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How to be safe and stay alert of scams

There are many types of scams that happen around holidays, many are via email, text or phone calls.  So many robocalls collecting information and sending to unknown people, then real people follow up with the targeted user/company to get more information.  So please be careful while you shop online and unknown websites or even known websites that look official but are fake, they take your info then redirect to official websites.  The best way to stay safe in this technology age is to keep online activities limited and only download or use apps that are official and keep it up to date.  There is no way to be 100 % safe since everything is connected to the internet these days and controlled via software, so it’s just coded for good or used as bad are depends on usage and what you do with data.

Email Scam:

Many ways you can tell if emails are legit or fake:

  • Just looking at the text of the email, it may look like the real person writing, but they are generic text generated by robots automatically, each time you reply to it, they get more info about you. 
  • A signature will be generic as well
  • The person address to could be generic, sometimes even typo in the name
  • When you move your mouse over the username/email it should display a full real email address or when you reply it will show different email addresses.
  • Some have very small text asking to take action fast, reply and confirm your info with urgent or don’t tell anyone
  • Many more similar messages which you can spot it if you look carefully

Text messages:

Don’t click on them unless you are making changes to your account and you know it

  • With links to reset your password or update your password
  • Track your packages
  • There is a change in shipping, here is to update
  • Check this photo/Video out
  • etc.…

Phone calls:

Don’t give any personal info over the phone just hang up. Then if you think it’s legit you start the call with your Bank, Credit card, Vendor or whatever account/service is effected directly. Also if it’s a bank or tax-related normally they don’t contact you via phone, they will send you regular mail.

  • To confirm your name/address
  • Act as FBI, Police, company you may know
  • Your package has issues that need to verify …
  • You’re a bank account is locked, need to confirm …
  • Want to send you free info can you give your email address, etc…

Apps on your phone can be hacked which steals your data, so void downloading apps you don’t use/need or unsure of it and if you are using make sure they get updated. The donation phone call, it’s very hard to tell if it’s legit, so let them send you via regular mail if they ask to give your address info don’t if they found your phone number then you can find your address too. So, please be very careful of any emails, text messages or phone calls around holiday time, many scams happen.  They may seem like it’s coming from the known person.  Just don’t click anything you don’t know and if someone calls you to verify your personal information, they may act like Bank or Government, just hang up the call. Keep eyes on activity of your Finance info for Bank, Credit card, etc….


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How to set Time Zone in osTicket

How to setup Time Zone in osTicket, which is very important to have your system work correctly.  If the time zone is incorrect tickets get mixed up marked wrong data/time, SLA, etc.. So here are few places you can check to confirm your system is correctly setup.  I am using an Ubuntu system other Linux system works similar path might be different.  If your time shows incorrect you should also check to make sure you have installed the PHP Extensions “Intel” which effects the time you can check it at /scp/system.php. There at least 4 places you can set the time zone, I am listing it here, your settings may vary.

Option 1: from osTicket admin panel System Settings and Preferences

/scp/settings.php

Default settings: Locale Defaults

If you need to customize:

Option 2: via php.ini file

Search or in your file under Date and just uncomment date.timezone =
Put your time zone name after = America/New_York (This would be mine)

Timezone name list: https://www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

Sample php.ini file looks like
[Date]
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
; http://php.net/date.timezone
;date.timezone =

Option 3: via MySQL directly on the database

To see what’s currently is:

mysql -u YourDataBaseUserName -p -e “SELECT NOW();”

To see your current timezone within mysql: use the following command:

mysql> select now();

or
SHOW VARIABLES LIKE ‘%time_zone%’;

or
SELECT @@GLOBAL.time_zone, @@SESSION.time_zone;

To set a time zone or a value: make sure to choose your own time zone:

SET time_zone = America/New_York;

or
SET GLOBAL time_zone = ‘+8:00’;

or
SET GLOBAL time_zone = ‘ America/New_York ‘;

or
SET @@global.time_zone = ‘+00:00’;

To configure the time zone in Ubuntu system:

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Restart the server or you can restart Apache 2 and MySQL:
/etc/init.d/mysql restart

Option 4: Agent profile, which does not affect system-wide

osTicket Agent profile: Agent panel -> Profile -> Preferences -> Localization

That’s it, check the logs of PHP, web server and osTicket if you having any issues, that will give you some more clue.

Issues you might have:

Time issues: if Intel PHP Extension is not installed:

Once you installed Intel PHP extension then, restart your apache (your webserver) service, if everything goes well it should be fine:


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How to upgrade osTicket to 1.14.1

osTicket v1.14.1 is released today November 21, 2019, it’s open-source ticket system. You can find full release notes at https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/releases. For osTicket version 1.14.1 PHP version 7.0 to 7.3, 7.3 is recommended. The process is the same as before just make sure you have a good backup of database and osTicket files.

The Upgrade process is very simple, I am doing 1.12 to 1.14.1

  • Make sure you have a good backup of Database and files of osTicket
  • Then put the system in the offline mode: by going to URL of your osTicket support ticket /scp/settings.php
  • Download the new version from https://osticket.com/download/ and choose the osTicket Core, v1.14.1 (Latest Release) don’t download any Languages or plugins, you can add them after to void issues with the upgrade.
  • Upload to your server v. 1.14.1 and replace current files/folders from the Upload folder from your downloaded, and exclude the script folder/files. Also, Maintain the directory hierarchy any changes could cause an issue with the upgrade process or something might not work well.
    • Optional: Script folder only needed if you are using remote piping, so if you are not using remote piping don’t upload.
  • Make sure NOT to replace your \include\ost-config.php which does not include in the download.

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 v1.14.1, click Upgrade now
My screenshot shows 1.14 because at the time 1.14.1 was not out. If you were to do an upgrade from 1.14 to 1.14.1 there is no database change so you will not see the upgrade screen.

If everything goes well you should see Upgrade Completed! screen

After the installation

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. Also, remove the write permission to \include\ost-config.php to secure your config. 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 supported version. Good luck

Also make sure to enable new feature Link and Merge tickets, by default it’s off

If you are looking at a list of open tickets you will see two new options:

Link: The ability to link tickets and Merge – the ability to merge tickets

Documentation on how to use it: https://docs.osticket.com/en/latest/Features/Ticket%20Merge%20&%20Link.html

If you have click on the ticket, then option for Link and Merge ticket are shown when clicked on the arrow next to gear icon:

Official documentation: https://docs.osticket.com/en/latest/index.html
Link to: Changelog and Community forum: https://forum.osticket.com/


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How to clean up old DHCP server’s entry in a domain via PowerShell and netsh command

It’s very easy to forget old server entries and it may cause an issue in your network.  Sometimes system/network admin wait for approval process or schedule to clean up or just simply don’t know how to.  Whatever your reason is, this should be done to keep your network healthy from any unknown issues.  Here are some ways to clean up, I have listed PowerShell, Netsh and via GUI.

Via PowerShell:

To see list of all DHCP server run PowerShell command:

PS C:\>Get-DhcpServerInDC

To remove it:

You have to be domain or enterprise admin to remove it otherwise, you will get error

PS C:\>Remove-DhcpServerInDC –DnsName YourDHCPserver –IPAddress

This is without error: if you have run as admin

To add it:

You have to be domain or enterprise admin to remove it otherwise, you will get error

PS C:\> Add-DhcpServerInDC –DnsName YourDHCPserver –IPAddress

Using netsh commands

To the list of commands: netsh dhcp list

To add:

Netsh dhcp add server NameOfYourDHCPServer IP address

To delete:

Dhcp delete server NameOfYourServer IP address

Via GUI:

To add:
open your DHCP server, right-click, and select add

To Remove:
open your DHCP server, right-click and select Manage authorized servers …
Then just remove HDCP server that’s no longer in use

That’s it


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How to enable Remote Desktop Using PowerShell

Remote Desktop is very common still for many companies remote users to use, not all users needed since they most likely use VPN to get access to apps or just using the cloud-based. PowerShell is a new way to make changes to your remote computer lot easier than opening GUI and waiting for it to load and make changes. If you are admin of the network, it’s very easy to make changes and get the status of remote computer settings. Here in this post will do the Remote Desktop enable using PowerShell, let’s get started it

Computer or server must meet the following requirements:

  • The WinRM service should be started
  • You must have administrator permissions on the remote device
  • Firewall rule should be set to allow RDP connection default port 3389 if you have changed the default port make sure to add to your firewall rule

To start the session from your Windows 10 computer or Windows server, open PowerShell with Administrator

Command: Enter-PSSession -ComputerName YourRemoteComputerName or IP address -Credential domain\administrator

Once you are connected to a remote computer or server, you can run the following command to get current status:

Get-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server’-name “fDenyTSConnections”

Then to change the setting to allow RDP connection, just run following:

Set-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server’-name “fDenyTSConnections” -Value 0

You should also make sure that you have only secured RDP authentication (NLA – Network Level Authentication) to check  run the command: you should see 1

Get-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp’ -name “UserAuthentication”

 If you see 0 then set it to 1 by running:

Set-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp’ -name “UserAuthentication” -Value 1

To test the Remote Desktop connection:

Test-NetConnection ComputerName or IP address -CommonTCPPort RDP

That’s it for now, here is a screenshot of the GUI look like after you have enabled the RDP

Note: if the user whom RDP into this remote computer is not admin user you need to add them to a remote desktop group, if you want to do via PowerShell you can check this post out: How to add a local user to windows 10 via PowerShell