Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

We’re looking for favorite tips and tools we can share with the community… those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please share your suggestions on the IT Pro Tuesday subreddit, and we’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

Now on to this week’s list!

Foreman is an open-source tool for managing physical and virtual servers throughout their lifecycle. Offers an easy way to automate repetitive tasks, deploy applications, and proactively manage servers, on-premise or in the cloud. spyingwind includes it in the list of “software I can’t live without.”

Dockge is a reactive self-hosted Docker compose.yaml stack-oriented manager with a single-page interface for logs, YAML editor, terminal, and container controls. No_Tart_1619 explains, “I’m migrating my services onto a new server and decided to try Dockge [because Portainer was] really slow at deploying, restarting, stopping etc containers/stacks and it didn’t give feedback on what was happening… Dockge responds instantly and brings up the terminal and container logs for easy debugging. Makes managing services so much easier.”

How to check any SSL connection, compliments of adrenx: 

E.g., openssl s_client -connect ldap.yourdomain.com:636

PipeWire is a Linux audio/video solution that provides a low-latency, graph-based processing engine for audio and video devices. Its powerful security model makes interacting with a/v devices from containerized applications easy, with seamless support for PulseAudio, JACK, ALSA, and GStreamer. A favorite that spyingwind likes to pair up with WirePlumber.

WirePlumber is a modular session/policy manager for PipeWire with a plugin framework and an API that allows you to extend the WirePlumber daemon, to write management or status tools for PipeWire and custom session managers for embedded devices. Another suggestion from spyingwind.

ImgBurn is a lightweight, flexible burning application for CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray. Offers some nice advanced features and supports all the latest drives. Kindly suggested by dartheagleeye.

Mailscavator allows you to easily select all your PST Outlook archive files in order to split and reorganize them by date and/or size. user_none has used it to “split some [PST files] close to 100GB … never failed me.”

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

Check out the latest Security Swarm Podcast: “Celebrating 50 Episodes: A Review of our Top Security Discussions (PT1).” We go through some core security topics and discuss whether they’re still relevant, how they’ve changed in comparison to the evolving threat landscape and provide updates on some of the major stories we’ve discussed.

We’re looking for favorite tips and tools we can share with the community… those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please share your suggestions on the IT Pro Tuesday subreddit, and we’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

Now on to this week’s list!

funky_bebop shares a helpful shortcut:

.\ on the username at windows login will bring up the hostname of the pc.

And JustSomeGuyFromIT adds:

.\<YOUR USERNAME> even lets you login with any of the local users. Works super well when you need local admin rights without entering your admin account in front of the users.

MUO offers tips, tricks, reviews, and guides on various topics—with the aim of simplifying technology so you can get the most utility for your investment. Covers major platforms, assorted topical areas, and includes detailed reviews. A favorite source of how-tos for sassanix.

TortoiseSVN is a simple, intuitive Windows revision-control software that allows you to manage different versions of source code. Can be used with whatever development tools you like, and with any type of file. Kindly suggested by graysky311.

Ghostscript is a PostScript/PDF interpreter and converter that offers native rendering of PDF, PostScript, PCL, XPS, raster, and vector files on various systems. Consists of a PostScript interpreter layer and a graphics library. A favorite of Glass_wizard.

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

Check out the latest Security Swarm Podcast: “OSINT in The Hands of Hackers,” we explore the topic of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) – what it is, how threat actors use it to launch effective attacks, and the dangers it poses.

We’re looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community… those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please share your suggestions on the IT Pro Tuesday subreddit, and we’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

Now on to this week’s list!

Linux Uprising offers articles on the worlds of Linux and open-source software, including how-to articles, original application reviews, and helpful tips. Articles typically explain things clearly enough to be understood by a novice audience, even as the content is obviously geared toward experienced users. Kindly suggested by sassanix.

GOAD is an Active Directory LAB project that is designed to provide pentesters with a vulnerable AD environment for training purposes. This ready-to-use environment offers a safe, easy means of honing your skills against common attack techniques. Appreciated by Nnyan.

A helpful hint for Windows admins, compliments of tdic89: 

“Shift+F10 inside the Windows installer or out-of-box experience will get you a command line. Great if you want to get straight to cmd.exe after booting something to a Windows ISO.”

Task is a simple, easy task runner and build tool that serves as a welcome improvement to existing alternatives like GNU Make. This cross-platform tool offers easy installation and CI availability. runningblind77 says, “I use Task religiously at work and at home. Makefile’s on steroids using yaml and go templating.”

The WAN Show is a weekly discussion of current happenings in the tech world. Expert hosts Linus Sebastian and Luke Lafreniere chat about what’s going on in a variety of areas from hardware to software, AI developments to company news, and much more. fadingcross says, “I love WAN show. It’s a perfect dog walk/gym tech pod for me.”

BleachBit is an open-source utility that quickly frees disk space on Linux and Windows systems by clearing out caches, cookies, Internet history, temporary files, logs, and other unnecessary junk. Offers powerful privacy features such as shredding files to prevent recovery and wiping free disk space to hide traces of files that were deleted by other applications. zqpmx recommends it to optimize Windows machines.

Quicksilver is a launcher utility app for MacOS that learns your habits in order to help you perform common tasks faster and more intuitively. Assists with accessing apps, docs, and more; browsing for files using keywords and ‘fuzzy’ matching; managing content through drag and drop; and interacting with installed applications through plugins. Kindly recommended by almostdvs.

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

In the latest Security Swarm Podcast: “The Security Implications of Migrating from VMware,” we talk about the challenges and opportunities organizations face amidst the Broadcom acquisition of VMware, including the steep price hikes for VMware licenses and the security vulnerabilities recently discovered in VMware products.

We’re looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community… those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please share your suggestions on the IT Pro Tuesday subreddit, and we’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

Now on to this week’s list!

k9s is a terminal based UI that’s designed to interact with Kubernetes clusters in order to make it easier to navigate, observe and manage deployed applications. It continually watches Kubernetes for changes and offers subsequent commands to interact with observed resources. Our thanks for the recommendation go to sfltech.

Phoronix is a great way to stay on top of all the latest info about Linux and open source. You’ll find tons of reviews on hardware of all types, current news affecting the open-source community, performance benchmarks, and a community tech forum. Kindly suggested by sassanix.

turkshead shares a time saver:  

Shell loops. You run a loop in the shell with like

for i in {1..50}; do [stuff]; done

And it just does [stuff] 50 times. If you’ve got 50 hosts you want to run some random commands on, just figure out the command line on a test host, add quoting, and wrap it in a for loop. You can add | tee filename.log to capture the output.

For bonus points, use parallel and it all happens at once.

Zellij is a terminal workspace with the base functionality of a terminal multiplexer that also allows users to extend it and create a personalized environment with panes laid out exactly as desired when they start the app. spidernik84 says, “Nowadays i suggest trying Zellij over tmux. It’s pretty cool especially for newstarters.”

K12 TechTalk Podcast delves into trending topics that are relevant to tech professionals who work in the education system. vesikk adds, “Chris, Josh, and Mark have great banter and talk from experience as head of IT in their respective schools.”

xed is a CLI tool for performing basic text transformations, with an intuitive interface and support for multi-line regular expressions by default. zqpmx likes it as a “text editor with regular expressions.”

Lynis is a security auditing tool for UNIX-based systems. Performs an in-depth security scan as well as scan for general system information, vulnerable software packages, and possible configuration issues. Runs on the system itself to test defenses and provide tips for system hardening. Appreciated by Nnyan.

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

In the latest Security Swarm Podcast: “New Threat Campaign Distributing DarkGate Malware & The Massive 911 S5 Botnet Takedown,” we discuss the Monthly Threat Review for June 2024 with Eric Siron. You’ll hear about a new threat campaign distributing the Darkgate Malware using a technique called pastejacking and the 911 S5 Proxy Botnet takedown and how threat actors are exploiting Stack Overflow to distribute malware.

We’re looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community… those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please share your suggestions on the IT Pro Tuesday subreddit, and we’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

Now on to this week’s list!

xCharg shares a handy shortcut:

Ctrl+shift+click (or enter if something is selected) opens elevated without the need to navigate through context menus

And Double_Zout adds:

CTRL+Shift+Enter when using “Run” (Win+R) for CMD opens as admin as well 🙂

whatsmydns.net is a quick way to perform a DNS lookup of any domain name’s current IP address and DNS record information, instantly checking multiple nameservers that are located in different parts of the world. Appreciation for this one goes to Fancy_Possibility_47.

P0f uses an array of sophisticated, yet entirely passive traffic fingerprinting mechanisms to identify precisely who is behind any TCP/IP communications. Works without interfering with the traffic in any way. Kindly suggested by Nnyan.

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

In the latest Security Swarm Podcast: “Windows Server 2025: New Security Features Revealed,” we discuss the upcoming release of Windows Server 2025 and the myriad security enhancements it will bring. We delve into various topics such as improvements to Active Directory, delegated managed service accounts, Kerberos protocol enhancements, SMB enhancements, hot patching, REFS file system for confidential computing, and extended security updates.

We’re looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community… those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please share your suggestions on the IT Pro Tuesday subreddit, and we’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

Now on to this week’s list!

Graph Explorer is a developer tool for learning about Microsoft Graph APIs. Lets you try out APIs on the default sample tenant to safely explore capabilities and work out app functionality. Includes helpful features such as code snippets (C#, Java, JavaScript, Go, and PowerShell), Microsoft Graph Toolkit and adaptive cards integration, and more. Kindly recommended by FakeItTilYouMakeIT25.

asdf allows you to manage multiple runtime versions from one CLI tool and command interface. Offers a large ecosystem of existing runtimes and tools, with a simple API, backwards-compatibility, and a GitHub Action for use in CI/CD workflows.  othugmuffin advises the new Mac user, “If you intend on using Python, I would recommend against installing it from Homebrew and go for something like asdf to manage different versions. You can use it for other things too; e.g., Go, Terraform, Ruby, etc.”

ssiws shares a nice shortcut: 

Ctrl-Shift-T will reopen the last tab you closed

themaverick1313 adds: 

Ctrl-W closes the tab that’s open 

and from pmormr: 

Control-Tab and Control-Shift-Tab cycles through your open tabs (forwards and backwards)

CIS Microsoft Intune for Microsoft Windows Benchmarks offers secure system configuration guidelines that were developed through a community consensus process. id0lmindapproved explains, “Using Intune to match CIS Benchmarks is really useful and generally good practice.”

Sidder is a simple way to manage User Profile Disks on the .net 4.8 Framework. The tool was designed as a quick option for identifying which User Profile Disk belongs to which Domain User and performing basic administrative tasks. Kindly suggested by CobraBubblesJr.

less-Windows is a standalone version of GNU less (without any dependencies) that has been compiled for Windows 10 and 11. This suggestion was provided by jftuga, who appreciates it as “a terminal pager—similar to more, but allows you to scroll backwards and search.”

The SQL Server Maintenance Solution is a valuable and widely used collection of scripts for running backups, integrity checks, and index and statistics maintenance. Works on all editions of MS SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2022. Our thanks for the recommendation go to amgeiger.