Make the system Time Zone persistent across REBOOT in Linux

Hi Guys!
Are tou tired of fixing the Time Zone across reboot in your Linux box..?  Here are three simple steps for you to fix the issue.
In this example we are fixing the time zone to IST. Similarly you can set it to any Time Zone of your choice.

Step:1 Set the hardware clock to IST time zone
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta /etc/localtime

Step:2 Verify the hardware clock is set to IST properly
# hwclock --show

Step:3 Verify the date and time also if necessary
# date

What if the system time is wrong..? Then follow Steps 4 to 7

Step;4 Correct system time
# date -s "Tue 26 Apr 2016 19:36:00"

Step:5 Sync system time to hardware clock time
# hwclock --systohc --localtime

Step:6 Verify hardware clock time
# hwclock --show

Step:7 Verify system time
# date

Result of Step:6 & 7 must be same.

Thank You!

How to set the primary IP address of a Windows Server 2008 R2

Hi All..!

Finally, today I got a solution for the problem continuously facing, whenever we add a new IP to our servers (Windows 2008 server), the primary IP address ( the default outgoing IP) is getting changed automatically which in turn causing lot many issues later.

Here is the solution.

http://www.aip.im/2013/01/how-to-set-the-primary-ip-address-of-a-windows-server-2008-r2/

This URL says that we need to install several patches, which is not mandatory for your servers as we already update the servers at the time of building them. So you can skip installing the patches and can proceed further as given below.

1) Open cmd with elevated privileges ( Run as Administrator) and add the ipaddress command-line instead of using GUI. Just run the following command in case if you are trying to add the IPADDRESS : 192.168.20.11 with SUBNETMASK: 255.255.255.0.

netsh int ipv4 add address "Local Area Connection" 192.168.20.11 255.255.255.0 skipassource=true

2) In our scenario why we are trying to add the additional IPaddress is as we need to host one more new HTTPS website we require a dedicated IP address that need to be binded with HTTPS domain. Once I added the ipaddress using the command given above, will add the ipaddress successfully and off-course it will not change the default outgoing IP address. You can also see the list of IP addresses assigned and their properties using the following command

netsh int ipv4 show ipaddresses level=verbose

Here, the problem comes,

When I go to IIS manager and tries to host the HTTPS site, in the "Site Bindings" section I was unable to find the IP address that I have added recently with the property skipassource=true. So what to do..?

Here is the solution...!

3) Download and install the following fix from microsoft.com and then add the IP address as explained in step:1 it works.

http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Windows%207/Windows%20Server2008%20R2%20SP1/sp2/Fix371973/7600/free/433942_intl_x64_zip.exe

Enjoy IT !

Upgrading DELL firmware

          One of the few maintenance tasks often neglected by system administrators, is that of upgrading server firmware. Whether that be BIOS, Network cards, RAID or any other firmware, these subsystems might never see an update during the life time of a server.

Luckily, Dell makes this very easy under Red Hat / Centos. Here are the steps:

# wget -q -O – http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/bootstrap.cgi | bash
# yum -y install firmware-tools.noarch
# yum -y install $(bootstrap_firmware)
# update_firmware --yes
# reboot

You might need to apply the last three steps a few times between reboots, as not all firmware is applied in the same go.

Also, you need to reboot your machine. No cold boot, shutdown, power off etc, just a nice warm reboot. :)