SQL Injection became a favorite hacking technique in 2007. Despite being widely documented for so many years it continues to evolve and be utilized. Because SQL Injection is such a well known attack vector, I am always surprised when as sysadmin I come across someone’s site that has been compromised by it. In most instances […]
Regardless of whether you are running Windows Server 2012 on virtual server or physical server, the success of your business depends on having the server run at optimal capacity. To ensure the server delivers uninterrupted service, you have be aware of potential performance issues before they arise.\r\n\r\nOne of the best methods to analyze the performance […]
When your Windows server is low on space or runs out of space entirely you need to quickly identify where the disk space is being utilized and free up space. Low disk space or worse yet no disk space can have a negative impact on your server’s performance. Knowing the paths to a few folders […]
When it comes to improving Windows server performance, most sysadmins focus on hardware such as adding CPUs or RAM. However, low disk space can also impact performance sometimes even causing critical processes such as backups to fail. Fortunately there are quite a few places to check on a Windows server to free up additional disk […]
Depending on how many sites your Windows web server is hosting maintaining IIS logs can be a challenge. IIS logs provide valuable insight into the traffic your sites are experiencing as well as detailed SEO metrics and performance data. A typical web server will have just enough free disk space for future growth needs but […]
One of the many benefits of using virtual servers over physical servers is the ability to add server resources such as CPU, RAM, and disk space on the fly without downtime. An addition drawback with a physical server is that you were often limited by the physical capacity of the server. Once those limits were […]
The FTP protocol is some 43 years old now. Yet it continues to be one of the most widely used file transfer technologies available. Over the years it has been shown to be vulnerable to brute force attacks, packet capture, and other attack vectors. Fortunately with IIS 8 on Windows Server 2012 your FTP server […]
Another one of the great built-in features of IIS 8 is Dynamic IP Restrictions (DIPR). With a few simple configuration steps you can quickly set limits for blocking IP addresses based on the number of concurrent requests or frequency of requests over a period time. With these parameters in place IIS will take over blocking […]
The other day I was troubleshooting 100% CPU utilization on a SQL Server 2008 database server. The server had 100 or so databases of varying sizes however none were larger than a few hundred MB and each database had a corresponding web site on a separate web server. Since the server hosted quite a few […]
One of the many great new features with IIS 8 on Windows Server 2012 is Server Name Indication (SNI). SNI is a TLS extension that includes the hostname or virtual domain name during SSL negotiation. The reasoning behind this was to improve SSL scalability and minimize the need for dedicated IP addresses due to IPv4 […]
