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:

November 14, 2019November 15, 2019

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

October 2, 2019November 6, 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://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}

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

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.