The Lone Sysadmin🔒 SSL Verified

Table of Contents

• ↓ Out-of-Office Messages are a Security Risk
• ↓ Free, Like a Puppy
• ↓ Retrieve an SSL Certificate from a Server With OpenSSL
• ↓ What You Need to Know About Upgrading to an iPhone Xs or Xr
• ↓ CODE Keyboard
• ↓ Fixing X11 Forwarding Over SSH and with Sudo
• ↓ Top Alternatives to lonesysadmin.net

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"Every once in a while I get asked why I don’t have an out-of-office message for my email or voice mail. Truth is, I’ll often monitor my email even when I’m out, though I often practice good operations discipline by not responding. Just as intermittent problems with computer systems are hard to deal with, a staff member that’s supposed to be gone but isn’t acting like it is just as confusing. Humans can, and should, drain-stop and remove themselves from clusters for maintenance, too. Sometimes I’m really out of the office, though, crawling around in the backcountry wilderness or on an island somewhere. I’ll do it if I have to, but even then I don’t like setting an automatic response. …"

"I’ve found that things that are free of charge are often not a good deal. TANSTAAFL, or “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” You’re always paying in some way. Maybe the piece of hardware is marked up more to cover the development cost of the “free” software that comes with it. Perhaps it’s the drug dealer model, where the first one is free to get you hooked. Sometimes you’re the product, and the “free” thing is spying on you with the hopes of making more money from ads or sales later. Certainly nearly every “free” web service is structured that way. Beyond monetary cost, though, you paying for things with your time. “Free” things often fall into …"

"I was setting up VMware vRealize Automation’s Active Directory connections the other day and I needed the public SSL certificate for the AD DCs to authenticate correctly. You can use OpenSSL to get that information. I used a Linux shell but this should be do-able from a Mac or with OpenSSL installed on Windows, too. If you wanted to read the SSL certificates off this blog you could issue the following command, all on one line: openssl s_client -showcerts -servername lonesysadmin.net -connect lonesysadmin.net:443 < /dev/null In this case you’ll get a whole bunch of stuff back: CONNECTED(00000003)depth=2 O = Digital Signature Trust Co., CN = DST Root CA X3verify return:1depth=1 C = US, O = Let’s Encrypt, CN = Let’s …"

"I just got a new iPhone Xs Max. I had an iPhone 6s which I liked a lot, but it’s been a few years and with more travel I thought I’d enjoy having a better device with me. There are a few things that bit me in the duff. Some two-factor authentication (2FA) apps like Duo or Google Authenticator store their data in the iPhone Secure Enclave, which isn’t backed up to iCloud or via iTunes. That means that when you switch devices (or if you lose your device) you could lose access to your accounts, or it’ll be a serious pain to regain access (which is the point of 2FA). So don’t trade in your old phone until you’ve …"

Key Topics & Focus Areas for lonesysadmin.net:

Out-of-Office Messages are a Security Risk

Free, Like a Puppy

Retrieve an SSL Certificate from a Server With OpenSSL

What You Need to Know About Upgrading to an iPhone Xs or Xr

CODE Keyboard

Fixing X11 Forwarding Over SSH and with Sudo