Author Archives: Martijn

About Martijn

Dutch. Married. Dad. Living in Italy. Apple fan. IT manager. Loves life.

Microsoft 365 – Disable MFA on admin account using PowerShell when locked out

Posted on by
Reply

The phone-number associated with the admin account was no longer available so the client couldn’t access the admin portal of Microsoft 365 as the following message popped-up:

“More information required – Your organisation needs more information to keep your account secure”

And there was NO way to get passed that. Total lock-out. So, fire up PowerShell on a Windows machine (PS on a Mac does not work with MSOnline) and copy/paste the following lines to disable MFA and get asked to enter a new phone number! Please change the admin email and password to yours.

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Install-Module PowershellGet -Force
Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement
Import-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement

$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'SuperSecretPassword' -AsPlainText -Force
$o365cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("adminemail@address.com", $secpasswd)
Connect-ExchangeOnline -Credential $o365cred -ShowBanner:$false

Install-Module MSOnline
Import-Module MSOnline
Connect-MsolService -Credential $o365cred

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName adminemail@address.com | Set-MsolUser -StrongAuthenticationMethods @()

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Synology DS1511+ fan error: how to disable warning

Posted on by
3

My old Synology DS1511+ has a failed fan. It gave warnings in the form of beeps and in the logs, which it is supposed to do.

To be honest, I found someone who already had done what I wanted, so I just modified it slightly to work for DS1511+.

What we are going to do:

  1. Enable SSH and connect to our Synology box.
  2. Locate any files named “fan” something.
  3. Use the Editor VI to create a Shell Script to disable the “check_fan” function after each reboot.
    Info: basic VI commands and Vi commands on Synology wiki. We are only going to use the [ESC] key, and the command “:wq!” to exit and save from vi.

Steps to make this Work:

  1. First turn on SSH in Control Panel |Terminal

  2. Connect to your Synology box using a program like Putty where username is “root” and password is the same you use for “admin“.
  3. Locate the file we need to modify in order to disable the fan check.
    Note: if you cant find the file, navigate to sys dir first using cd /sys/

    find -name "*fan*"

Results in:
./module/pineview_synobios/parameters/check_fan
  4. Create a Shell script by navigating to the location containing the scripts. Creating a new script file and modify the permissions for the file (do this with sudo): 
    cd /usr/syno/etc.defaults/rc.sysv/
vi S99zz_fan_check_disable.sh
echo 0 > /sys/module/pineview_synobios/parameters/check_fan
[ESC]
:x [Enter]
chmod +x S99zz_fan_check_disable.sh
  5. That’s it. Reboot your NAS and now you don’t have to modify the file after each reboot.

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Genesis-Mining.com 3% discount code (Cloud based Bitcoin and Altcoin mining)

Posted on by
Reply

Genesis-Mining, a Scrypt cloud mining contracts company, has opened up their affiliate program for all users. This means that, like with other comparable Bitcoin-related services, you will earn more hashrate by referring people. But there’s more!

In order to refer people to Genesis-Mining, you have to request a special promotional code through their support system.

So what do these referral codes do for the people you bring over to Genesis-Mining? Well, people referred by you will receive a 3% discount on their order total, which is not bad either.

For the referrer, aka us, we get the equivalent of 3% of your purchased hashing power added to our account. For example, if you purchase the Diamond plan through our code, we get 1,5 Mhash/s of free hashing power added to our account, and you get 3% off your order price.

If you are planning to purchase a Genesis-Mining contract, and you really should, use the code “DEB1” , without quotation marks, to receive your 3% discount!

Genesis-Mining website : http://www.Genesis-Mining.com

Promotional code : DEB1 (3% discount)

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Hetzner – Proxmox / ESX – Sophos / pfSense additional IP network config – working & solved

Posted on by
2

Got a root server at Hetzner with 1 extra public IP address (next to the one provided). Wanted to install Debian and Proxmox on it so I can have a cheap Virtual Machine host. You can also install VMware ESX but then you need to ask them to attach a KVM-over-IP unit and didn’t want to bother.

Networking was a bit of a pain but I got it all configured:

– Proxmox is using the first public IP address so you can manage it externally.
– The second public IP address is needed to assign it to Sophos UTM / pfSense or any firewall of your choice.

This firewall will then NAT incoming traffic to your internal VM’s. In this example, 188.45.45.87 is the MAIN public IP address and 188.45.45.81 is the ADDITIONAL one.

Proxmox network config: 

# network interface settings
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet manual
iface eth0 inet6 static
 address 2b01:4g8:140:14d7::2
 netmask 64
 gateway fe80::1
auto vmbr0 ## Public IP address for Proxmox
iface vmbr0 inet static
 address 188.45.45.87
 netmask 255.255.255.192
 gateway 188.45.45.65
 bridge_ports eth0
 bridge_stp off
 bridge_fd 0
auto vmbr1 ## Interface for internal LAN networking
iface vmbr1 inet static
 address 192.168.0.254
 netmask 255.255.255.0
 gateway 192.168.0.1
 bridge_ports none
 bridge_stp off
 bridge_fd 0

Check if you can reach your Proxmox server on your public IP address. Now, get an additional IP address using Hetzner’s Robot control panel. Once assigned, make sure you request a separate MAC address for the new IP address !!! In this example, 188.45.45.81 has a separate MAC address of 00:50:xx:00:xx:EE

Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 14.15.12

In Proxmox, create a new VM and assign 2 network cards. One will be used for the LAN (vmbr1) and the other one for the WAN (vmbr0). Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 14.15.03   The MAC address of the WAN address needs to match the MAC address you’ve requested previously using Hetzner’s Robot ! Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 14.16.56       To configure your Sophos or pfSense firewall, you’ll need to create a SSH tunnel to the internal IP address of the firewall, as it won’t yet have the additional public IP address configured and probably need to finish the configuration using SSH or a browser. So, use this command (please adjust for your IP settings):

sudo ssh -L 4444:192.168.0.1:4444 root@188.45.45.87

In your browser, navigate to https://localhost:4444/ and finish configuring your firewall. Important: your WAN IP address is the additional IP address. Gateway and netmask are the same as the MAIN IP address.

Enable a DHCP server on your LAN and that’s it! Now you can install your VM’s and get an internal private IP address (as long as you assign vmbr01 in Proxmox to the VM) and use your firewall to NAT outside traffic to the inside.

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Synology Cloud Station and the pesky TailCharacterConflict error

Posted on by
8

At my (previous) company we’re using Synology Cloud Station with 20 users and lots of files. One user was complaining that the folder names were renamed with this nice addition:

Company Name B.V._PC_Name_UserName_Jan-27-145750-2015_TailCharacterConflict

Everything I tried didn’t help: renaming the folder, deleting it from the server, resyncing, everything. Google wasn’t a big help either. The folder kept being renamed with this very irritating TailCharacterConflict.

Until I saw the pattern.

You CAN’T let you folder name end with a trailing PERIOD. In this case, the folder name was Company Name B.V.

Changing the folder name to Company Name BV (with the periods) solved the problem. Insane, but true!

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Get the latest BlackBerry App World update; without getting stuck in the loop.

Posted on by
Reply

Browse to this link with your BB to get the latest App World update; without getting stuck in the ‘You need to update App World before you can download App World using the App World app’-loop.

http://mobileapps.blackberry.com/devicesoftware/entry.do?code=appworld

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Solved: “[Firmware Bug] ACPI No _BQC method”, initial brightness problem when installing Linux

Posted on by
1

Tried to install OpenElec and Ubuntu on a mini-ITX Sapphire White system and every time I tried to run the installer, I got a blank screen.
So I booted OpenElec (and Ubuntu) without the ‘quiet’ option from the kernel parameters and I was able to see this error:

[Firmware Bug] ACPI No _BQC method, cannot determine initial brightness

IMG_4599

My system is NOT a laptop so I don’t care about brightness. Searching for a solution on the internet got me nowhere; it involved recompiling kernels but that’s not very useful when I still need to install the Linux distribution.

But I found a solution! Forcing this entry into the kernel parameters while booting the installer:

acpi_backlight=vendor

… it solved my problems! So, OpenElec and Ubuntu are now installing without problems.

BUT, don’t forget to modify your installed distro to reflect the same parameter! If you use OpenElec, you’ll need to manually add the parameter when booting it, SSH into your box and remount the /flash mount as RW (mount -o remount,rw /flash), so you can edit the syslinux.cfg file and add the parameter.

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook

Raspberry Pi (rPi) and Pi-Lite led board testing

Posted on by
1

Got this little gem: http://shop.ciseco.co.uk/pi-lite-lots-of-leds-for-the-raspberry-pi-0805-red/

And this python script to make it talk:

#!/usr/bin/env python

# Pi-Lite init part...
import serial
from time import sleep
baud = 9600
port = '/dev/ttyAMA0'
ser = serial.Serial(port, baud)
ser.timeout = 0
ser.flushInput()

# And from here, the actual programming !

import sys
ser.write(sys.argv[1])

Use it like this:

python write.py "Hello, my name is Dick"

Post to Twitter Tweet Post to Delicious Post to Delicious Post to Facebook Post to Facebook