Which DLP is the better choice for a 10k-endpoint environment?

We’re evaluating three options right now: 1. Forcepoint 2. Trellix 3. Symantec

We have around 10,000 Windows endpoints, and Forcepoint is noticeably more expensive, especially when you include premium support.

If anyone has real-world experience with these tools—stability, policy management, support quality—would love to hear what you recommend.

We’re looking strictly for an on-prem deployment.

https://redd.it/1pa25ij
@r_systemadmin

Are you allowing any AI tools to touch production data at work?

I’m not a sysadmin myself, but I’m an engineer, and I’m trying to understand how this actually works in the real world.

In my previous role, I could use pretty much any AI tool I wanted, but I was working for a startup. I recently moved to a new company where I have a bit more responsibility and influence, and the situation is the complete opposite. We are not allowed to use any AI tool other than Copilot.

When I first raised this with our IT department, the response was basically “everything is a data breach.” But at the same time, I already see people using GPT or Claude anyway and just not talking about it. So there’s this weird gap between policy and reality.

Since I can now at least help influence some of these decisions, I’m trying to understand what’s actually normal out there right now. Are most organisations still in full lockdown mode? Are there environments where AI is formally allowed under strict controls? And do any of those setups actually feel secure in practice?

https://redd.it/1pa5jeg
@r_systemadmin

Do I have the right idea going into a DNS migration?

Hello, never done this before. Currently our domain is hosted on godaddy but the nameservers point to a third party provider. I just got access to a txt file with all the records. So from what I've gathered:

Move the name servers over to godaddy nsXX.domaincontrol.com

nsYY.domaincontrol.com and manually add the records 1 by 1?

Then wait for propogation?

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

https://redd.it/1pa81li
@r_systemadmin

NBNS HELP

Hi,

I am junior system engineer, and need guidance on a task. I have to disable NBNS. I ran Wireshark on one subnet and saw a lot of NBNS from laptops ( DC is broadcasting for laptops

My questions are:

If DNS records exist and work, why is there still NBNS/LLMNR traffic?

How can I tell if anything in the environment actually relies on these protocols before I disable them?
What is the safe way to test this in a production environment?
Are there any common things that usually break (apps, printers, shares) when people turn these off?


Please guide.


Thank you

https://redd.it/1paayg7
@r_systemadmin

Hypervisor Crawling to a stop

Hi everyone,

I just came across one of our hypervisors acting very strange.

We run backups on all the VM's (which have been running fine) via Acronis and these have started failing.

So I tried and connect via our RMM tool but nothing, RDP directly and it takes forever to connect and get a black screen.

So I connect via iLO and I can reach the desktop but its very very slow, windows take forever to open and respond.

I managed to get task manager open but nothing out of the ordinary and event logs shows some potential issues with WMI but not sure.

A reboot has been done but exactly the same issue, VM's are fine but the host seems to be fighting for its life.

Has anyone come across this or would have ideas on what to troubleshoot?

https://redd.it/1pa38u4
@r_systemadmin

How to Change Default SNMP Ports?

I'm setting up a monitoring lab with PRTG as the manager and two agents: a Windows VM and the physical host itself. The project has requirements:

· Must change default SNMP ports (161/162). Only ports 20000 and above are allowed.

The Problem: I can't get the Windows SNMP Service (on both the VM and physical host) to reliably listen on a custom port (e.g., 20000).

What I've Tried on the Windows Agents:

1. Registry Mods: Added TrapListenPort (DWORD) under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\SNMP\Parameters and TrapPort under the snmptrap service path. After restarting the services, netstat -an shows the service is still listening on port 161, not the new port.
2. Service Reconfiguration: Tried using sc config to change the binary path for the SNMP service to include a -p 20000 parameter, but this seems to break the service.

The PRTG side is ready, but I'm stuck at this mandatory port change on the Windows agents. The goal is to have the SNMP service actively listening on, for example, UDP 20000, so PRTG can query it.

Question: What is the definitive, working method to change the listening port for the built-in Windows SNMP Service? Is it even possible without a third-party SNMP agent?

https://redd.it/1pacxhw
@r_systemadmin

What should I add next to my certifications as a Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been in IT for about ten years, currently working as a Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer, and I’m trying to figure out what certifications or skill areas I should pursue next to stay competitive and keep growing.

Current certifications:
• VMware Certified Professional – DCV (VCP-DCV)
• VMware Certified Technical Associate – DCV (VCTA-DCV)
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
• ITIL Foundation (IT Service Management)
• Cisco CCNA Routing & Switching
• CompTIA Security+

Given this background, what would you recommend I add next?

https://redd.it/1padhdt
@r_systemadmin

Switching from LDAP to LDAPS — how bad is the migration?

Our cybersecurity team just told us to disable LDAP and move to LDAPS. Anyone else dealing with this?

https://redd.it/1pagz4t
@r_systemadmin

Event ID 500, Desktop Window Manager uses too much VRAM. (I hope I'm in the right place, forgive me if not)

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

I'll just say this upfront, and I don't mean it disrespectfully, but I really need someone who does system integration or someone who's deeper into this stuff.

I've got result ID 500 in the Event Viewer under Diagnostics Performance:
"Video memory are over utilized and there is trashing happening. Reducing number of running programms and open Windows may help resolve this"
The task category is Desktop Window Manager Monitoring. So, that's where the error must be.

I have the current drivers.
Or rather, the newest one doesn't work because Adrenalin won't start, so I'm using the October version.
I've also tried almost all the settings that are supposed to fix the DWM (Desktop Window Manager) problem, but it's possible I'm missing something.

What's weird is that sometimes I'm not doing anything on the desktop, and my graphics card is using 12-14GB of VRAM even though I'm not doing anything. I've also made a few logs with HW info, and when it's running normally, like with YouTube or Twitch, it uses about 3-4GB of VRAM.

I have the feeling that the graphics card is also being throttled because I often have a pretty weird render distance in games. But when I look at the clock speeds, they're normally up at 3100mhz (9070xt Nitro+)

I've also reinstalled Windows multiple times. Still get event 500 every time.

I really need help, I've spent almost 100 hours on this and can't get rid of it.

https://redd.it/1pai4c9
@r_systemadmin

Power of VSCode Editor

TIL you can open an entire folder of noscripts in VSCode and do a quick Replace of a search string for all noscripts in that folder. I’m sure many of you already knew about this, but it sure saved me a few hours of work.

https://redd.it/1paio0g
@r_systemadmin

Just caused my first massive outage

Hello everyone,


I just got promoted to a new role 3 weeks ago. I made a new deployment to one of our tools and everything just crashed it caused an outage for around 12 hours!

There was nothing wrong with my deployment, and I was following the process word by word. The system just crashed all of a sudden and we believe it was a firmware bug.


I am still worried and scared of doing any more changes, I still haven't heard anything from management. I am filling some big shoes in the new role and my manager told me that when I started they believed in me being able to learn quickly so I got promoted. Everyone has been really supportive but I am still scared worried that I might not have a job next week...


How do you deal with those feelings? My manager told me numerous times that it's ok as we didn't do anything wrong, but I am still worried, how should I deal with the paranoia, or should I really be worried?

https://redd.it/1pan2u4
@r_systemadmin

Windows Event Collector freezing - suggestions?

Hi, and thanks in advance:

I was brought to a Windows Event Collector server, getting events from 2.5K endpoints. It is set to send fowarded events to c:/default-really??, and to rewrite itself after 20MB of data processed. Splunk Universal Forwarder is installed on the server to ingest stuff to Splunk.

Event logs on the server have nothing really useful (Com service (in Korean?) failed to start...) and the forwarded-log-file states last updated about 10min after the last event in the log.

I have not had a chance to see the server running after reboot to check resource use, and apparently after being rebooted - it runs 2-3 days before freezing the Windows Event Collector service so badly it cannot be stopped from the services menu.

The only ting I can think of (after glancing at it), is perhaps an interaction between Splunk UF, and the forwarded log getting full.

If anyone has suggestions: Thanks.
If not, Hope you had a good weekend.

Semi Ninja Edit

The Forwarded Event log states that there are ~2650 endpoints reporting, and the registry has under 3K hives in it.

https://redd.it/1pap4gq
@r_systemadmin

What's your process for technical vendor evaluations?

I'm leading a platform evaluation for my team and trying to improve our process. Currently we're looking at [category\] tools and I'm finding it takes way longer than it should.

Our current approach:

\- Download spec sheets/docs from each vendor

\- Manually pull key specs into a spreadsheet

\- Try to normalize different terminology

\- Takes 4-6 hours minimum

What does your evaluation process look like? Any frameworks or approaches that have worked well? Especially curious how larger teams handle this.

https://redd.it/1pamzx4
@r_systemadmin

Riverbird RMM

Hey everyone,
Do any of you from Riverbird use the RMM and use it for monitoring and RMM? Would you like to hear your experiences?
We want to use it as an MSP for our customers and replace ATERA.

https://redd.it/1paqfcv
@r_systemadmin

How are you actually managing container vulnerability chaos at scale?

Our security team just dumped a report showing 500+ critical CVEs across our container fleet and wants everything patched immediately. Half are in base OS packages we don't even use, others are in dependencies 3 layers deep.

Currently running Trivy in CI but it's basically crying wolf on everything. Devs are getting frustrated with blocked builds over theoretical vulns while actual exploitable stuff gets lost in the noise.

Looking for real-world approaches that have worked for you:

How do you prioritize what actually needs fixing vs noise?
Any tools that give exploit context or EPSS scoring?
Automation workflows that don't break dev velocity?
Base image strategies that reduce your attack surface from the start?

Any advice would be appreciated.



https://redd.it/1pass85
@r_systemadmin

Little advice for a guy recently laid off, looking to update skills

Hey guys, like it says, laid off from a job I was sr admin and responsible for sccm, Citrix, DR/Backuos using Commvault. I have 25 years experience in everything from Cisco to all Windows stuff. As a guy in his 50’s I decided to go for a few certs while I had the time. (Not a lot of hiring in Q4)

I’ve started SSCP as a mid level security cert, was doing CCSP but I don’t have the year of actual cloud security. In addition I’m going after AWS and Azure certs. If there was an AI cert for agentic or generative AI I’d be interested in that.

Does sound like a solid plan?

https://redd.it/1pawr1f
@r_systemadmin

Task Scheduler Status

I'm trying to add/fix a custom task I had for Task Scheduler. A problem arose before where the task itself was not appearing in Event Viewer. In the limited searching of answers, I ended up deleting the task through File Explorer (C:/Windows/System32/Tasks/<task>), and deleted the associated registry keys in TaskCache/Tree and TaskCache/Task.

So the problem of Task Scheduler complaining about the task is over, but when I create a new task with the same exact name as the original (let's say "Backup Data"), it will then create, but not appear in Event Viewer, and looking through schtasks in CMD, it says the Status is N/A, which is probably why Get-ScheduledTasks in powershell complains about a parameter being incorrect.

How do I fix this issue? Any help is appreciated!


EDIT: Some additional info, looking at Event Viewer, this is something that came up with creating the task:
Task registered task "\\Backup Data" , but not all specified triggers will start the task. User Action: Ensure all the task triggers are valid as configured. Additional Data: Error Value: 2147942583.

https://redd.it/1pax1gv
@r_systemadmin

Our country is down

Our TLD (.vu) has gone offline. That's the country of Vanuatu.

Apparently GoDaddy is the registrar for .vu. As much as people crap on them, I wouldn't look there first for the cause. I would guess that whoever pays the bill for .vu, forgot to do so. That can't be quite right. According to digwebinterface.com, there are a handful of .vu domains that have records still, but most only return an SOA. So maybe someone at Godaddy did fat finger it, and deleted most .vu domains? I don't care. I just want it working again.

Contacting GoDaddy support is comedy gold. Can't get past level 1. They won't escalate. They can't get it into their heads the scope of this thing.

* Me: The entire .vu TLD is unavailable. Godaddy is the .vu TLD registrar.

* GoDaddy: To assist you further, we will need to check your account and website. I have sent a one-time code to the registered email address on your account for the validation process. Can you please help me with that code?

* Me: Can't do that since .vu is down our ********.vu email and web sites are also down.

* GoDaddy: I see, but we haven't received reports of similar errors from our other customers using this extension. To assist you further, we will need to check your account and website. For that first, we need to validate your account.

* Me: (Sigh)

Anyway, all you guys who think you've blown it because you took down the corporate DHCP server, give yourselves a break. This is next-level.

https://redd.it/1paytf4
@r_systemadmin

i feel like chatgpt is shrinking my skills

Before when I had to run that one basic task/command/noscripting thing I didn't fully remember I would have to either: google it, dabble thru man pages/help commands, get grilled on an IRC server/stack overflow by some elitist. And then burn that shit into my memory.


Now I just chatgpt it, ezpz no grilling. But also if I have to write an entire noscript that I KNOW how to write it correctly(given enough time and patience) I'll just hand it off to chatgpt.

https://redd.it/1paya84
@r_systemadmin

Domain controller upgrade

Hi, I currently have a few domain controllers running on Windows Server 2016. I want to upgrade them to Windows Server 2022 using new hardware and then retire the old servers. All of the domain controllers are in the same domain and within a single forest. What would be a reasonable cost for an MSP to handle this upgrade?

https://redd.it/1pb16vp
@r_systemadmin

How do you know if you have too much work ?

For context, I accepted a new job after months of difficult searching. I didn't really have a choice, so I took this Level 2 Helpdesk Technician job with some sysadmin and IT Project Manager responsibilities at a startup (a kind of modern MSP).

This is quite important, so I'll spell it out here: it's chat support, and we're contractually required to respond to every message within 10 minutes, which means that even while we're working on something else, we have to respond to messages at the same time.

There are two of us in this job, and between us we have about a hundred tickets (which is more than at Level 1), quite a few projects on the go, and a bunch of other stuff to do (procedures, different configurations for our clients, helping Level 1 support).

Recently, things have started to go pretty badly. I've lost quality in my daily work with all this flow to manage, and I can feel that it's starting to annoy my superiors.

I talked to my superiors about it, and they confirmed that there is a lot of work to be done, but “it's that time of year, it's normal, we're not going to hire a third person.”

How do you know if you have too much work, and how have you dealt with it ?

https://redd.it/1pb69pk
@r_systemadmin