VMware vCenter can be a key provider, which is perfect for using a vTPM (Virtual Trusted Platform Module). With VMware vSphere, you can configure a native key provider that VMware vCenter fully manages. No external key provider is needed. The native key can even be used to encrypt your VMs. In this post, I will…
With Windows Server 2025, Microsoft is more in your face about sending your diagnostic data to them. I am okay with sending them the data if it helps make their products better. What I have a problem with is that the send diagnostic data to Microsoft screen is displayed on every first logon on each…
At the very core of Omnissa Horizon is an ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) database. Even though Horizon servers are typically domain-joined, they still maintain their own ADAM LDAP database for all the configurations in Horizon. It’s a good idea to back up the ADAM LDAP database as it can…
Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM) is an open-source Docker image that lets you run a reverse proxy and can even handle SSL certificates for you using Let’s Encrypt. It’s great when you can’t use a Cloudflare Tunnel or an Entra App Proxy. I’ve been using Nginx Proxy Manager for a while now, and it’s been perfect…
Debian is a solid Linux distribution I’ve been using for a while. It is my default Linux OS of choice. Many popular Linux distros are actually based on Debian, such as Ubuntu, Proxmox, Kali Linux, TrueNAS SCALE, SONiC, Raspberry Pi OS, SteamOS and many more. In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to…
An issue I’ve run into on Palo Alto Networks firewalls is that everything seems to work when importing a certificate (usually a PFX). Until you start using the certificate, then after a validation or a commit, there’s a warning that the certificate chain is not correctly formed. Warning: certificate chain not correctly formed in certificate…
Sometimes, you have a certificate in PEM format as a CRT file (also called a CER file) with a key file (also called a PEM file), and you need to combine and convert them into a PFX certificate. In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to convert a PEM certificate into a PFX…
There are many ways to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request). In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to generate a CSR using OpenSSL. Prerequisites The Process I will be using C:\SSL as my working directory. I will be using Microsoft Windows with Windows Terminal and PowerShell. In my example, I will name my private…
There are a few ways to grant external access to an internal application without doing any port forwarding. The way to do this in Microsoft’s world is through an Entra Application Proxy. The name is a bit of a mess, as Microsoft renamed the Microsoft Entra application proxy program to Microsoft Entra private network connector.…
Certain situations can arise where you no longer know a Windows user account password and need to reset it or make a new one. Third-party tools can assist, but in my experience, many of them have been hit-and-miss. In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to reset a Windows password using Windows install…
