ESXI Error: Could not find a trusted signer: certificate is not yet valid

It’s been a while and there is plenty of reasons for that, but namely… I got a new job!

Anywho, here is a good one I encountered when trying to update an ESXI host.

Could not find a trusted signer: certificate is not yet valid

Failed to setup patcher for upgrade

Full error and command

I hadn’t used this host in a hot minute and one thing I know is that SSL Certs are time/date-based. I took a look at the date and time in ESXI and lo and behold found an incorrect date.

The incorrect date!

After setting the correct date, I re-ran the command and the ESXI update completed successfully. I also set the server to use NTP so this doesn’t pop up again.

Enable / Allow Sending From an Alias in Office365

The long-requested ability to send emails from an alias in Office 365 has been finally released!

When you use an alias to send an email, the From and Reply to field for the recipient will appear to be the alias meaning the recipient will only see the alias and not your primary email address.

To make this happen, simply login to your Office365 tenant via Powershell and run the following command:

Set-OrganizationConfig -SendFromAliasEnabled $true

That’s it! Within a few minutes it should begin working.

To send from the alias, make sure you are showing the From field by clicking Options > From, shown below

Voila!

More information can be found on Microsoft’s website

Testing Office365 Mail Rules

Recently I had to implement a tag for external emails. However, I wanted to test it out first and see what would be tagged.

I created my rule and set these settings:

Audit this rule… should be checked off but can be set to “Not specified” while the mode should be Test without Policy Tips.

Ok the rule.

Wait a day, then go to to the Reports section of Office365 Security & Compliance Center. On the Dashboard, click on the Exchange transport rule section.

Once there, click the dropdown for “Show data for” and choose your transport rule. This will only list transport rules where you have checked off Audit this rule with severity level: . No matter the setting, that must be checked off or you won’t see results here!

That’s it. Filter by sender, date, etc. and you’ll see the emails affected by the rule. Happy hunting!

Using the New Exchange Admin Center (2020 Edition)

I’ve noted this as the 2020 edition because simply… Microsoft loves to change their GUIs and portals. If you’ve worked with Office365 for a long time, you can remember the BPOS days and all the subsequent portals.

Anywho, the link for Exchange Admin is more in-line with the Sharepoint and Teams admin portals and is easier to remember: https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/

As of this writing, it’s… pretty blank when you arrive there. You can still run message traces through here. One of the bigger changes is they’ve combined User and Shared Mailboxes under Mailboxes and put distribution lists and Office365 groups under Groups. Resource Mailboxes are under Resources.

As of now, I still work out of PowerShell or the old admin center. This will probably be finished by late next year… just in time for the next version of the EAC to apprear.

Getting Inbox or Mailbox Rules in Office365 via Powershell

First, login to your tenant via Powershell using Microsoft’s new Exchange V2 Powershell module.

We’re going to be using the Get-InboxRule commandlet. If you run it outright, you’ll see a limited list of Inbox rules across your tenant. To narrow things down, you can use Get-InboxRule -Mailbox [user] to get rules for a specific user. Using the -Identity parameter will not work for this! Identity is for specifying specific Inbox rules. You can use wildcards, so you could do Get-InboxRule -Mailbox jeff*

The results will be:

From here, you can use the -Identity parameter to get information on specific rules such as their date of creation, what they actually do, and more!

Check it out.

Huge Log Files in Microsoft Teams AppData

This was a fun one… I have a VM spun up in Microsoft Azure with one user who reported their 128GB Drive was filled.

I ran wiztree, my favorite tool, and found that in the AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Teams folder, there were multiple files starting with old_logs that were 13mb big… except for one that was 103GB big! Deleted it and was on my way.

Activate macOS VNC Over SSH

I ran into this one today while working on a personal project. I had SSH access to a Mac Mini running Big Sur that I didn’t have hooked up to a monitor or keyboard. After digging around, I found I could enable VNC access via these commands.

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resouces/kickstart \
 -activate -configure -access -on \
 -configure -allowAccessFor -allUsers \
 -configure -restart -agent -privs -all

If that doesn’t work, this will set a custom password not tied to any user account:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
-activate -configure -access -on \
-clientopts -setvnclegacy -vnclegacy yes \
-clientopts -setvncpw -vncpw mypasswd \
-restart -agent -privs -all

When you’re done (since you don’t want to leave it enabled 24/7 for security reasons), disable with:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart \
-deactivate -configure -access -off

Using Get-Hotfix in Powershell to Gather Information

Quick and easy to use, Get-Hotfix can give you a bird’s eye view or can be used to quickly determine if a specific patch is installed.

Without arguments, Get-HotFix shows installed updates, including date

Get-HotFix -HotFixID id will show information for a specific hotfix

You can also filter by install date if you are encountering issues.

Changing PHP Version in StableHost

Looking for how to change the active version of PHP in StableHost? Scroll down to the SOFTWARE section. For me, it was the last option. Hit Select PHP Version .

On the ensuing screen, next to Current PHP version choose your version! You can also select your PHP extensions / addons

And that’s it! Once you’ve chosen your PHP version you’ll receive a confirmation and that’s it. Enjoy!