Anyone still doing physical data center decommissions?

We’re sunsetting an old on-prem setup and looking at what a full decommission would involve with things like racks, servers, drives, cables, and the works. Curious how folks are handling this today. Do you go with national vendors? Local scrappers?



Also... do you guys typically get paid for the gear or just pay for haul-away and data wiping?

https://redd.it/1prp5mj
@r_systemadmin

AD account lockouts happening only between 2-4 AM, can’t find the source 😭

Going crazy with this one. Got a user in accounting whose account keeps getting locked out, but only between 2-4 AM. She is definitely not working at that time and swears she doesn’t have any personal devices connected to company stuff.
What I have tried:
1. Ran Lockoutstatus.exe - points to one of our DCs but security logs just show the lockout, not the source
2. Checked scheduled tasks on her workstation, nothing running at those hours
3. Disabled her account on our wifi controller thinking maybe an old phone, lockouts still happened
The weird part is it started about 3 weeks ago and nothing changed on her end. Only thing that happened around that time was we migrated a few shared mailboxes to M365 but she wasn’t part of that project.
Third morning in a row I’m waking up to her helpdesk ticket. What am I missing?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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

Managing SaaS sprawl — how do you keep it under control?

Hey folks,

I’ve been noticing a growing challenge in IT teams: SaaS sprawl. Between core systems, niche apps, and now AI tools, it’s easy for your environment to get cluttered.

Some of the pain points I’ve seen:

Multiple tools with overlapping functionality
Unused licenses still being paid for
Difficulty keeping track of integrations and access
Teams getting overwhelmed by too many apps

I’m curious, how do you keep your SaaS stack lean, manageable, and cost-effective? Do you have processes, audits, or tools you rely on to avoid chaos?

One approach I’ve been exploring is mapping existing tools, spotting overlaps, and prioritizing which ones actually add value. It’s not about removing tools arbitrarily, but understanding what your team really needs.

Would love to hear strategies, noscripts, or even tools that have worked for sysadmins managing growing SaaS environments.

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

Jobs these days asking help desk iso standards as if theyre the security folks

In 1 interview I was asked how I implemented iso 27000. I said i worked alongside my cybersecurity guy to create methods that we lacked in order to get recertification, but seems they wanted me, a "help desk "guy to answer it in a way that was out of my scope for my experience. All for a help desk job.

I never actually implement security directly bit worked with the security team even though I was a 1 man Internal IT.honestly most jobs that was beyond scope of my roles nor would I get access or permission to do it.

But seems basic help desk want this along with security +.



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

ME-ID what is Cognito NewUserPool Amazon in sign-ins

>Application: Cognito_NewUserPool_Prd_19901

>Application ID: urn:amazon:cognito:sp:us-east-2_RnD0m$str1ng

The entries were interrupted and failure

Any idea what user is trying to do here ? Device is a Windows reg'd, rather than joined.

On that topic, is there a way to prevent registering computers (force them all to join/only company assigned PCs), but allow mobile devices (for BYOD)? *tenant is not using Intune*

https://redd.it/1ps2g9v
@r_systemadmin

Server 2025 issues with Printer Redirection through Citrix Netscaler

Hello,



We currently have a 2025 DC, a Netscaler ADC VPX, a 2025 terminal server, and a 2019 terminal server. We have set up a VPX so that people can log into a portal and RDP to either terminal server, separately. This is just straight RDP, no use of citrix or horizon etc

The Netscaler version is Release : NS14.1 60.52.nc

The 2019 server is working just fine and is able to redirect the client's local printers.

The 2025 server is not showing any redirected printers.

Here are some tests we ran:



Local Desktop ---> VPX ----> Server 2025 = printer redirection fails

Local Desktop ---> VPX ----> Server 2019 = printer redirection WORKS



Local Desktop ---> Jumpbox (has internal access to terminal servers and printers already redirected) ----> VPX ----> Server 2025 = printer redirection WORKS

Local Desktop ---> Jumpbox (has internal access to terminal servers and printers already redirected) ----> VPX ----> Server 2019 = printer redirection WORKS



Local Desktop ---> Jumpbox (has internal access to terminal servers and printers already redirected) ----> RDP(no vpx) ----> Server 2025 = printer redirection WORKS

Local Desktop ---> Jumpbox (has internal access to terminal servers and printers already redirected) ----> RDP(no vpx) ----> Server 2019 = printer redirection WORKS



Is this an issue with how the VPX is able to handle printer redirection with the 2025 server?

and perhaps it only works when "Remote Desktop Easy Print printer driver" has already been used since all the scenarios where it worked was when i logged into my jumpbox where printer redirection already occurred?

Please let me know if anyone has seen a similar issue.

Thank you in advance.

https://redd.it/1ps43pz
@r_systemadmin

M365 Non-Profit Premium Donation License Re-assignment How to accomplish?

I have a very small non-profit that I support and they have had O365 licenses for many years now. One of the initial perks were that MS provided 10 licenses of business Premium for free. Started receiving emails from Microsoft last summer about the the donation grant going away on your renewal, welp I am down to a month and need to reassign those 10 users to a paid version which I am willing to do but I cannot figure out for the life of me how to know which users have the donated licenses assigned to them.

I have 10 free licenses and we have purchased an additional 15 licenses of Business Premium for a total of 25. I can see in the admin center the licenses but when and one view shows the 10 donated and the 15 purchased but when I drill down to the users it shows all 25 licenses, I have no way of knowing who is using a donated license and who is using a purchased license.

Is there anybody that has gone through this or know how I figure out who has a paid license and who is using a donated license? I would greatly appreciate it, thanks.

https://redd.it/1ps9p92
@r_systemadmin

For compliance/audit people: how do you actually build evidence timelines?

I work with a compliance team that’s constantly scrambling to reconstruct “what happened when” for audits.
Their process is basically:
∙ Get 48hr notice from auditor
∙ Panic-email everyone for logs/docs
∙ Manually build timeline in Excel
∙ Hope nothing’s missing
Is this… normal?
What I’m curious about:
∙ Is this your job? What’s your noscript?
∙ How often? Monthly? Quarterly? Only when audits happen?
∙ What takes longest? Finding stuff or organizing it?
∙ What would make this suck less?
Context: Trying to figure out if there’s a less painful way to do this, or if manual timeline hell is just the cost of doing business

https://redd.it/1psai1s
@r_systemadmin

SSSD access control vs AD GPOs for restricting logon to privileged AD groups – best practice ?

We use SSSD with Active Directory and need to restrict logon on sensitive Linux systems so that only members of a specific privileged AD group can authenticate.

We’re debating two SSSD-based approaches:
- Enforcing access locally in SSSD (e.g. adaccessfilter)

- Relying on AD GPOs evaluated by SSSD

From a security standpoint:

Which approach gives stronger and more predictable control?

How do they behave if AD is unavailable?
Which one is easier to audit and defend in a security review?

Looking for real-world experience. Thanks!

https://redd.it/1psdov8
@r_systemadmin

NIST reports atomic clock failure at Boulder CO

> Dear colleagues,

> In short, the atomic ensemble time scale at our Boulder campus has failed
> due to a prolonged utility power outage. One impact is that the Boulder
> Internet Time Services no longer have an accurate time reference. At time
> of writing the Boulder servers are still available due a standby power
> generator, but I will attempt to disable them to avoid disseminating
> incorrect time.

> The affected servers are:

> time-a-b.nist.gov

> time-b-b.nist.gov

> time-c-b.nist.gov

> time-d-b.nist.gov

> time-e-b.nist.gov

> ntp-b.nist.gov (authenticated NTP)

> No time to repair estimate is available until we regain staff access and
> power. Efforts are currently focused on obtaining an alternate source of
> power so the hydrogen maser clocks survive beyond their battery backups.

> More details follow.

> Due to prolonged high wind gusts there have been a combination of utility
> power line damage and preemptive utility shutdowns (in the interest of
> wildfire prevention) in the Boulder, CO area. NIST's campus lost utility
> power Wednesday (Dec. 17 2025) around 22:23 UTC. At time of writing utility
> power is still off to the campus. Facility operators anticipated needing to
> shutdown the heat-exchange infrastructure providing air cooling to many
> parts of the building, including some internal networking closets. As a
> result, many of these too were preemptively shutdown with the result that
> our group lacks much of the monitoring and control capabilities we
> ordinarily have. Also, the site has been closed to all but emergency
> personnel Thursday and Friday, and at time of writing remains closed.

> At initial power loss, there was no immediate impact to the NIST atomic
> time scale or distribution services because the projects are afforded
> standby power generators. However, we now have strong evidence one of the
> crucial generators has failed. In the downstream path is the primary signal
> distribution chain, including to the Boulder Internet Time Service. Another
> campus building houses additional clocks backed up by a different power
> generator; if these survive it will allow us to re-align the primary time
> scale when site stability returns without making use of external clocks or
> reference signals.

https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/ACADD3NKOG2QRWZ56OSNNG7UIEKKTZXL/

edit: CBS reports the drift is 4 microseconds

> "As a result of that lapse, NIST UTC drifted by about 4 microseconds"

https://redd.it/1psf780
@r_systemadmin

Is it realistic to land a remote AWS cloud/help desk role with my skills?

I’m trying to break into the cloud field and would really appreciate some honest advice.

I’m aiming for a remote AWS-related role such as cloud support or an AWS help desk position, and I’m wondering if I’m on the right track.

So far, I’ve learned AWS fundamentals including IAM, EC2, S3, VPC, subnets, route tables, IGW, NAT, security groups, and NACLs, along with basic AWS CLI usage. I’m comfortable working with Linux through the terminal, including users, permissions, services, cron jobs, basic troubleshooting, and setting up NGINX. I also use Bash noscripting and have Python basics for simple automation.

I’ve been working with Terraform to build infrastructure using providers, resources, variables, modules, and state, and I understand concepts like lifecycle behavior, taint, and count vs for_each.

On the networking side, I’ve studied cloud- and DevOps-focused networking fundamentals such as CIDR, subnetting, routing, DNS, NAT, and firewalls.

I also have hands-on exposure to
virtualization concepts and basic containerization with Docker, supported by practical lab-based learning.

At this point, I’m focusing on building projects and improving my infrastructure design skills.

Do you think this background is enough to start applying for remote AWS support or help desk roles, and what would you suggest I focus on next?

Thanks in advance for any advice

https://redd.it/1pshb75
@r_systemadmin

exchange on prem to exchange online migration tool

Hi, my company is looking to migrate exchange on prem mailboxes, around 1K mailboxes to exchange online. Any tool recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

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

How we fixed battery-draining calendar loop in our legacy SIS without touching the mainframe

We've been fighting a battle with our Student Information System (SIS) for months. It exports a 4MB .ics file every hour, but users were reporting massive battery drain and "Flickering" events on their iPhones. We couldn't replace the SIS (Mainframe/COBOL legacy), so we analyzed the feed to see why it was choking Outlook and iOS. The Diagnosis: It wasn't just "old code". It was violating RFC 5545 in three specific ways that modern clients hate:

1. The "Time Paradox" Loop: The RRULE had an UNTIL date before the DTSTART date. iOS tries to calculate the recurrence, fails, and retries infinitely. Result: Hot phones, dead batteries.
2. UID Collisions: The system reused UID:1234 for 50 different classes. Google Calendar sees this and constantly overwrites "Math" with "History" then "English", causing the calendar to flicker on every sync.
3. Missing VTIMEZONE: It used TZID=Europe/Berlin but never defined the offsets. Windows guessed UTC, Macs guessed Local. Students were showing up 6 hours late.

The Fix (The "Proxy" Pattern): Since we couldn't patch the source, we put a tiny cleaning proxy in front of it.

* Input: The broken 4MB stream.
* Process: Clamps invalid dates, hashes UIDs to be unique, injects standard VTIMEZONEs.
* Output: 100% compliant stream.

We fixed \~1,100 validation errors instantly. No mainframe downtime required.
If you're fighting "Calendar Agent" battery drain tickets, check your RRULE dates. That was the biggest culprit for us.


https://redd.it/1psm2sx
@r_systemadmin

"In 6 months everything changes, the next wave of AI won’t just assist, it will execute" says ms executive in charge of copilot....

https://3dvf.com/en/in-6-months-everything-changes-a-microsoft-executive-describes-what-artificial-intelligence-will-really-look-like-in-6-years/#google\_vignette


Dude, please.... copilot can't even give me a correct answer IN power automate... ABOUT power automate. The chances that I loose my job before I retire in 15 years, is the same as me passing through an asteroid field.


"Never tell me the odds"

https://redd.it/1pso130
@r_systemadmin

ILO boot from iso shenanigans

Sorry, I need to rant a bit.

I'm trying to boot an OS on an old Proliant Gen9 server. I don't know why but every time I try to boot it with an ISO file from virtual media, it seemingly ignores the boot order and boots from UEFI anyways.

The only thing I managed to boot from is an ISO image attached to the HTML5 virtual console, but that's slow as hell.

Then the installer said, I can't install because there's no root disk. OK, so I reboot once again to Intelligent Provisioning.

Aaaaand the server sort of seemingly ignores that too and reboots to an UEFI target. So I reset the RBSU to factory defaults erasing all that, aaaaaand still doesn't do what I want.

I did use a little "noscript" that I used before that SSH-es to the ILO of the server and sets all the correct settings in ILO to boot from an ISO file, yet, no dice.

I'm literally over 2 hours in and I'm nowhere. This is not the first time I'm trying to get an OS on a Proliant server from an ISO, and somehow this happens to me almost every time.

Isn't this as simple as

1. Insert DVD
2. power on
3. boot from DVD

It seems like a literal fight to get those 3 simple steps done. I'm starting to think this is a skill issue 🤬

End of rant, thanks for listening.

https://redd.it/1psrc53
@r_systemadmin

Server Running Extremely High

I have a little python monitoring noscript that I have installed on all of my servers, and it detects whetber my server is down or not. I woke up to my server being down this morning and the CPU stats are extortionate.

Looking back I can see that my server has been running at 100% for about 2 weeks.

I have no clue why it is running at these %’s but the ram is at 80% too for the 2 weeks.

I cannot attach images, but I do not check this server.

When checking glances the highest usage was “xdg-bdus” with 196% cpu usage and 40% RAM usage

She’s a Debian sever and I’m pretty rubbish when it comes to server maintenance and monitoring.

What can I do to set up monitoring and watching my server and mitigating problems like this. I run a small web dev company and have been for a while, but I’ve always just moved my servers around every now and then. The clients on this server are small and static so it’s ok to play around here until I find something I like.

The sites are coded with NextJS if that’s any help

https://redd.it/1pssh3x
@r_systemadmin

Any enterprise OCR software that can handle complex documents?

Our company deals with a lot of complex documents and is considering enterprise OC⁤R softw⁤are. Can anyone recommend tools we could try?

https://redd.it/1psu9ea
@r_systemadmin

Struggled and burnout in my company

I feel completely stuck. My career and my mental state have reached a point where I genuinely don’t know what I can do anymore.
I’ve been working at the same company as a system administrator for about 4.5 years. It started as an internship, then they offered me a full-time position and I stayed. In the beginning, everything was great: a small team, lighter workload, fewer pressures.

Later on, the decision was made to expand the team and the office. I went from being the only technical person to working with around 8–9 people. In itself, that wasn’t necessarily a problem. But at the beginning, the way people treated me was very normal—there was no passive-aggressive behavior, no excessive workload, no constant pressure.

Before the team expansion, my girlfriend of four years broke up with me. After that, I started working in the evenings, taking responsibility for every task that needed to be done. That was a huge mistake.
The company kept changing constantly—new clients, people coming and going—but I stayed, observed everything, and continued where I was.
Lately, I’ve started experiencing the following: little by little, I was taken off customer-facing work and assigned almost exclusively to what we call “Cloud” work—dealing with the infrastructure where customers are hosted, or working on our own internal infrastructure. Being limited to just these tasks caused a deep emotional wound in me.

I started questioning my position, thinking that once these infrastructure tasks are finished, I’ll probably be let go. This has been the situation for the past 1–2 months. Going to work with this mindset—working alone on these tasks while others are doing different things, having to wait days just to ask the boss a question—has been extremely exhausting.
Everyone asks me for things: the administrative manager, the boss—people message me outside of working hours, assuming I’ll respond anyway, asking for things or requesting help. Yes, I allowed this situation to happen.

For example, because I don’t really have a life outside of work, I became the first person to be called in emergencies outside working hours. Even when I’m not called, others are more relaxed, they’re out living their lives, and since it’s known that I’m at home, the responsibility eventually falls on me.
And this isn’t limited to work. For example, we go to a venue and I’m told: “Pour drinks for X,” “Serve this to Y,” “Go buy a dürüm,” and so on.
On top of that, sometimes people make jokes about me—at least that’s how it’s framed—but it feels constant. For example, I once said I’d go somewhere but couldn’t make it. Later, we went there with a different plan, and people said things like, “Good thing you invited us,” “It turned out great,” or other remarks that feel unnecessary. I constantly feel like I’m being teased or mocked, even over things that don’t make sense.

At this point, I’ve started feeling like I’m not staying at this company because of the work I do, but because I’m somehow satisfying certain psychological needs of others.
Recently, a deep fear has settled in: I open the calendar and look at my payday, wondering if I’ll even make it there. I still have 1–2 months of debt left—will I be able to pay them? Sometimes I even deliberately slow down finishing tasks, just so there’s still work left. And that hurts me deeply.
Lately, because I’m constantly thinking about all of this, I have no energy in the evenings. I go to bed early, without clearing my head or resting properly, then wake up and go to work again—hopeless, drained, and exhausted.
I no longer feel sure about what I should do. Life no longer feels like something meant to be lived.
I don’t know what to do.

https://redd.it/1psup84
@r_systemadmin

frustrated with zero visibility on tasks and managers always in the dark

i need help… we have tried jira and kanban boards but updates still get lost. anyone using any smooth task management system that makes progress and blockers visible in real time? how do you keep your dev team on track?

https://redd.it/1psufp5
@r_systemadmin

Meraki SM is going EOL. Alternatives ?

Earlier this month, Cisco Meraki has announced that it's going to discontinue its Systems Manager (SM) platfrom for MDM. Link: [https://documentation.meraki.com/Platform\_Management/SM\_-\_Endpoint\_Management/Product\_Information/FAQ%3A\_Meraki\_Systems\_Manager\_(SM)\_End-of-Sale](https://documentation.meraki.com/Platform_Management/SM_-_Endpoint_Management/Product_Information/FAQ%3A_Meraki_Systems_Manager_(SM)_End-of-Sale)

* **June 3, 2026:** Last day to purchase new 1-year and 3-year Meraki SM licenses.
* **June 3, 2029:** End of support for Meraki SM.  

We've used this platform for managing phones and tablets (iOS and Android). We weren't completely happy with it, but it served us well. Are there any recommendations to replace it that allow to do the needful (policies for settings, app deployment/restriction, inventory/status) for company devices ?

https://redd.it/1psu98t
@r_systemadmin

SOC 2 Browser Extensions Monitoring Tools and Visibility for Audit Compliance

We are a mid sized SaaS shop about 80 users mostly remote devs and sales heading into our first SOC 2 Type 2 audit in a couple months. Auditors are hammering on controls for data exposure risks specifically third party apps SaaS logins risky browser extensions and general user behavior in the browser like pasting sensitive stuff into random sites.

Right now we are using Microsoft Intune Endpoint Manager for device stuff and a CASB like Netskope or Zscaler for some web filtering but neither actually sees inside the browser no extension inventory no real event logging for logins or tab activity. Last time we tried manual spot checks and screenshots for evidence but that is not scaling and auditors were not thrilled.

Anyone found a tool that is built for browser level monitoring without killing performance or requiring a full enterprise browser switch. Bonus if it integrates with our existing stack and gives audit ready reports.

Thanks

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