2025 Hyper-V: GPU Partitioning, VHDs Deduplication, and AD-less Live Migration
The upcoming LTSC release of Windows Server introduces several enhancements to Hyper-V and new storage functions, which primarily benefit the operation of virtual machines. This includes GPU virtualization, a new deduplication feature for ReFS, and live migration of VMs on clusters that are not members of an AD domain. As hypervisors have matured, there haven’t…