Another small app written in Adobe Flex. This time to decrypt passwords stored in Cisco VPN PCF file. Just simply copy enc_GroupPwd or enc_UserPassword to decryptor and click Decrypt button 🙂

Using this small app you can decode:

• enc_GroupPwd – VPN group password from PCF file
• enc_UserPassword – VPN user password from PCF file

For that small webapp to work Adobe Flash Player is required.

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If you have machine which is not connected to domain, but has TPM chip you might want to encrypt disks with BitLocker and enable PIN protection at boot-up.

In order to do that you have to make sure TPM is activated and enabled for provisioning in BIOS. Next step will be to allow PIN use, as by default that option is not active especially on machines not connected to Active Directory domain.

So, to enable ability to set PIN follow the steps:

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In order to create new Forest and promote Windows Server 2012 Core to be Domain Controller for that Forest, first Active Directory Services Role has to be added:

Install-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services –IncludeManagementTools

Once Active Directory DOmain Services role is installed we can promote server to be first Domain Controller in the Forest.

Install-ADDSForest -DomainName "lab.corp" -DomainNetbiosName "LAB" -DomainMode Win2008R2 -ForestMode Win2008R2 -InstallDns -Force

And after some time new Forest and Domain Controller is ready to use.

ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) was predeccesor of ADLDS and Microsoft distributed it as additional download. Now in Windows Server 2008 R2 ADLDS (Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services) are built0in server role. ADLDS offers LDAP-based directory service which can be utilized by application LDAP-enabled. In addition to that ADLDS works as Windows-service and is non-operating-system service which allows multiple instances of ADLDS on same machine.

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Some time ago I described How to : Install RANCID on openSUSE 11.4 “Celadon”. However, just after installation RANCID will do nothing without proper configuration.

So, in this lab I will show how to:

• create group of devices in rancid
• add information about credentals to RANCID
• add 2 Cisco routers to that group
• collect configuration from routers
• setup cron task to run rancid automatically

Systems which will be used to demonstrate how to add device to RANCID and collect configuration:

• lab-gw-01 – IP: 172.16.90.5 – openSUSE witn RANCID – installed on VMware Workstation
• lab-r1 – IP: 172.16.90.123 – Cisco router – started on GNS3
• lab-r2 – IP: 172.16.90.124 – Cisco router – started on GNS3

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RSP platform installed on Riverbed allows to run VMware virtual machines on it. THat gives very powerful environment as Riverbed might become the only appliance deployed for branch office and with WAN optimization we can also provide basic services/systems to site. That gives us huge flexibility and same time no need to deploy additional systems for site can be placed on Riverbed as virtual machines. Of course that reuires special license and also additional RAM would be recommended, so we won’t suffer performance issues (additional memory can be purchased with Riverbed appliance and RSP license, so we get ready to go environment).

But it is not enough to create VMware cityual machine on PC and upload it to Riverbed. Few more steps is involved in the process and here we will go through all steps to see how to prepare virtual machine for Riverbed on Windows 7 PC with VMware Workstation 9 installed.

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Finally it happened that I commited my first application for BlackBerry PlayBook. Application I’ve created decodes Type 7 password which is stored in Cisco devices configuration. It is not complicated application and has splash screen and one application screen, but it does what I expected this piece of software to do 🙂

Using this small app you can decode:

• wireless keys fro Cisco access points,
• RADIUS/TACACS shared secrets
• NTP authentication keys
• Enable passwords (NOT enable secrets, which are stored using MD5).

I hope to develop this application and add some more decryption abilities for Cisco devices (like group password from PCF file for example).

Here are screenshots of my first app 🙂

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When I got cisco 881w first time it was interesting experience. This device presented new concept which was different to model I knew so far, which is 871w. In 881w router module and wireless module are separated. With that being said, router configuration and access point configuration is separated as well. Also, each module (router and access point) has own IOS:

• c880data-universalk9-mz.152-1.T1 – router IOS
• ap801-k9w7-mx.124-21a.JA1 – access point IOS

As usual, first I connected device to console cable and attempted to configure it. Not being familiar with new concept it was a bit of a failure 🙂 So, eventually had to refer to documentation to find out what’s going on. Problem which came up was, how to access wireless module to configure it or even check if it’s there 🙂

So, finally after I did apply reading ability and spent few minutes with Cisco documentation I was able to access wireless module and configure it to provide wireless services in the air. Here is how that happend:

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Some time ago I had to transfer SQL Server databases from remote retail locations to central system. At that time whol einfrastructure was operating on Microsoft SQL server 2000 and link in remote locations was 128kb/s ISDN. At that time I thought that the best idea will be backup database to local hard disk on SQL server, RAR it and FTP compressed backup of SQL database to headquater. It did work quite well. So, below is a script I scheduled to be run as part of scheduled job defined on SQL Server Agent.

Before script will be used few things have to be customized:

• location for database backups – @archive_path – default: F:\Backup
• location of WinRAR application – @archive_cmd – default: C:\Program Files\WinRAR
• IP address of FTP server – default: 192.168.10.120
• Username and password for FTP user – default: dbupload/password
• Folder on FTP server for backup upload – default: Site_Backup

As there might ba many remote sites uploading backups, each site can have different folder for data transfer.

Here is script to backup SQL Server database and trasfer backup to FTP server:

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When trying to recover my Lumia 820 from unsuccessful OS upgrade, phone went completely dead.

I was not able to turn it on or see any sign of activity in the device (boot manager damage happened probably).

At that stage I decided to look for tool which can recover my boot manager and then OS on Lumia.

Tool I found is available on Microsoft web site:

• Windows Phone Recovery Tool – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=525569

…and here is how it recovered my phone…

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