Not much this week

Well, I did not get much done last week.  Just watching videos on sysmon, powershell and linux commands.

I still have not replaced my hdd in my mini server with a ssd.  I will complete that this week for sure, lol!  I had a scare today with running system updates on that box and it hosing up trying to update Jellyfin.  It prompted my to reboot when I saw the error message in the logs but that did not work, uh oh!  I had to take a deep breath and test the rest of my services running on that box and all was good but Jellyfin would not come up after several minutes.  So, I reran the system update command and that seems to have fixed it.  Whew!!!!

I have a backup of the database that I have not tested but this week would have sucked if I had to go that method.  I should switch it to a docker container, so it is easier to backup but oh well.  I think I need to spin up docker containers for plex and jellyfin and migrate my stuff to them.  It would have to be on the r610 in proxmox.  Hearing about several tools for pentesting online that I need to look into soon.  Learning a lot as of late.

Happy Tuesday 😀

Last Week Very Interesting

Okay

I did not get my mini server hdd replaced nor wazuh setup last week but I did get some other important things accomplished.

Installed a couple of services on my mini server ( iperf3 and drawio ), watched a lot of videos on setting up wazuh, winget, powershell/linux tutorials.  I worked on setting on a hacking lab on both of my laptops using virtualbox.  I also learned something important about using clonezilla, a 500 gig SSD and a 480 gig SSD are not workable if you are going from 500 gig hdd to 480 ssd and I have to remember to use gparted when I go from a 256 gig ssd to a 480 gig ssd.  I need to find a disk copying tool that is less complex.  Live and learn🤔 

Happy Monday 😀!

Must do better this week

Okay

I did not get everything done I scheduled to get done but I did get some things worked out.  I think I know why I am not able to print from a windows computer to my print server.  Needless to say, windows users take a lot for granted!  Microsoft literally holds your hands when it comes to setting up devices in their environment while linux expects you to just know how hardware, software and the kernel interact in it's environment; but I did shoot myself in the foot by going headless for ubuntu server.  I probably would not had a problem if I had went gui with the ubuntu server install.  Oh well, the benefits far out weight the pain points using it headless.  I may be able to get the printing issue resolved today.  Also need to work on the HDD upgrade for the mini server.  SSD came in lastnight and I will try to get done in a day or so.

Here's to a new week!

Happy Monday 😀

Better Late Than Never, lol!

Well I did not get done everything I planned out on my todo list last week.

Oh well, such as life!

MS Sql Server  Done

Wireshark  Done

Nmap  Done

Proxmox (Kind of done, I chickened out on upgrading Proxmox from 8 to 9 but I did get it updated for 8)

Install Wazuh  (Unfortunately, this was a no go)  Need to find a system that has the resources for setup) 

Training modules for PowerShell, Linux fundamental's and Python   Done

Upgrade mini server's hard drive to an SSD  (not done due to the SSD that I have being to small) Amazon

Possible upgrade Portainer and Immich   Done

Work on using Notion as a note taking solution (?)  Done

I did get my windows server 2022 updated

I got netdata installed but still working on figuring out how to use it

I also got the mini server backed up to an image even though I was not able to get the image moved to the SSD.  The current HDD is 500 gigs and the SSD is 480 gigs.  Clonezilla did not like that for the two ways it has to image and restore to a new drive.  Oh well, I have to order a 500 gig SSD from Amazon, ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week working on getting 500 gig SSD for drive upgrade for mini server and need to work on getting Wazuh installed on a box here, fun!!!!

Trying to learn using a lot of the pentesting tools like zeek, rita, backstorm, gobuster and possibly burbsuite.

Baby steps!!!

Happy Tuesday 😀

Another Monday

New start

Things to accomplish this week

Work on the following:

MS Sql Server

Wireshark

Nmap

Proxmox

Install Wazuh

Training modules for PowerShell, Linux fundamental's and Python

Upgrade mini server's hard drive to an SSD

Possible upgrade Portainer and Immich

Work on using Notion as a note taking solution (?)

More to come

Happy Monday 😀

Printer Snafu!

Learned a lot today.  Spent 2 hours today working on my printer issue in Linux.  After changing the cups config file roughly 15 times I am finally able to print from the console page, but I did have the working after the first change, lol!  Me being me decided after I was able to print from the console page to modify the cups config file and enable Kerberos which caused a royal pain in my butt.  I wasn't locked out of the console, but I was not able to make changes to the config file from the console, granted I usually do that from the command line anyway.  Enabling Kerberos made printing and making changes from the console impossible.  So, I tried to change the file for the block of text under Kerberos.  12 + changes later I decided to look at the backup file for the config file that I had fortunately backed up before I first modified it and I was off to the races.  In the end I soon discovered in order to turn off Kerberos I had to modify the entry at the top of the file under "DefaultAuthType" and vola it was working again.  I am so glad I back up my config files before I modified them . It is worth it.  Also learned that the drivers for my printer are deprecated and will probably not work after the next upgrade of cups.  Oh well, I will have to cross that bridge when I get to it.

Happy Tuesday 😀

A New Day

Well, it is a new day, and I have made a decision on the pursuit of working on new projects.  I wasted several days trying to get the Wyze bridge project to work because all the videos I watched made it so simple to get setup in their environment.  It looks like Wyze has done something on their end to prevent this project from working.  Now I have to make sure I don't chase my tail on new projects when they don't quite work the way they are supposed to work, lol!

Lessons learned!

Happy Thursday 😬

"Uncle"

I am calling uncle on this one.  I have been working since this morning on getting the docker instance for the wyze-bridge to work and it is a no go.  I have watched several videos and followed them to the letter but it will not work for me.  I know there is something missing and all the videos I watched left a lot out when they went through their setup.  frustrating but definitely a learning experience.  I think i am going to walk away from this one and do some more research after I can get things running In know will work.  Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Live and learn  🙃

Change can be hard!!!!

Well yesterday I decided to upgrade the hard drive on my office laptop and it was a bear.  I used clonezilla and it was definitely a learning experience.  After 3 tries that took an hour and a half to run per try.  I got my laptop upgraded from a 256 gig drive to a 500 gig drive.  Now I have to do my non office laptop and my server.  I am better prepared now and hopefully it won't take 5 hours.  

Technology can sometimes suck, lol!!!!!! 

Happy Thursday 😀

Still Alive LOL!!!!!

It has been a while but I am back again.  I have been getting a lot done with my homelab over the last couple of days.  Proxmox , ADGuard Home, docker desktop, portainer and immich are updated.  Should be able to get the windows server 2022 VM on proxmox updated today then training begins.

Reminder

I was just reminded of the fact I have a blog.  Hello again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Thursday 🙂

Wild couple of weeks

The last couple of weeks have been intense to say the least.  I woke up late this morning but considering I did not go to sleep until 3:30am, waking up a 7:30 am was pretty good prospective wise.  It has been crazy the with all the behind-the-scenes activities I had to complete.  I had to work on my proxmox install with getting my vm's working again.  I decided to redo some of the vm's (server 2022, wazuh, and windows10).  It went a lot better than I thought it was going to go, which is surprising to say the least.  Trying to work on my AD troubleshooting using powershell as well as all the other stuff I am trying to ingest ( wireshark, nmap, metasploit, docker, burpsuite and bash).  So much to learn and it is definitely different from what was required for me to know at my last job.  The things I have learned so far put me light years ahead of where I was a year ago.  The philosophy of staying in my lane was a bad choice in retrospect and challenges me to do better in the future.  Being vocal and persistance should not be bad things in IT.  I promise to do better by first getting organized with my schedule.  first I need to make time for engaging in forums and all the free labs available online.  today is a turning point for me.  May the force be with me! LOL

Happy Thursday 🙂

Server Issues

Well, there seems to be an issue with the proxmox server.  I am not able to launch 2 of the vm's (windowsserver2022 and windows10test).  They were both working yesterday but will not boot today.  Unfortunately, I did not backup the windowsserver2022 so I will have to do it from scratch but the windows10test1 I did do a backup of it; well, I did snapshots.  Oh well, that gives me a chance to test restoring vm's using the snapshot if that is possible.  I can't remember if I did a backup of my AD config for windowsserver2022.  I need to check the network drive for the backup.  crossing fingers and toes

Happy Tuesday 😕

Proxmox Setup

Well, I finished most of my setup for proxmox today.  Several windows10 containers plus kali and parrot.  I created a lxc container for wazuh but I don't have wazuh installed yet.  I did get windows server 2022 installed and configured as a DC.  I think I will try CISO setup again on a vm in proxmox later this week.  I need to watch resources though, right now it is at 54% for ram and averaging around 10 - 15% for cpu.  I need to get my red team lab moved from my laptop to this box soon so I can really play.  Laptop is really old and only has 16 gigs of ram.  I kind of need to use it during the day and can't have 3 vm's spun up on it running.  Maybe next week if all goes well.

Happy Wednesday 🙂

Makes no sense!

I have been working on and off with getting CISO Assistant to run on my server and it is a no go!  I will have to take a different route, I think.  At least it is running on my windows laptop and I am able to use it this week.  I also woke up late today, ugh!  What a way to start out Tuesday.  I am not able to adjust to this change in daylight saving.  Not sure if this was an issue last year but I need to start setting an alarm in the morning until I adjust.

I will work on my Proxmox server today getting windows server 2022 installed and get a couple of windows10 instances installed too!  Maybe get metasploit spun up as well!  Let's see whaer the day take me!

Happy Tuesday 🙂

CISO Assistant

Wow

I have got to do better with my troubleshooting, lol!  I wasted all this time to come and find out all I had to do to get this software installed was run the commands manually.  Live and learn, I guess.  At least I got it installed on my laptop in docker.  Now I will try my server again and see if I have better luck.  I was going and try porting over the one from my laptop to the server, but I have had enough excitement for today.  Now I have 3 hours of videos to watch and tomorrow I start back with the TryHackMe modules.  I have been slacking on those at of late.

Happy Monday 🙂

Tired today

Wow, I am tired today.  woke up late this morning for the first time in a couple of months but it is what it is, I guess.  I have a lot to do today.  Playing around with docker desktop on my windows10 system.  It has been a while since I have used it but it is coming back to me now.  I need to also work on my proxmox box and get some containers spun up on it.  I have windows10 and ubuntu but want to get windows server 2022 and windows server 2025 installed.  Need to work on the CISO Assistant install after watching the demo by the engineer Abder today.  I will need to probably watch his video a couple more times to see if the "ah ha" moment hits me, lol!  He brain dumped a lot this morning and I don't want to just memorize it I want to understand it too!  will I get it done this weekend, probably not but I have a 2-week cutoff date for getting it installed and being able to work in it.  Sometimes knowledge hurts my brain, lol!

Happy Friday 🙂!

Crazy morning!

I had to do a lot of text messaging this morning.  Way more than usual, but dad has to get a job and it was mostly work related.  I hope to at least hear something soon.  I think I have a 11am video chat but not sure.  I need to get stuff done today for the server, since it was a long day yesterday.

Happy Wednesday 🙂!

Strange Day!

Today has been one for the record books.  I had both of my toilet's go out at the same time.  I have spent this morning going through youtube videos trying to figure out what the issue is and it looks like it just a problem with the floater valve.  Both need to be replaced so I have to make a trip to the store in a bit to get the equipment needed to fix them.  My Monday is more or less in the tubes no pun intended, lol!  I will have to hit the ground running tomorrow.  A lot to do this week.

Happy Monday 🙂

 

Friday Yea!!!!!!

Well, it is Friday, and I am ready for it.  Looks like I will be working on server stuff over the weekend but also taking time to reset and relax.  downloaded a lot of iso's for my proxmox setup so this should be interesting.  Found some instructions on getting my printer setup on the server I woulld like to try and then I would like to play with Rustdesk and see if I can start using it from my house for stuff in the house.  I would also like to get KASM done in the next couple of days.  Friday morning was a shourt day for me for online videos, just 3 hours.  It was kind of weird but I will take it.  Hopefully I can get a lot of stuff done today.  I am kind of sleep and cold for some reason.  I need to crank the heat up a little here in a bit.

Happy Friday 🙂

Happy Monday!

Well, it is Monday again and I am still unemployed, ugh!  I spent 2 hours today filling out 2 applications for employment.  I am hoping that I get a response soon.  I had a lot of live online tech videos this morning which is usual for Monday.  I was hoping to get Wazuh installed on the server today, but I might have to put it off until tomorrow.  I want to watch a couple more videos today and get a little reading done.  Also have to go to the store before the big storm tomorrow.  I am hoping to get the homelab on the r610 done this week.

🙂

Turn on Proxmox server

Finally, i get to turn on the Proxmox server tomorrow.  Not sure whether to run it 24/7 due to power requirements.  I think as long as the heat is running, I will have to power it off in the evening.  I am definitely not going to be able to run a lot of containers on it because that will be a pain in the tuskus having to turn all those containers off every night.  I will have to check on the power settings to see if I can get it under 60 watts.  Right now it is running at 100 watts so cutting it down to 60 maybe a stretch lol.  I might have to invest in a core i7 6 gen or higher in a mini pc form factor.  Those can get down to at least 40 watts and I should be able to run Proxmox with a Wazuh, Kali, Parrot, windows server 2022, windows10, windows 7 and windows2000 for some red team/blue team practice.  Why does everything have to cost money I don't have right now lol!

Oh well

Happy Thursday 🙂

Power

Well, I have 2 more days before I can turn my server back on.  I used a little to much power this month and had to turn everything off at the half way point.  My mini server I left on but the r610 I had to turn off and unplug.  I do have a lot of stuff on my mini server that is a core i3 with 16 gigs of ram.  I removed one of my services (homechart) yesterday due to it not being free.  I got rustdesk and homebox installed and running in containers recently.  I like running these services in containers due to the tiniest of resources they use.

Ubuntu Core 22.04

Immich

Portainer

Photoprism

Homeassistant

Homebox

Rustdesk

Nexterm

Twingate

Watchtower

Plus I am running 

Plex

Jellyfin

MSSQL

Tailscale

AdGuard Home

Webmin

Crowdsec

CUPS

It runs at around 30% ram and 10% cpu on average.  I love it

Happy Tuesday 🙂

I am done!!!!!!

It is time to take the gloves off, I think.  I spent the last day on and off trying to troubleshoot an issue withstanding a rustdesk server up.  I thought this should be simple; I was using a docker instance and all that was required was copying the setup code to a yaml file and running it.  Well, this is the second time I have got burned copying code off the actual website for the software and have it be wrong.  Oh well, it was definitely a learning experience to say the least.  Now I just have to fix homechart and I will be done.  Linux is not an easy os to migrate to for a seasoned user let alone a novice one.  I have learned that I need to operate on the concept that installing software comes with a risk of it not working without tweaking it.

Now I have to stand up a Linux box possibly running linuxmint and work with it for a couple of months to see if I can operate just in the gui for maintaining it.  October is just around the corner, and I probably have a lot of relatives and friend still using windows10 on windows11 unsupported hardware.  They will not want to buy a windows11 pc which means they will be targets for threat actors towards the end of this year.  They may have the possibility of using the $30 dollar option Microsoft has for continuing the windows10 update for an additional year.

Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Thursday 🙂 

Lord Help Me!!!!!!!!!

Okay, LOL!

This morning, I thought I would update my Proxmox server to the current version 8.3.3 from 8.3.0.  You would think that would be an easy process@@@@@@@@@@@@.  Not in my instance.  This is why you should not assume instructions you are following on the internet are 100% correct.  Let's see, I made all the modifications to the necessary files for the no subscription version of Proxmox and ran the apt update command and got a gpt error for the InRelease file.  So silly me copied the command I found online into the ssh session and ran it, thinking that would sign the file and fix the problem.  I saw a couple of message pop up for it but didn't think much of it.  I again ran the apt update command and still got the same error message about gpt file InRelease.  UGH!!!!

I spent the next hour looking in forums and watching youtube videos of users that modified the source repository files and got this thing to kick off without incident.  Finally, I took a good long look at the url I was using for the wget command and low and behold it had https instead of http.  Now I am thinking to myself that can't be the fix for the issue lol!  Well, that resolved the problem and the update and dist-upgrade commands ran without error.  I am now on 8.3.3 for my Proxmox version and I can definitely say I learned something from this exercise.  Even when you are copying and pasting content check the syntax if it is not running correctly.

Happy Thursday 🙂  

Interesting Day

It has been an interesting day so far.  I spent the day watching a lot of videos for 7 hours and I also worked on the Proxmox server.  It is finally at the point for me to start installing VM's and LXC's containers.  It took about an hour to work through the issue with Proxmox not seeing the VM/LXC drive storage.  Now to build a couple of lab networks to do my playing with security training and AD training.  I perfer to have 2 separate networks and possible a third network for the monitoring box.  Hopefully by the end of next week I will have everything ready to go.  Hope to learn a lot this week since I have definitely learned a lot so far lol!

Happy Tuesday 🙂

I might be a dumb dumb LOL!

Well, I got Proxmox installed, and I thought I did the setup right but not so much!  I went to try and download the templates to create the LXC container and I could not get them to download.  I thought that was weird since I was able to copy the iso from my laptop over to the server which meant it could not be an issue with the network connection, right lol!  Well, again not so much.  Things to note for future reference, when it has been a while since you have run through a setup for a tool/app pay attention to the setup instructions and don't assume it is the same as it was the last time you ran through the setup.  Apparently, I missed the portion of the setup which asked for the gateway info because it was not in the format of ip address, subnet mask and gateway.  so silly me put the subnet mask info in for the gateway info and I had to modify the network connection manually to fix my internet connection from that box, but it is working now.  Live and learn my friends live and learn!

I might wait until Monday to install my VM's and LXC containers.  I want to setup Wazuh or Nessus plus EVE-NG.  Next week is going to be very interesting and eventful lol!

Happy Friday 🙂

Crazy Thursday!!

Well, it has been a crazy day, but it is almost over.  I spent an hour and a half getting Proxmox installed on my server and all kinds of crazy was occurring with it.  When I used the thumb drive with Ventoy on it sometimes the server would recognize the drive and boot to the menu but not completely load Proxmox for install.  Other time it would not recognize the iso file for Proxmox and it was doing this back and forth the whole time.  The thumb drive was fine since I was able to read it on my laptop in which I deleted the Proxmox iso and downloaded it again for the download page and copied to the thumb drive again.  I tried uefi boot as well as legacy boot and the same thing.  I tried normal boot in Ventoy and grub2 boot and still it would get to the Proxmox setup screen but when it tried to read from the iso it was a no go.  Finally, after an hour I thought let's try booting from the cdrom drive and see if I can get that to work and "bob's your uncle" it let me install Proxmox on that box.  That should have not been that hard but like I said, crazy Thursday.  Now I have the task of getting it configured and getting my VM's and LXC containers loaded on it.  I might wait until tomorrow to get that task completed lol.

Like they say, " what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".  Now I need to push ahead.

Happy Thursday 🙂

 

Long couple of days!!!!

Well, I had a pipe burst in my frontyard for water to my house.  It happened on Thursday afternoon but I did not get it fixed until Monday morning.  Unfortunately, I was not able to fix it myself which is why it took so long to resolve.  I had to call a plumber, and they weren't available for a couple of days.  I had to go without water in my house from Thursday until yesterday.  It made for a stressful couple of days and then there is the cost for the fix.  It cost me 350 dollars of money I don't have but I had to get it fixed.  I of course did not get anything else done for the last couple of days, so I have a lot of catching up in the next few days.  I did get some stuff done last week but not everything I needed to for the4 week.

I finished the buildout of the proxmox server but I need to get my Virtual and LXC containers rebuilt.  I want to get Wazuh, Jellyfin, Plex, Windows server 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2025, and EVE-NG.  Time to get "crack-el-lacken"!

Happy Tuesday 🙂

Goal for today!

I need to at least get proxmox stood up today.  Also need to work on tryhackme challenge for today and make up for missing one yesterday.  My goal for this year is to at least complete one a day.

Happy Thursday 🙂

Working!!

Let's see, I am trying to get through most of the tryhackme modules which are really making me think hard lol.  I have all my classes scheduled for the week and several online classes scheduled/queued up for the week.  I also got a box setup for running proxmox which I will get installed this week.  Then setup another lab that I can actually play with since I consider my current homelab more production and would prefer not to fubar it lol!  I need to get objects setup for my AD environment which I may do this week or next week so I can start playing with it after I back it up of course.  I am not mletting the lack of responses from my job postings get me down.  If I can get a couple of certs done in the next couple of months, I should have a better leg to stand on.

Here's to the rest of the week!

Happy Tuesday😀 

Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh man, I have spent the last 45 minutes trying to troubleshoot my on-prem server connection issue.  I wake my laptop up to check my email and I am not able to connect to any of the services I have running on my server.  I first thought it was an issue with the network connection on the laptop, but I am able to access my email and YouTube and other websites are coming up for me (ADGuard off the hook this time, lol).  So, I reboot the server and go to check again and still unable to connect to any service I have running on the server, weird!  So, I rebooted the server again and this time I watch it come up from the console and I see no error messages on it starting up.  I then verify the ip address and make sure all my docker instances are up and running and they were all showing okay so "wt*".  so, I think maybe it is with the laptop so I reboot it and still not able to access the server but wait I get a prompt to authenticate with twingate on the laptop and then to myself that can't be it.  I am locally connected to my network even if my twingate connection wasn't validated It would not keep me from connecting to the server, right!  Well, I was proven wrong because as soon as I authenticated my twingate connection boom, my connection to the server was restored.  I can't make this stuff up, lol!  Well, I have learned something new this evening.  Remember that I only have a 30 day token on my twingate validation and it does affect my connection to my server.  Lesson learned.

Happy Sunday 😀

Linux is crazy

Well, the last 3 weeks I have noticed that when I was running the apt update command in ubuntu for my server is was showing that jellyfin needed to be updated but when I ran the apt upgrade command to update all packages needing an upgrade it would not update the server for jellyfin.  I checked the source file for the server and everything appeared to be correct but still it would not update.  Weird!  So today i get in the forum again join the jellyfin discord.  I am looking in the forum and one of the users showed a command that I had not seen before but look like it would run.  I guess I had not never consider specifying what package I need to upgrade and low and behold it worked again weird.  It should have worked the other way but I will take my wins where I can get them lol!  I also had to make a change to ADGuard again.  Even though I was able to access Facebook on my laptop and phone it would not work on my iPad.  Disable ADGuard and low and behold it worked on the iPad.  Went in and unblocked everything for facebook for the last 10 minutes and no issues so far.  I definitely need to hone up on my Linux skills.

Lesson learned 😀

Happy Friday!

Well it is Friday again!

I only got one good thing done this week. I have to hope that next week is more productive lol!  Let me see what I can get done today.  Maybe I can savage this week.

Happy Friday 😀