6 articles in the notebook
Encrypted QNAP volumes protect against stolen hardware, but someone must enter the key after every power loss. This BASH script in a cron job on another machine logs in, finds locked volumes and unlocks them automatically — security without the 3AM wake-up.
Redirecting all HTTP to HTTPS in IIS breaks Let's Encrypt's renewal challenge. Two URL Rewrite rules fix it: let .well-known through, redirect everything else.
A revisit of my 2011 RDP guide, updated for RDP 8.x: what to tweak on client and server for less bandwidth, higher throughput and adaptive transfers — the short story and the dirty details.
After reinstalling Windows Server 2012 R2 your Storage Spaces don't show up — not even in Computer Management. The fix: authorize the server for read-write and re-attach the virtual disks, via GUI or PowerShell.
OwnCloud is a free personal Dropbox alternative where your server sets the storage limit. It didn't work perfectly out of the box on Windows, so here is the full setup guide with the fixes I needed.
Active Directory lets NTDS, NTFrs and NetLogon pick random ports, which makes firewalling a domain controller a pain. Here is how to pin them to fixed ports and finally enable the firewall.