IT Pro Tuesday #153
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Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!
We're also asking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community... those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please reply or leave a comment with your suggestions, and we'll be featuring them in the coming weeks.
As always, we’re updating the full, searchable list on our website here. Enjoy.
But on with this week's tools...! Here are the most-interesting items that have come across our desks, laptops and phones this week. Hornetsecurity has no known affiliation with any of these unless we explicitly state otherwise.
A Free Tool
Kimchi is an open-source HTML5-based KVM management tool that is designed for ease of use. This web-based virtualization management platform provides an intuitive, flexible interface that displays and provides control of all the VMs running on a system. Allows you to manage most of the basic features you need to create and control a set of guest virtual machines.
A Training Resource
flAWS Challenge is a fun way to learn about security issues to watch for with AWS and devops. A series of levels teach about how to avoid common mistakes as well as AWS-specific "gotchas." Hints are provided that teach you how to discover what you need to know. If you're in a hurry, you can just use the hints to go from one level to the next instead of playing along. Our thanks for this one go to disclosure5.
A Podcast
Clear To Send is a weekly podcast on wireless engineering that covers WiFi technology, design tips, troubleshooting and tools. Features informative interviews with wireless engineers, tech news on the topic, and product information. batwing20 thinks you'll like it... "if you are into wireless."
Another Free Tool
HESK is a basic, lightweight help desk tool with an integrated knowledgebase that helps customers quickly resolve some common issues on their own. Includes scripted responses, ticket templates, custom data fields and statuses and much more. Tickets can be prioritized and organized, and they include request details, your ongoing discussion with the customer, which staff member is assigned, notes, files, status and time spent on resolution. Staff accounts can be created with restrictions on access and functionality, and you can track who is working on what. Our appreciation for the suggestion goes to tickhack.
One More Free Tool
Otter allows you to easily run complex PowerShell and Shell scripts that provision servers and manage their configuration. The custom GUI includes templates that make it easy for users to develop complex, multi-server orchestrations regardless of programming expertise. Includes dashboards and reports that show the state of your infrastructure, permissions and installation status. Free version has no server limit and includes all features but gives all users unrestricted access.
P.S. Bonus Free Tools
Murder enables you to use Bittorrent to distribute files to a large amount of servers within a production environment. This approach allows for fast, scaleable deploys in large, data-center environments with hundreds or thousands of servers—where centralized distribution systems wouldn't otherwise function. Kindly recommended by mfinnigan.
TCP Throughput Calculator can help you determine your network's theoretical limit, bandwidth-delay product and TCP buffer size to help you avoid or troubleshoot network speed issues. shadeland explains, "If traffic is TCP-based, latency can have a huge effect on bandwidth."
Have a fantastic week and as usual, let us know any comments.