a wandersick's Tech Notes

Note: This is a template to ease development. The storage-vendor-specific part of the scripts have to be coded by yourself. An alternative way is to engage professionals to develop the script on one of the freelancing platforms . There sometimes comes a need to simplify complex operations, in this case failover and failback operations of SAN storage replication between sites (e.g. production and DR), for reasons such as letting operators or the less technically-confident colleagues to more easily perform the operations in case of disasters or drill tests. To achieve that, this template has been created. Written primarily in PowerShell, this package contains a set of SAN storage failover and failback scripts for Microsoft Failover Cluster (including Hyper-V cluster) and vendor-neutral pseudo code for SAN storage (for further modification to support different SAN vendors). Not only does it perform storage failover and failback, services running on top of it such as databases and vir...

Are you a security-aware person? Have you got a USB thumb drive or external hard drive you wish to use that does not have any built-in encryption features? You could turn it into one that does, with the cross-platform open-source alternative to BitLocker – TrueCrypt, succeeded by VeraCrypt – but it is not as easy or intuitive to unlock or use as a purchased encrypted external storage solution in the market, because of its feature-rich nature; unlocking is done via an advanced user interface that is more meant for the technically inclined. Solution – vCrypt2Go and tCrypt2Go, Lock-and-Unlock Utilities, to Simplify and Speed Up Drive Unlocking Named after VeraCrypt and 'BitLocker To Go', vCrypt2Go – a set of open-source and cross-platform lock-and-unlock utilities on top of VeraCrypt enabling users to DIY their own encrypted portable storage which is simple to use as a purchased solution in the market – simplifies the user experience of VeraCrypt Portable on removable media/e...

This is an article for enthusiasts detailing the technical design of tCrypt2Go for TrueCrypt (also applicable to vCrypt2Go for VeraCrypt unless otherwise specified). (This is a sub-article – click here to view to the list of articles or the main article of tCrypt2Go and vCrypt2Go ) Topics Covered in this Article Container for Thumb Drive (Removable Media) vs Partition for External Hard Disk (Fixed Disk) Choosing a File System for the Encrypted Partition Pros and Cons of Each File System (NTFS, exFAT and FAT32) The Unlocking Flowchart Commands for Locking and Unlocking 1. Container for Thumb Drive (Removable Media) vs Partition for External Hard Disk (Fixed Disk) In the high level, there are two modes from which a user can choose to encrypt their portable drives: Encrypted Partition Mode (Entire Partition Encrypted) for a Hard Drive Setup Encrypted File Container Mode (a Virtual Encrypted Disk within a File) for a Thumb Drive Setup or a Hard Drive Setup Below...

Warning : This guide is for system administrators or experienced enthusiasts. It may involve a steep learning curve if you are a novice, and risk breaking systems or losing data if the involved low-level system tools (such as diskpart) are not used carefully. There is no guarantee. One way to avoid risk is to engage professionals to perform the process on one of the freelancing platforms . This is an article for users illustrating how to encrypt a portable hard disk ( click here if you have a thumb drive or memory card instead ) as a partition for use with tCrypt2Go lock-and-unlock utilities for TrueCrypt Portable (also applicable to vCrypt2Go for VeraCrypt unless otherwise specified). (This is a sub-article – click here to view to the list of articles or the main article of tCrypt2Go and vCrypt2Go ) List of Steps Creating 2 Partitions and Copy TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt Files to the Partition Labelled UNPROTECTED Eliminating Free Space on UNPROTECTED Partition (Preventing User...

Warning : This guide is for system administrators or experienced enthusiasts. It may involve a steep learning curve if you are a novice, and risk breaking systems or losing data if the involved low-level system tools (such as diskpart) are not used carefully. There is no guarantee. One way to avoid risk is to engage professionals to perform the process on one of the freelancing platforms . This is an article for users illustrating how to encrypt a USB thumb drive or memory card ( click here if you have a portable hard disk instead ) as a container (virtual disk file) for use with tCrypt2Go lock-and-unlock utilities for TrueCrypt Portable (also applicable to vCrypt2Go for VeraCrypt unless otherwise specified). (This is a sub-article – click here to view to the list of articles or the main article of tCrypt2Go and vCrypt2Go ) List of Steps Formatting Thumb Drive and Copy TrueCrypt Files Creating a 10 MB Dummy File as Buffer (Optional) Creating Encrypted Container with Tr...

This is an article for users illustrating how to unlock and lock drives encrypted for use with tCrypt2Go for TrueCrypt Portable (also applicable to vCrypt2Go for VeraCrypt unless otherwise specified) on PC and Mac. (This is a sub-article – click here to view to the list of articles or the main article of tCrypt2Go and vCrypt2Go ) Topics Covered in this Article Unlocking and Locking Encrypted Drives with tCrypt2Go – Admin User Guide – PC Unlocking and Locking Encrypted Drives with tCrypt2Go – Admin User Guide – Mac Unlocking and Locking Encrypted Drives with tCrypt2Go – Standard User Guide – PC Unlocking and Locking Encrypted Drives with tCrypt2Go – Standard User Guide – Mac

This is an article illustrating how to add miscellaneous enhancements or troubleshoot common issues with tCrypt2Go for TrueCrypt Portable (also applicable to vCrypt2Go for VeraCrypt unless otherwise specified). (This is a sub-article – click here to view to the list of articles or the main article of tCrypt2Go and vCrypt2Go )  Topics Covered in this Article Formatting Encrypted Partition as exFAT in Command Prompt for Cross-Platform Support (i.e. Write Support in Mac OS X) – exFAT and TrueCrypt Only Granting Non-Admin Mac Users TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt Right (by Editing /etc/sudoer) – Mac-Only Avoiding User Account Control (UAC) Prompts Suppressing "Format Disk" Prompt with Diskpart

This is a quick guide on how to connect FC3171, a 8Gb QLogic SAN switch within IBM Flex System chassis, to a Brocade 300 SAN switch. By enabling transparent mode (also known as NPIV/N-Port ID Virtualization/Pass-thru/Access Gateway) on FC3171 and configuring port mapping, the WWNs of blade-internal hosts (there are 3 hosts in our example) can be detected by the upstream SAN switch (e.g. Brocade 300) successfully as shown in the outputs of portshow Brocade Fabric OS command below: Before