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October 11, 2019October 11, 2019

How to create CSR for SSL certificate via IIS

Technology era we are living, an SSL certificate is required for most if not all of today’s application to keep the data secure. It’s very easy to get SSL for your websites, some hosting providers included in your packages. If you have application then that requires a code signing certificate its silently different type of certificate. In order for you to get SSL, you will need to generate the certificate signing request (CSR), which you can use IIS manger, many hosting providers let you generate CSR on their portal too or you can use other tools like OpenSSL. Let’s get started

Login to the server where you have IIS (Windows 10 has IIS)
Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, depending on your view you can need to switch view from Content to Features
Double click on Server Certificates

Then on the right-hand side, you will see an Action menu, where you would click on “Create Certificate Request…”

Fill in the details for your Company to be verified by SSL provider, then click on Next
If, you want details on what to fill out the check out this link from Microsoft Server Certificates

Select your Cryptographic service provider and Bit Length that fits your need, then click Next
Note. Based on your selection you may see different options, I am using RSA, 2048

Next screen will ask you to save the file, select the location and click Finish, it will create WhatEverYouNamedYourFile.txt

That’s all for the process of creating the CSR, now you just need to go to your SSL Provider and copy and paste the code in the FileName.txt that you just saved in the last step. Then it will go through the validation process from your SSL provider, once everything is ok, you will get an email from them when your SSL is ready to be used.

October 2, 2019October 2, 2019

How to redirect HTTP to HTTPS in IIS

Redirect are very common for web servers for most if not all websites these days. This post I am using the URL Rewrite, if your server does not have already you need to download URL Rewrite extension which works With IIS 7, IIS 7.5, IIS 8, IIS 8.5, IIS 10. Note. If you already have the URL Rewrite you can skip to the section Adding Redirect Rule

Installation of URL Rewrite:

You can download directly from this link: https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite

If you already have the Web Platform Installer, you can double click and find it there, under your web server>Sites>Select site>on the right-side panel you will see Management section

To start the installation double click on the URL Rewrite and click Install

Read the terms then click on I Accept

If everything goes well you should see, successfully installed, click Finish
you should see the URL Rewrite, if you don’t close the IIS Manager and re-open it.

Adding Redirect Rule:

Double click on the URL Rewrite for the site you want to redirect

Add your rules here, which fits your needs you may need more than one rules

I am going to create a rule to redirect HTTP to HTTPS:

Click Add Rules(s)
Then click on Blank rule (for Inbound rules)

Fill in the Name and other options shown in the screenshot, then expand the Conditions and click Add

This condition will check if user type’s https, then this rule will be ignored, so it avoids the loop

Nothing set on the server variables, unless you needed in some special case, you can add it, Next, we want to set up the redirect

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/iis/extensions/url-rewrite-module/url-rewrite-module-configuration-reference

Your Rule should look something like this if you open your web.config file:
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name=”http to https redirect” stopProcessing=”true”>
                    <match url=”(.*)” />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping=”MatchAny”>
                        <add input=”{HTTPS}” pattern=”^OFF$” />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type=”Redirect” url=”https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}” />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>

If you have issues make sure to check following:

Make sure your webserver firewall ports 80 and 443 are opened
You may need to restart the IIS service for rule to take effect, also make your local cache is cleared for your browser.
Double-check the pattern of your rule make sure it’s correctly typed, not a typo

That’s it

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019

How to upgrade osTicket to 1.12

osTicket v1.12 is released on April 24, 2019, it’s open source ticket system. You can find full release notes at https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/releases. For osTicket version 1.12 PHP version 5.6 to 7.2, 7.2 is recommended.

Upgrade process is very simple, I am doing 1.10.4 to 1.12

Make sure you have a good backup of Database and files of osTicket
Then put the system in the offline mode: by going to /scp/settings.php
Download the new version from https://osticket.com/download/ and choose the osTicket Core, v1.12 (Latest Release)
Upload to your server v. 1.12 and replace current files/folders from Upload folder from your downloaded, and exclude the script folder/files

Make sure you have the correct permission, then go to the URL/SCP of the osTicket system and log in, you should see osTicket Upgrader, make sure your Prerequisites are all good, if any errors correct it, then click Start Upgrade Now

Then you will get Migrate to osTicket v1.12, click Upgrade now

Then if everything goes well you should see Upgrade Completed

Delete the /setup folder and update any customization you may have, test it, then once all is good you can put the system back online. If you have customized PHP core files, those need to be re-applied after the upgrade. Also, make sure your plugins are good, if needed upgrade do so, make sure it supports the ent version. Good luck

March 15, 2019March 14, 2019

How to delete old VM from Hyper-V Cluster

Hyper-V cluster is a very common business network uses, which allows system admin to do system updates, without having any downtime. There are times when VM (Virtual Machine) are created for a test or just got upgraded and left to be deleted later on. Cleaning up old VM will free up the storage space. In this post I will have steps on deleting VM from Hyper-V cluster, before deleting, check the location of the VM because deleting from the Cluster server, will not free up the storage, you will need to delete it manually. You can see the location of the VM by going to settings of the VM and select the Disk, it will display full path where your VM disk is stored.

Open Failover Cluster Manager, then click on Roles, you should see list of VM’s, select the one you want to delete, then right on it and select Remove.

You will get confirmation message, make sure it’s the correct VM, then click Yes, The VM will be removed from the Cluster.

Then go to Hyper-V host where VM was running from, so you can remove from list

Confirmation are you sure you want to delete, if it’s correct VM you are deleting click Delete.

Now the VM is deleted from Cluster and remove from Hyper-V host, it’s time to delete the VM disk, by going to the location you looked at before you deleted the VM. That should give you back the storage space. That’s it, you get an error check the windows log or application log, it will give you more info.

March 14, 2019March 18, 2019

How to restore deleted VM from Cluster

By mistaken you have deleted good VM and if you still have the VM disk, you can still bring it back online. As long as VM disk is not deleted from the Hyper-V it would be a very easy restore. Option 1 if you have not deleted VM from Hyper-V if you have deleted from Hyper-V follow option 2 after selecting VM from the Cluster Role.