HP-UX OS installation

I completed a HP-UX server installation yesterday for one of the customers. Really, this is probably the first time I did a OS installation of a HP-UX server, previously, I have only seen my Unix administrator do it.

For a start, I made a silly mistake, instead of loading the OS installation disk, I put in the documentation CD in the CD-ROM drive, of course, it couldn't start up the installation process, wasted at least an hour then found out the I got the wrong disc!

Eventually, managed to get the right installation going, plus OS patching, the whole process took about four hours to complete.

My Cousin's Big Day

Today is wedding day of one of my younger cousins, and I will be attending his wedding dinner later tonight, with my family.

How times flies, come to think of it when we were still young, playing as kids, now he's getting married and soon will have his own children.

I think I am probably one of last few remaining male of that generation who is still single and nobody wants, pity me! Haha...

Anyway, hopefully you are enjoying your trip with your mum.

Well, almost time getting ready to go to my cousin dinner.....see ya...

ITIL Course

I have just attended the ITIL foundation course from Monday to Wednesday. This is a very interesting short course, and at the end of the course, there was a multiple choice exam questions where you have to obtain at least 26 out of 40 questions right, hopefully I pass.

The ITIL is made up of best practices, and ITSM or IT Service Management is part of it. Basically, it touches on Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Release Management, Configuration Management processess, plus the Service Desk support function, all these part of the Service Support. Service Delivery includes Availablity Management, Capacity Management, Service Level Management, Business Continuity Management and IT Finanace Management. It also covers Security Management which is not part of Service Delivery, but related.

My company is currently practicing this process model, so would be good to have a basic knowledge of what is this all about.

Weekend peace time

I thought I will be spending the weekend in peace today, especially, it rained in the afternoon, cooler for taking naps, but not so.

Our new Windows admin guy "hit the panic button" and called me saying one of the server could not be logout, showed light blue screen on the console for half an hour. I thought he had seen this before, and I did told him what to do, simple, check the HDD light, if no activity, do a hard power off and on it back, resolved.

The second incident, one of the app guys email us saying he could not logon to the application using some of the user IDs due to logon time retriction. This has nothing to do with the servers, I wanted to tell him that application security admin is not under our purview and please check with his application team's colleague. But being helpful, told him what it can be done to enable logon. He didn't email back, hopefully it's already solved.

Our DBA guy will be away for the next one week, I will also on course for he first three days of the week, hopeful, the rest of the team mates can work things together.

Unsecured Wireless Network

Just last week, a guy was charged in court for tapping on someone's wireless network, indirectly access the Internet via the victim's broadband connection. This is probable the first time I'm have heard, and I have never thought this could happen, the court thing, I mean.

Over here, most people live in flats of close proximity, if you just do a wireless network scan, you will sure to find some (networks) which are not secured. I believe there are people out there trying to tap on to other people's wireless network without the other party's knowledge. Mostly, I don't think they did it with ill intention, e.g. hacking, cracking, sniffing, but, rather, to get free access to fast internet connections at someone's expense.

I heard in some countries, such as Canada, if you are caught not securing your wireless network, you will be charged, reverse of what's happening here. Anyway, sometimes it's difficult to draw the lines, it's the almighty Law that determines the guilty party and eventually mete out the desired punishment under the justice system.

System roll out

The Windows systems which I have been working on for the last two weeks have finally rolled out, LIVE! today.

I heard there were some issues, complaints from users this morning, but that's the application concern, shouldn't be serious, though. Usually, it he timeout, connection slowest, error message when navigating, etc.

I'm also in the midst of completing the technical documentation today, do a final edit and then send it to the Project team. I reckon that in future they may want our team to administrator or maintenance the servers for them, if that is so, likely I will get our Windows guy to provide the primary support and then I back him up.

Have a look at this photo

Nothing particular, just want you to take a look at this picture of the roller coaster track.

Looks scary isn't it? That's the new Superman Escape ride.

High speed, velocity, very very exciting, but too bad, I didn't try it, weak heart, don't dare.

Another Windows' issue

I installed a couple of Windows Server 2003 OS patches on two new servers, production and UAT environments, that was Monday. Then I tried to run the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser v2.0 or MBSA v2, it failed. The error message was "The catalog file was corrupted" or "could not find the host to scan", something like that.

I couldn't solve the problem yesterday, so waited until today, got my new Windows admin guy to have a look. He managed to find out that it was due to the "Computer Browser" service that was turned off, which is required by the MBSA scan. That's good, that shows he's learning, I like that attitude. He is currently still worknig as a contracted staff, with this working attitude, soon, I may ask boss to convert him to permanent.

Number 100th

By the time you are seeing this, you would have completed your exams. This is my number 100th post, finally!

How times flies, I remember more than three months back, when I wanted to start this blog, I didn't know what to do, what to write or what kind of blog page design I want. With blogger.com, all these are simple to do, they provided the template for me to use, althought, maybe there's a lack of originity on this part, but ok.

If this is the first post that you are reading, there are 99 more to go. Hee...hee....8-p

System Security exam

Hey, you guess what? I passed the system security exam two days ago! Finally, after studying for the last eight weeks, I earned it. It was tougher that my previous system network exam actually, but my score was ok.

Sad also, I found out that I have lost my system network certificate yesterday. Don't know where I left it, maybe lost when I went for a job interview last year. I will continue to look for it, funny, usually I am quite careful. If cannot find, nevermind, anyway, my certification status is still recognised by the vendor.

This is Windows...

Yesterday, I had to go back home late, after midnight actually, because I was trying to resolved a Windows 2003 Server problem due to OS hardening. I spend almost six hours of my time in this, way passed midnight. I had to revert back all the changes I made earlier until I found out the main cause.

There is this parameter "Bypass traverse checking", which allows user to access (traverse) directories without if they are not allow into the parent folder. The initial permissions were granted for Everyone, Administrators, Users, Power Users and Backup Operators. I removed Everyone, Users and Power Users, and after server reboot, I could not even access the Networking panel, run the Backup or check the Dependencies in the Services. Managed to solved the issue by putting "Authenticated User" into the rights, and reboot server, it works!

Cha Kuey Tiao

I had Cha Kuey Tiao for dinner today. It has been quite some time since I last ate it, I don't usually got the chance to eat it, not that it is not available, but because I can't eat it too frequent due to my acne problem.

I just can't believe it, at my age, I am still bothered by pimples! Don't know whether is it due to the oily and fried food I eat everyday or just because I am too stressed out and can't sleep well at night.

The taste of Cha Kuey Tiao makes me water, it is actually chinese noddles fried with sweet dark soy sauce, chilli, chinese sausage, bean sprouts, fish cake and sea hums or cockles. It's a very filling meal, but not good to take it every day.

Pay a visit

I visited my cousin's shop yesterday, it is a small place, but there are heaps of clothes for sale. Although the place is abit messy, but most of the stuffs already hung on the racks were already in order. She was not there at that time as she had a full time job, so, her aunt was helping her to do the sales.

In that a couple of hours that I was there, I saw people, mostly women, visiting the shop, and buying stuffs. Really, these people can really spend their money, easily hit over hundred dollars per purchase.

Later, I told my cousin that she should start thinking of quiting her job and do full-time maning of her shop, because I think her aunt will not be able to handle it alone, as she also has other things to do.

Busy schedule

I have been busy.

Yesterday, my cousin called, wanted me to help out at her new boutique shop, I reckoned the business should be not bad, can earn a couple of hundreds, I guess. That aside, she also has a full time job, so it's pretty tough for her shuttling between her real job and her business, my aunt was helping her, but it's not the best arrangement.

I'll be taking half day off tomorrow, maybe I will go and visit her shop.

I was also been busy with, not really work, but studies, preparing for the exams and also read up on the other hacking course materials, it's tough. Now I know most of the hacking or cracking are aimed at Windows OS, tools like enum, pwdump, dumpsec, smbdie, etc. are pretty useful in exploiting or harming the OS.

I have been busy, really.