Nasty Security Issue

Yesterday a colleague asked me to help with a security issue he was having.  He is someone who I consider to be a good developer; but does not have a good understanding of Windows security beyond the basics...Right click on folder -> Properties -> Security.

The problem manifested as this developer (only) loosing access  to a NAS share - "it used to work".

First I confirmed that he was in the correct Active Directory (AD) groups and those groups had sufficient permissions to the folders in question.  Check.  Conclusion - it should work.

Then I had the developer write a quick web application to make sure he was passing his full credential to web server.  Check.  Conclusion - not something that is globally impacting authentication/authorization.  Seems to be something in the "conversation" between this workstation and the file server.

Hmmm.  Next thing was to try this from another workstation.  He remoted into a old Windows XP workstation.  It worked!!  Conclusion - something going on with his workstation.

Now I know that on my laptop, when I log into Windows but I am not connected to the network - I am using a cached credential on my workstation.  I also know that part of that credential is the groups that I am a member of.  So it seems that what this particular workstation is passing to the file server does not have the right groups since the server is denying the request.  Seems like there is something dirty/broken in the cache.

I typed "windows delete cached credential" into my favorite search engine and got this post.  We followed the steps that Ashok spells out...

1. From Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts click the username To the left you will see Manage your credentials.  From that select the share name and remove.
2. Delete using net use Start > Run > cmd > net use * /DELETE

...and shazam...it worked.

There is a first for everything - this was definitely a first.

Now onto a nasty SharePoint issue that I have been putting off.   Hey at least I may end up with another blog post.

Interviewing

I was recently helping some colleagues think about interviewing techniques. I like to see work product from people. So, a while back I developed an assessment that we use. It has been a big help in evaluating candidates. It was incremental problem where each step was a question that led to a larger solution. It wasn't perfect, but I got to see some evolution of thinking. 

When I worked at Microsoft we took our interviewing very seriously. Certainly, there are lots of stories (myths?) out there about the process. Some truer than others. I have a master list of good questions and suggestions I still find helpful to review to get into the right mindset. I avoid the "Mount Fuji" questions since they just don't give me much useful data.

Along these lines...I was recently turned onto InterviewZen. I like the idea of being able to watch a recording of someone creating a work product. We have a classic computer science sort of problem (weighted graph) that I use, but I don't get to see the person working thru their thinking. I am going to try and adapt mine to this format.

Powershell Quickee

As this title rolled off my fingers it made me laugh a little.

But hey, isn't everything in PowerShell a little quicker?  At least that is the intent.  Over the past few years I keep dabbling in PowerShell from time to time.  I have just enough experience to know what can reasonably be done in the tool - without over extending it.  <soapbox> It looks like there are some people who take this tool and use it to bang every nail they have.  But that is another blog entry. </soapbox>

Here is the script I crufted up today for showing me all the services that are on a server set to run at startup (aka Automatic) and yet are NOT running now.

I was using the get-service cmdlet but it did not seem to be return the StartMode and State properties from a remote server (works locally fine).  So I Googled up an alternative that uses WMI.

Keep It Simple (kiss) Revisited

I have a calendar from a vendor we use that has some of the classic coding and design principles - one for each month.  I was rubbing my chin staring at it this morning and I wanted to share what popped into my head...

While I am sure that the KISS principle has been written about (perhaps to death) I had another instance of this today as it applies to operations and infrastructure.

Quick background - I recently inherited an Operational group.  Operations is the clean up crew of development here.  While I understand the rationale of separating them, I think I like the idea of developers supporting their own code so that they better understand the impact of what they do.  What a great teaching tool - you want to not get up in the middle of the night - fix the code, do a better job in the first place, write a utility to help you out.  We have a bunch of applications that have been around for years and over time the developers who maintain many of these have moved on.  So today I asked the question of someone about two AD groups and what they are used for.  In both cases the answer was initially I don't know - and later the answer became these are not used anymore.

Part of keeping systems simple is getting rid of the things that are not used anymore.  We have all these extraneous moving parts that we don't need.  This just creates system bloat that should be easy to remove.

Granted you cannot get to everything - right now.  But this stuff has to get cleaned up over time.  Putting it into some sort of maintenance, wish list or Kaizen log seems like an easy thing to do.

All it takes is discipline.

Yiddish for IT Leaders

I have come to the conclusion that I need to know more yiddish.  Can I use it as a code to hide what I am really thinking?  Help bypass any email filters?  Just make me feel better.  Here is my arsenal.

bupkis - As in - you don't know bupkis.

chutzpah - There is always one team member with too much of this.

glitch - Things are late again?  It must be another glitch.

kibitz - What we should call reviews.

klutz - You don't want this and a programming to go together.

kvetch - What I do when I get home from work.

nudnik - In management speak these are the team members you manage out.

schmuck - What you call someone who changes something directly in production - first.

schtik - A little off topic, but I think of Benji Bronk on the radio on my way into work.

shpiel - My weekly team briefings have at least one of these.

yutz - Yiddish has lots of fun words for describing people that bum you out.

My phone is a fishing lure

Through a series of natural causes/events my phone was in the kayak, the kayak filled with water, the phone is dead and probably is better for catching fish or throwing at large game and rendering them unconscious.



This, of course, means that I have to buy another phone. Note that I did not say a new phone. It seems to me that the cell phone market sucks for anyone who, like me, is hard on a cell phone. There is no way for me to afford paying full retail because I am only months into my new contract.

This model is why I see so many screens with the spider cracked glass. Heck, someone at work actually had a piece of clear box tape over his screen to keep his phone usable to the end of the contract.

I cannot believe that the hardware for a phone actually costs that much. My hunch is that cell phone manufacturers are trying to recoup R&D costs for the phone and all the customizations that they put on top of the base OS. Apparently the competition is so tough that they feel they need to customize in order to distinguish themselves.

Wish someone would figure out a way to make a fast (obviously not going to be cutting edge) phone with base (aka free) version of Android. Rather than going after the performance or feature rich environment they go after the cost. I have seen some base Android phones and the OS is very usable. Negotiate with carriers to not put those annoying apps that kill the battery life. Figure out a different model, maybe even a Kindle with ads-like model.

Thinking about prevention...in this case it would have just taken a ziplock bag. Wish the kayak dude had a box of them for his clients. Otherwise, I guess the only case that may work for me is one of those industrial-double the size of your phone cases. I had an Otter case in the past and they were just too big to put in my pocket. Reminds me of the cucumber scene in Spinal Tap.

In the meantime, I am trying the following...

• Scouring the used phone sites for a replacement.


• Using article's like this to try and save the old phone.

Agile Musing

I was at a LOMA meeting for work last week and was talking to a couple of other attendees about their Agile practices.



It reminded me of some early thinking I was doing back in the 90's.  I was always drawn to doing things in what people now call an Agile way; but the first time I heard someone actually put words to what I was thinking was a presentation Jim McCarthy did at the 1995 Microsoft Global Summit in San Diego (I think).  I used to have the video on tape but it seems to be long lost at this point.  I found a couple YouTube excerpts but not the who thing.  He went on to write his book Dynamics of Software Development which elaborated on his 21 rules (I think the book has 40 something).  I remember liking his style...oh yeah...and the content was good too. :-)

The Pragmatic Programmer is another book that put more meat on the bones of things that I was thinking or struggling with.  I consider this a timeless book unlike the Peter Norton's Programming Guide to PC book (the pink shirt book) I recently came across in my archive.

As I reminisce I am reminded about the Agile Manifesto which at first made me laugh but after that tickling feeling passed I took the simplicity and truth of it to heart.  I attached the image I keep on my desk here for posterity.



Not sure what the next Agile is going to be.  I do feel like there is something still missing that  I can't quite put my finger on.  Hmmm.