Simple Server Backups

I manage a few servers for my employer as well as for myself. Backups are always an issue on all of them. Do we purchase a commercial product? Do we try an open source solution? Do we just not do a backup? Yep, I have heard that last one before. The issues always seam to boil down to time vs money. Usually we ain’t got time and we can’t spend money. So, to backup my personal server with the minimal amount of effort with the maximum amount of usefulness, I wrote this script. It’s very customizable, but does the job. Continue reading “Simple Server Backups”

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Reducing SSH Login Attacks

For the last 10 years or so I’ve managed some kind of a Linux server environment. One of the biggest annoyances are constant brute force attacks on the SSH interface. One solution is to change the port, but that I just find to be not needed. So, in an effort to reduce the amount of attacks I have on my server, I wrote a little script many years ago in PHP that scanned the SSH log for failed log in attempts. Continue reading “Reducing SSH Login Attacks”

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Securing my WordPress Install

Being an admin for WordPress is hard. Mainly because WordPress, like very other CMS application out there, has security holes. Those holes allow people access to do something simple or complex. The sites I run, the hacks vary. One day it may be a simple upload/file sharing hack. The next it might be a mass mailer trying to use my server’s mail application for itself.

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Domain Migration on Exchange 2013

In December 2014, I started my new job as the Director of Computer Services at St. Andrews University (www.sa.edu). They were in the process of re-branding themselves from St. Andrews Presbyterian College to St. Andrews University. Part of this re-branding process included the migration of the web and E-Mail services. The following post chronicles my journey in migrating the Exchange 2013 E-Mail server from hosting only the old domain, sapc.edu, to hosting both domains, sapc.edu and sa.edu, to the final removal of the old domain, sapc.edu, and having only the new domain, sa.edu, left. Continue reading “Domain Migration on Exchange 2013”