Network and Security consultant with over 20 years experience. Mainly project based designing / testing and implementing large enterprise level networks for both the private and public sector. Focusing on security devices but also highly experienced in routing and switching technologies.

Why I Didn’t Buy A Mac Book Pro

Sunday, 23 July 2017 / Published in Personal
This post is my reasons for why I didn’t buy a Mac Book Pro. I’ve just replaced my laptop as per my normal 5 ish year laptop refresh. For the first time, I considered a Mac Book Pro over my usual Lenovo windows based machine. This post is not a review of the laptop I

StarTech USB To RS232 Serial Adaptor

Tuesday, 27 June 2017 / Published in Networking
It can be tricky finding a reliable USB to serial adaptor. I’ve recently brought a new as I’ve replaced my laptop and my old adaptor was not compatible with Windows 10. Fortunately I found one that works on my first purchase, the StarTech USB to serial Adaptor. The Adaptor was recognised by Windows 10 with

Using OpenSSL to generate CSR’s with Subject Alternative Name

Friday, 19 May 2017 / Published in Security
This post details how I’ve been using OpenSSL to generate CSR’s with Subject Alternative Name Extensions. You may have noticed that since Chrome 58, certificates that do not have Subject Alternative name extensions will show as invalid. Amazing, I must have missed the memo on that. Most of the certificates I use in my home

Update to the Gaming Rig

Sunday, 30 April 2017 / Published in Personal
Since living with the new Gaming Rig I built a few months back I decided to add some upgrades. This included a new CPU cooler, more RAM, another SSD and some cable extensions. I’ve been using the gaming rig as an overflow hypervisor when I need to build out larger labs. New CPU Cooler The

Lenovo TS140 VMware ESXi 6.5 Storage Driver Issue

Saturday, 11 March 2017 / Published in Lab
This post details a Lenovo TS140 VMware ESXi 6.5 Storage Driver Issue. This issue is not limited to the TS140’s as I discovered during my research to the problem that a number of other servers are also affected. My TS140’s originally had ESXi 6.0 installed on HDD’s. I was experiencing IO issues so opted to

AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate

Friday, 17 February 2017 / Published in Certifications, The Bookshelf
This post details my study strategy for the AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate exam. I’m frequently being asked how much I know about migrating or building out services into AWS. Until recently I’d not even created an account or logged into the AWS console. Some downtime between contracts over the last few weeks has

Consolidating VM’s In The Home Lab

Thursday, 09 February 2017 / Published in Lab, Personal
For the last few weeks I’ve been running out of RAM on both my hypervisors. Each server has the supported total of 32GB RAM and 1 x CPU Socket. The question I’d been asking myself was, do I purchase a third server or do I start consolidating VM’s in the home lab? The easiest and

Automating the reboot of my home cable modem

Friday, 27 January 2017 / Published in Automation, Networking
This post details my approach to automating the reboot of my home cable modem. Up until recently my ISP has been extremely reliable and in over 14 years I’ve been a customer with them I could count on my hand the number of times I’d experienced issues. For the last week the service has been

Server 2012 Domain Controller Not Authenticating Users

Thursday, 01 December 2016 / Published in Lab, Networking
I don’t usually write “this how you configure this” type blogs but for this particular problem I experienced I’ll make an exception. This post details how I resolved an issue with a Windows server 2012 domain controller not authenticating users. Up until I purchased a VM backup solution I was manually and occasionally taking backups

Implementing a VM backup solution for the home lab

Tuesday, 15 November 2016 / Published in Lab
I’ve recently finished implementing a VM backup solution for the home lab. In this post I’ll detail some experiences I had while selecting a backup software vendor.  A few months back I lost a Windows Server 2012 domain controller due to disk corruption. Whilst taking a snapshot in VMware something went wrong and the VM