Moving GroupWise mailboxes between post offices

The reason for this article is to illustrate the simplicity of moving user mailbox on the other post office within Novell GroupWise.

First of aware the user that the will be no access to his e-mail throughout the move.

Find the user in eDirectory (GroupWise tree) -> right click -> properties -> GroupWise tab -> disable logins.

Next step is to run GWcheck on the mailbox prior to the move to avoid situations where it gets stuck or can’t read parts of the mailbox etc.

Right-click the username -> GroupWise utilities -> Mailbox/Library Maintenance and set the flags as shown below:

You may noticed the Misc tab which allows to add additional parameters such ATTCLIP (for sorting out attachment related issues)

In the result tab CC: e-mail must be specified to see if the mailbox has been successfully checked and no errors occurred.

In the received e-mail with the logs scroll down to overview ( JOB LOG SUMMARY)

As shown above No problems were found and mailbox is ready to be moved (right-click username -> move -> select the PO)

GWCheck may need to be run few times for the results to come with no problems. (see GroupWise wiki for error codes and how to fix them)

After selecting to move the user onto another PO you can view it’s progress by selecting the destination PO -> Tools (top bar menu) -> GroupWise Utilities -> User move status:

.

Move completed.

Understanding of Novell Vibe Access Control

For confidential workspace and by recommending teaming to other users it’s important that All users part of access control remains unticked.

Understanding Default Roles for Workspaces and Folders

• Visitor – Has read-only and comment-only access.
• Participant – Can create entries and modify those entries, plus perform tasks associated with the Visitor role.
• Guest Participant – Can read entries, create entries, and add comments.
• Team Member – Has all the rights of a Participant. In addition, can generate reports and manage community tags.
• Workspace and Folder Administrators – Can create, modify, or delete workspaces or folders; moderate participation (modify or delete the entries of others); design entries and workflows; set entry-level access controls on entries of others; and can perform tasks associated with the Participant and Team Member role.
• Workspace Creator – Can create sub-workspaces. In Team Workspace Root workspaces, this role allows users to create their own team workspaces.
• Site Administrator Has all rights associated with access control. Available only to Teaming
  

SSD Windows 7 settings

Solid state drives are getting popular, just got one for a home use.

After loads of research it turns out Crucial State Drive2 64GB M4 (£80) has the best performance and value (same for 128GB,512GB). 3 years warranty.

The drives are still quite expensive so you can get it just for your windows and application and store the rest of the data on another drive.

Nonetheless, the performance of the PC is great, Windows reboots within seconds , 95 windows updates installed in under 5 minutes.

I’d advise anyone to cut down on the price of the CPU from i7 to i5 and get SSD.



Windows 7 x 64bit installation turns out to take around 23GB of space!

Here are 2 steps that helped me to severly reduce it.

1. Disable hibernation.

The best way to delete hiberfil.sys or disable hibernate:

Go to Start menu, type “cmd” open up command prompt
Type “powercfg.exe -h off” [make sure you are an Administrator]
ENTER
Type “exit”
ENTER

2. Remove file paging (if you have enough RAM)

Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> System
On the left-hand side bar under Task -> Advanced System settings
System Properties -> Advanced tab -> Performance Settings… -> advanced tab -> Change
Uncheck “Automatically manage paging file size for all drivers”
Set it to 400MB (minimum safe I’d say)

3. Move the user folder on another drive.(Create another admin user to do this, after it can be purged)

Copy the original Default profile folder in C:\users to the new location. (by default this “Default” directory is hidden, you need to go Tools > Folder Options > View (tab) > Show Hidden files, folders, and drivers.)
Copy the original Public profile folder in C:\users to the new location. (lets say D:\ drive)
Open Registry Editor by type regedit from command line, and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
Change the value of the Default, Public, Profile Directory keys to the new location accordingly.
Log off. From this point on, any new user logged in to this computer will have a new user profile that’s located in the new location.



And also:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

EnablePrefetcher and EnableSuperFetch should be set to 0

information gathered from few web forums/blogs/own practical experience combined into one source of information.

LPIC 101 Certification Guide

1. Forget about GUI and use command like for any single task,
2. Use man pages to learn more about commands and try many options,
3. Don't rely on screenshots, go and explore config files such as /etc/lilo.conf,
4. Use few distros, test yourself extensively on both rpm and deb management,
5. Remember the paths to most important files fstab,inittab,etc..
6. Open yourself more to subject you think may be unrelated to you,
7. Don't rely on books, check the objectives on LPIC website.

Good luck!

Guide for IT Administration in 10 steps

1. Be Pro-active, Do things before they are requested by the user.
2. Perfect setup. By deploying the perfect image you will save your time and satisfy the users.
3. Ask for help. Don't hesitate to escalate the issue if you are stack. Speed is important for all businesses.
4. Don't forget. Don't forget the promises you have made and tasks you were allocated to. Keep and eye on your deadlines.
5. IT Orientation. Make sure user understand the system from day 1. Poor IT induction is the crucial part of further issues
6. Be polite. Users reactions can vary. stay cool and professional ensuring user you do all you possibly can.
7. Keep your eyes open. Look for everyday things that could be improved or automated.
8. Open your mind. If you see an improvement don't hesitate to tell your manager about it.
9. No Limits. Don't just do your job, keep interest in new aspects of IT, show you are passionate.
10. Be yourself. Assuming you are not a grumpy old man, talk to users,relax and be yourself.

Unix secondary groups - quick reference

Adding user to new/existing group:
usermod -G group user - adds user to group/multiple groups
usermod -G sales testuser - example
Append user to existing group:
usermod -a -G group user - appends user to group/multiple groups
Link to man usermod http://linux.die.net/man/8/usermod



Removing user from a group:
gpasswd (administer /etc/group)
gpasswd -d user group - removes user from group
usermod -G group user - removes all the other groups apart from specified.
link to man gpasswd http://man.he.net/man1/gpasswd

Revised Security Auditing

Security Auditing


Security auditing is not very appreciated process within any organization due to the fact that someone external is going to check already hired individuals and their skills. It may be a bit difficult to explain why security is so important and why certain mechanisms should be implemented especially for non-technical management. On the other hand some businesses can appreciate the benefits from security auditing for in result many weaknesses are identified and countered or advise on better software or hardware is given to save that organization’s money.

The mechanism for security audit is hardly ever standard due to difference of environment between companies. Techniques such as interviews, vulnerability scans and observation/analyses are steps undertaken by security auditor. Often the companies’ security policies and procedures need to be analysed not only to check if there is lack of consistency within those documents but also to base the analyses and mechanism of auditing on these policies. CAAT’s (Computer-Assigned audit Technologies) are utilities to generate system reports that store all the logs and configuration files and sometimes even monitor activities. I think that it’s very useful as the information can be very well formatted and display to an auditor without him going into specific directories/volumes or configuration files to get the information needed. Some of these tools actually have programmed patterns of for instance default configuration files which are being matched to the tested system configuration files and it flags the auditor when positive.

Considering auditor role as an investigator there are certain areas that are need to be checked for instance the way the passwords are generated or the way backups are stored often by asking all sorts of questions based on the auditors experience. I think the very important issue to observe is that some companies have got their own internal auditors/security consultant/officers which can help however to gain objective system audit an external auditor is a must. In many companies that is a way to check how the IT Department is developing and progressing. External auditor will produce the report on their achieved goals and aims for the next audit. That is normally the formal report produced few weeks after the audit takes place. Some institutions like Higher education or some government bodies have a law that impose to make sure that externals audits are up to date and consistently maintained.

John Edwards. (2008). The Essential Guide to Security Audits. Available: http://www.itsecurity.com/features/security-audit-essentials-042908/#comments.