Author

Saugata Datta

I’m an IT/DevOps professional with many years of hands-on experience across Windows, Linux, Automation, Backup and Cloud. I love building real-world automations to make infrastructure reliable, secure, and self-healing. Through this blog, I share practical learnings from enterprise projects and my home-lab experiments on Cloudflare, Self-Hosting and everything in between. Always tinkering, always improving.

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AWS

Migrating a VMWARE VM to AWS using AWS PowerShell

In this topic we will describes the necessary steps to migrate a VMWare VM to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) using PowerShell. You could also migrate VM using AWS command line tools, but I found using PowerShell is much easier than command line tools. Requirements: AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell http://aws.amazon.com/powershell/ IAM account to authenticate. Basic knowledge on PowerShell. Preparing VMware Guest: There are few things need to be fix…

Saugata DattaNov 20, 20143 min read11.2K

AWS

How to reset windows password (offline) on AWS Windows Instance

In simple word changing/resetting windows password is a very simple task using any third party free or paid tools as long as you able to access server console. Even on virtual platform like Hyper-V VMWare you have access to server console, but when it comes to AWS, there is no way to access console of a virtual instances. So, those tools will not work, as those required user input /…

Saugata DattaSep 29, 20143 min read10K

Hacking and Exploits

Port Scanner using PowerShell with Email Notification

Few days back I was asked to create a script, which will check RDP port status of multiple servers and send the result as an email notification. I have searched for few, but unfortunately there was no ready script for that. I decided to build one using PowerShell, and came out with following script. Hope this script might help you as well. #Which port to scan $port = 3389 #Path…

Saugata DattaJul 11, 20141 min read11.1K

Scripts and Coding

Extract VM details from VCenter

Sometimes it's a painful job to extract all the information from vCenter server. From GUI you could export information, but not all the information will be available. I was requested to extrach following information. VM Name Host Name VM IP Address Installed Guest OS Power State of VM Allotted number of CPU Allotted total memory Connected Data store Host Server Host Cluster There is no way we could extract all…

Saugata DattaJun 25, 20142 min read15.4K

Cloudflare

Set File System Auditing via PowerShell

For last few days, I was trying to figure out how to set file system auditing via command line. I was looking for this as I had to apply some specific audit policy on multiple file servers. From GUI, we could do this, but it will take hours of manual activity. As requirement, I had to set Success Audit policy on Delete subfolders and files, delete and change permission. There…

Saugata DattaMay 20, 20142 min read41K

Automation

AWS EBS Snapshots Automation (Disaster Recovery) from Windows PowerShell

It is always a good idea to reduce hardware dependencies by moving your data to the cloud. Cloud is much more flexible than traditional hardware infrastructure including VMWare. But you still have to consider the ability of recovering data as and when required. This always helps you to keep your business running with minimal interruption. In AWS, there are several possibilities for implementing an effective backup strategy. EBS snapshots are…

Saugata DattaFeb 13, 20143 min read22.6K

Microsoft

First official Windows 8.1 tablet in India lunched by Acer

Acer announced the Iconia W4, successor of the Iconia W3 back in October. Today, the company launched the tablet in India. The Iconia W4 has a 8-inch (800 x 1280 pixels) multi-touch IPS display, powered by a 1.8 GHz quad-core Intel Atom Bay Trail T processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics and runs on the latest Windows 8.1. It comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 and packs…

Saugata DattaDec 25, 20132 min read8K

Microsoft

Restrict Creator/Owner from altering NTFS permission

Target: Restrict creator / owner from altering any NTFS permission on newly created files & folders. Scenarios: Regardless of NTFS permissions, the owner, which is by default the person who creates the folder/files, can always alter the permissions. This actually causing a lot's of problem, with this special privilege users can also block inherited permission and alter current permission. This might cause additional pain for administrators. Solution: Initially to test…

Saugata DattaNov 20, 20131 min read17K

Microsoft

NTFS Permission issue with TAKEOWN & ICACLS

Most of us using TAKEOWN or ICACLS for taking ownership from command prompt, and both of them are simple to use. We generally use TAKEOWN or ICACLS with following switches to taking the ownership. takeown /F "PATH" /R /D Y /A icacls "PATH" /T /setowner Administrators But unfortunately, TAKEOWN & ICACLS both might failed on certain scenario, as there are some undocumented limitation. We had incident where we tried to…

Saugata DattaNov 19, 20132 min read48.8K

Microsoft

SkyDrive Updated with Modern UI

Microsoft has announced a massive update to SkyDrive, bringing the user interface of the Windows 8 app to the website. The new SkyDrive features the new, modern design for desktop and tablet browsers with instant search, contextual toolbar, thumbnail multi-select, drag-and-drop organization, and HTML5 sorting. Pictures are now finally sorted from newest to oldest and users can specify the sort order for any folder. Microsoft also sped up synching…

Saugata DattaAug 14, 20122 min read6.6K

Tutorials

Nokia Lumia 800 can capture good picture in low light

Yes, with Lumia 800 you can capture good picture on low light condition, just check the following picture I took on my weekend trip, which also own the 2nd prize on Mobilicity Nokia Lumia 710 Photo Contest @ WPCentral For details check the following link for details about the competition : http://bit.ly/JytJXe

Saugata DattaMay 29, 20121 min read6.3K

Microsoft

Nokia Lumia 800 Review – Amazing Everyday

I was N8 user for last 1 year, and till now technically its the best phone out there on the market. I was happy with my N8. Amazing Day 1: After announcement of Lumia 800 from Nokia, I decided to take my chance with new Lumia 800, so I pre-ordered my Lumia with 3000/- from Nokia Store, and I was really surprised with their pre-order gift . Amazing Day 2:…

Saugata DattaJan 2, 20125 min read19.3K

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