Unix Tip: Remounting root

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

During the booting of Solaris, both the / and /usr file systems are mounted read-only and then later, before the boot process is fully complete, remounted read-write. This is all part of the normal boot process and no reason for concern. Disruptions to the normal boot sequence, however, can leave you with a file system that is mounted read-only and requiring repair with no obvious way to fix the problem. Do situations such as this require you to boot from CD, DVD or from a boot server before you can edit the files or scripts that are sabotaging your boot process? No, you can make use of the mount command's handy remount option and save yourself a lot of time and trouble.

Let's say that you are booting a system and you run into these errors.

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Top six time-wasting practices CIOs should avoid

By Sandra Rossi

Research firm Gartner has released a 'hit list' of six time-wasting practices that CIOs should avoid to maintain a focus on key priorities that maximize value to the business. At the very top of the list is a warning to CIOs to stop being the budget-priority police.

Windows Tip: Drag and drop RunAs

By Mitch Tulloch

I'm always on the lookout for new ways of doing LUA so I can maintain the security of my computer while still keeping things manageable. Today I'll share a cool tip that was forwarded to me by someone inside Microsoft.

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Storage Tip: Practicing information-centric security

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Information-centric security, from a data security perspective, is protecting data at its core. Not only must you prevent the wrong people from getting a key to the data vault, but you must also know how to prevent those who have a key from misusing the data.

Here's what you need to know.

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Unix Tip: Taking notes the easy way

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

If you ever find yourself cutting and pasting Unix commands and their output into a file in order to create a record of some anomaly you have encountered on a system you manage or to document a procedure so that someone else can take charge while you are on vacation, you may have overlooked a handy command that takes all the fuss out of recording the content of your online session -- the script command.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Forcing a remote reboot

Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

You've probably heard that old saying, "When in doubt, reboot." There can be many reasons why you might need to reboot a system from applications that leak memory to problems caused by patching. And while rebooting a system to fix an issue isn't an elegant solution, well if it works, it works. Right?

Unfortunately sometimes when you try and reboot a remote system it may not behave as expected. For example, one business I know has scheduled reboots for one of their servers using Task Scheduler and the shutdown /r, but from time to time the reboot fails for no apparent reason, even when using the /f (force) command. How can you make sure your server reboots when you tell it to?

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Three inexpensive ways to increase security

By Brent Huston, ITworld.com

Want to increase overall security of your small to mid-size business network without spending much time or money? These three inexpensive ideas will help bring more security and less hassle to your environment.

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Security Tip: Don't be seduced by penetration testing certifications

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

There's been a lot of recent talk about certifications for penetration testing, but don't be swayed. You must continue to carefully vet your security partners when it comes to protecting your perimeter. Here's why.

Storage Tip: Increase energy efficiency of stored data

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

One approach to increasing energy efficiency is to get more out of the storage that you already have by increasing the utilization factor over time. One way to accomplish this is to consolidate underutilized disks into fewer, but on-average, fuller disks. You can then either idle some disks that are not used and take an immediate power savings or you can wait and fill them up over time with new data without increasing power consumption. Here's what you need to know.

Unix Tip: Rejecting email from outside

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

If you would like to generate email on a server, but don't want to put up with email from the outside, you can configure sendmail to do this for you.

Windows Tip: Troubleshooting Group Policy processing on terminal servers

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Here's a tip concerning troubleshooting Group Policy application when you have Windows terminal servers on the back end of your Windows clients. User Configuration policy settings will usually be applied when a user logs on to a terminal server, with one main exception: when the terminal server is configured to use loopback processing with replace mode.

Read the full article here.

Unix Tip: Mail loops back to me

By Sandra Henry-Stocker, ITworld.com

Many systems administrators have run into errors in their syslog files that complain that mail is looping back, suggesting a possible MX problem. The common cause of this problem is that a server is receiving email for a domain that it doesn't recognize as its own. Then, when the server looks up the MX address for the intended target (in order to send the mail on its way), it notices that the MX record is one that identifies the mail exchanger as the system itself.

Read the full article here.

ID theft in under 15 seconds

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

I just attended a conference for payment system security and identity theft, and two themes were clear. One, identity theft is easier, faster and more profitable than ever, and two, attackers are more organized, capable and technology savvy.

Read the full article here.

Storage Tip: Choosing what data to protect with encryption

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Planning what to do about encryption should be part of an overall data governance planning process that can also address issues such as data quality and master data management as well as how to meet requirements for responding to the changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for civil litigation. Here's what you need to know.

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"Risk" is the next new security label

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

As I look into the blogosphere and other areas of forthcoming knowledge and expression -- I see that "risk" is the next label to be applied to every new and old security product. Suddenly products will be re-branded as "risk reducing", "risk mitigating" or "risk strategy compliant".

Read the full article here.

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