How Does NetBeez Rate For Troubleshooting?
Continuing from my previous NetBeez post, I’d like to share some more detail on the charting and reporting capabilities of the product, and my experience using NetBeez to troubleshoot some real network issues.
Incidentally, as advertising slogans go, this one is surprisingly effective; I was surprised at how many people do actually approach and say “Ok go on then, tell me about your beez?”
Hands On Operations
I have been able to spend some time digging around the interface in anger, as it were, and seeing whether the NetBeez tools might raise an alert that otherwise wasn’t caught by other systems. To that end, I have one happy story, but also a number of things I found I wanted to be able to do, but couldn’t. These are things I might not have thought about had I not actually been using them for real, rather than just with test data.
Charts
The actual charts are quite nicely put together, although getting there can be a little cumbersome unless linked directly from an alert or something. For example, here is the top of the list of Resources within one of my Target test sets:
If I click on the PING Continue reading
Comparing Dynamic Routing Protocols
Learn about popular enterprise routing protocols, including EIGRP and BGP, and how they differ.
The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Rollout
Expect the new Ethernet standard show up quickly in data centers and campus networks.
Windows SSH client with TPM
I managed to get an SSH client working using an SSH pubkey protected by a TPM.
This is another post in my series in playing with TPM chips:
Optional: Take ownership of the TPM chip
This is not needed, since TPM operations only need well known SRK PIN, not owner PIN, to do useful stuff. I only document it here in case you want to do it. Microsoft recommends against it.
Set
OSManagedAuthLevelto 4HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\TPM\OSManagedAuthLevel2 -> 4Reboot.
Clear TPM
Run
tpm.mscand choose “Clear TPM”. The machine will reboot and ask you to press F12 or something for physical proof of presence to clear it.Set owner password from within
tpm.msc
Set up TPM for SSH
Create key
PIN must be at least 8 characters.C:\> tpmvscmgr.exe create /name “myhostnamehere VSC” /pin prompt /adminkey random /generate
Create CSR
Create a new text file
req.inf:[NewRequest] Subject = “CN=myhostnamehere” Keylength = 2048 Exportable = FALSE UserProtected = TRUE MachineKeySet = FALSE ProviderName = “Microsoft Base Smart Card Crypto Provider” ProviderType = 1 RequestType = PKCS10 KeyUsage = 0x80
C:\> certreq -new -f req.inf Continue reading
Windows SSH client with TPM
I managed to get an SSH client working using an SSH pubkey protected by a TPM.
Optional: Take ownership of the TPM chip
This is not needed, since TPM operations only need well known SRK PIN, not owner PIN, to do useful stuff. I only document it here in case you want to do it. Microsoft recommends against it.
-
Set
OSManagedAuthLevelto 4HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\TPM\OSManagedAuthLevel2 -> 4Reboot.
-
Clear TPM
Run
tpm.mscand choose “Clear TPM”. The machine will reboot and ask you to press F12 or something for physical proof of presence to clear it. -
Set owner password from within
tpm.msc
Set up TPM for SSH
-
Create key
tpmvscmgr.exe create /name "myhostnamehere VSC" /pin prompt /adminkey random /generatePIN must be at least 8 characters.
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Create CSR
Create a new text file
req.inf:[NewRequest] Subject = "CN=myhostnamehere" Keylength = 2048 Exportable = FALSE UserProtected = TRUE MachineKeySet = FALSE ProviderName = "Microsoft Base Smart Card Crypto Provider" ProviderType = 1 RequestType = PKCS10 KeyUsage = 0x80certreq -new -f req.inf myhostname.csrIf you get any errors, just reboot and try again with the command that failed.
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Get the CSR signed by any Continue reading