Security

Testing for Specific Versions of TLS Protocols Using curl

Ever need to set your web server a specific protocol version of TLS for web servers and need a quick way to test that out to confirm? Let’s check out how to use curl to go just that. This code here uses curl with the parameters --tlsv1.1 --tls-max 1.1, which will force the max TLS protocol version to 1.1. Using the --verbose parameter gives you the ability to see the TLS handshake and get the output sent to standard out.

OpenSSH Resources for Windows and PowerShell

Had a conversation with a good friend in the SQL Community about OpenSSH and how it fits as a transport layer for PowerShell Remoting. I pointed him towards several resources I have online. So here’s a post aggregating those resources. If you’re looking to get started with OpenSSH on Linux and Windows Systems check out thisPowerShell Summit presentation I did in 2018. This covers OpenSSH in theory and practice. Session: OpenSSH Internals for PowerShell Pros

We Speak Linux – OpenSSH For Windows Pros

I’m proud to announce that I will be speaking at this months We Speak Linux Webinar. Each month We Speak Linux brings cross platform training to the Windows world. Sign up now here! On Thursday, December 2 at 11:00 Central I’m presenting: OpenSSH for Windows Pros Here’s the abstract: In PowerShell Core we can use OpenSSH as the transport layer to carry our remoting sessions between our systems. In this session we’ll look at OpenSSH architecture, Authentication methods, including key authentication, sshd configuration, and troubleshooting methods when things go wrong!

Installing OpenSSH Server on Windows 10

So in yesterday’s post we learned that the OpenSSH client is included with the Windows 10, Update 1803! Guess, what else is included in this server, an OpenSSH Server! Yes, that’s right…you can now run an OpenSSH server on your Windows 10 system and get a remote terminal! So in this post, let’s check out what we need to do to get OpenSSH Server up and running. First, we’ll need to ensure we update the system to Windows 10, Update 1803.

OpenSSH is now Part of Windows!

Today is a big day! The OpenSSH client version 7.6p1 is now part of the Windows 10 operating system! Microsoft released Windows 10 Update 1803 and included in that release is the OpenSSH client, which is installed as part of the update. That’s right an SSH client as part of the Windows operating system by default! Also included with this update is the OpenSSH Server which is included as an Windows Feature on Demand.

Distributing SSH User Keys via PowerShell

Folks in the Linux world are used to moving SSH keys to and from systems enabling password-less authentication. Let’s take a minute to look at what it takes to use PowerShell to distribute SSH user keys to remote systems. In the OpenSSH package there’s a command ssh-copy-id which is a bash script that copies a user’s public key to a remote system. There’s a little intelligence in the script to set things up properly on the remote system for password-less key based authentication.

New Pluralsight Course – LFCE: Network and Host Security

My new course “LFCE: Network and Host Security” in now available on Pluralsight here! If you want to learn about the course, check out the trailer here or if you want to dive right in check it out here! This course targets IT professionals that design and maintain RHEL/CentOS based enterprises. It aligns with the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS) and Linux Foundation Certified Engineer (LFCE) and also Redhat’s RHCSA and RHCE certifications.

Configuring Passwordless PowerShell Remoting over SSH

Open Source PowerShell has been on fire, getting tons of community support and really making people think about what’s to come with a single language to manage a heterogenous data center. To highlight this point, in my recent Pluralsight Play By Play Microsoft Open Source PowerShell on Linux and Mac with Jason Helmick and Jeffrey Snover I did a demo on using PowerShell remoting where I connected from a Linux machine to three other machines and retrieved lists of top processes from each…two Linux and one Windows.

Encrypting Connections To SQL Server Using Certificates

Encrypting Connections To SQL Server Using Certificates In this post we’re going to cover configuring a connection string in .NET applications for encrypting connections to SQL Server using certificates. The audience for this document is a developer that needs to configure encrypted connections from applications to a database server. Encrypting connections with SQL Server using Certificates consists of two parts: An appropriately configured connection string A server certificate installed on the Database Engine (not covered in this post) Configuring a Connection String