Some Notes on the Machines

When trying to get SVI contents out and vssadmin and diskshadow don’t work, this may:

wmic
(then it its own command prompt) shadowcopy delete

It will require “Y” and “Enter” to be pressed, it will do one at a time.

This is a great way:

webinstall.dev/syncthing/

Use this as the cell format:

0;-0;;@

It’s by registry entry:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/security-and-compliance/enable-modern-authentication?view=o365-worldwide

SentinelOne (S1) considers deletion of volume shadows to be bad actor behavior, because it often is a way that cryptolockers delete last-known-good checkpoints. Unfortunately, there is a lot of cleanup which ends up being required as the hidden NTFS System Volume Information folders on Windows machines build up and up and up in size. I’ve seen 20G, 50G, 178G, 158G so far, at least nine of them since I’ve been looking the last few weeks, and every time this occurs, the overall system slows down, and often slows down a whole lot. WizTree is my favorite method of identifying this situation, but there are many.

In order to deal with the huge SVI folder with S1 installed, one must do this:

1. First get the Passphrase for the machine, from the S1 console. It’s under Actions, you can choose Show Passphrase. Do be aware that your S1 admin will probably receive a notice that you have asked for this.
2. cd "C:\Program Files\SentinelOne\Sentinel*"
3. Please put the actual passphrase in, and the quotes are necessary:
   .\sentinelctl.exe unload -slam -k "<passphrase>"
4. vssadmin delete shadows /all
5. Only if this is a server, check System Volume Information size again. If it’s still big, do these two:
   
   diskshadow
   (within diskshadow’s command line:) delete shadows all
   
   This can take a while, especially if SVI is big, e.g., more than 20-30 gigabytes. It can get huge occasionally, more than one hundred gigabytes. I recently saw 1,022 shadow copies deleted (it tells you the count at the end) from one server.

6. .\sentinelctl.exe load -slam

And you are done.

If you should need to reenable S1 after work such as the above, here’s a paste:

cd "C:\Program Files\SentinelOne\Sentinel*"
.\sentinelctl.exe load -slam

There are many ways of doing this. Here is one way to bring everything into a single consistent behavior, a landing place from which you can vary slightly at need.

This presumes that you have Azure/AD sync installed and working in general, and yielding errors in the Synchronization Service window for one or more users. Make sure that you don’t have duplicate email addresses in AD, that could be bad.

The first steps are in Active Directory Users and Computers.

1. Set the user’s email correctly in his/her AD object, in “E-mail” under General.
2. Set proxyAddresses in the Attribute Editor. The primary email address has to be the same, and in proxyAddresses has to be of the format “SMTP:email@domain.com”. There can be others in proxyAddresses but smtp must be lowercase. Also in proxyAddresses, set mailNickname blank.
3. Under Account, either the user login name plus the dropdown domain is to be the same as the above, or it is to be a valid login according to the O365 console. If the dropdown domain list is local only, you can add the Internet domain list in Active Directory Domains and Trusts, with a right-click on the root level in the left pane of that window, and then an add of one or more alternative UPN suffixes. Then restart ADUC and the domain(s) you just added will be available in the dropdown.

Now we do some other things.

4. Run Azure/AD sync, this is CMD, do it as administrator:

repadmin /syncall /AdeP
@"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command ^
"Import-Module ADSync; Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta"

5. If you see errors in the Synchronization Service window, you’ll need something called a “hard match”, which changes enough to connect the AD user with the Azure user. Here’s a script for it, in Powershell. You’ll need to run it as administrator on a domain controller, and it will ask you to log into the O365 tenant. Items of note:

• This uses something called UPN, UserPrincipalName. While Azure’s UPN is the O365 “primary email address”, Active Directory’s UPN is the double item under Profile in AD, the username plus the domain dropdown.
• If you use this approach, the Office 365 login is changed to be the same as the AD login — which is a good thing in the net result, it keeps things very consistent and predictable.
• Once the hard match is complete, you can change anything on the AD side and it will mirror up to Azure.

############################################
# Active Directory / Office 365 Hard Match #
############################################

$ADUPN = 'active_directory_user@companynetwork.com'
$AzureUPN = 'azure_user@companynetwork.com'

'############################################'
'# Active Directory / Office 365 Hard Match #'
'############################################'
''

'Initiating prep for hard match.'
"Active Directory : $ADUPN"
"Azure AD :         $AzureUPN"
''

# Sets TLS version.  Necessary for some platforms.
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

$reportStatus = ''
$currentOp = ''
function ShowProgress {
	param( [string]$reportStatus, [string]$currentOp )

	Write-Progress -Activity "Hard Match" -Status $reportStatus -PercentComplete -1 -CurrentOperation $currentOp
	# Write-Progress is not compatible with some remote shell methods.

}

Function PrepareModule {
	param( [string]$ModuleName )

	If (Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name $ModuleName)
		{ Update-Module $ModuleName }
	Else
		{ Install-Module $ModuleName }
	}

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force > $null

'Preparing Powershell environment...'

ShowProgress("Preparing Powershell environment...","Setting up to use Powershell Gallery...")

ShowProgress("Preparing Powershell environment:","Setting up to use page provider NuGet...")
Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force | Out-Null

# This appears to set PSGallery nicely when need be
Register-PSRepository -Default -InstallationPolicy Trusted 2> $null
Set-PSRepository -InstallationPolicy Trusted -Name PSGallery

ShowProgress("Preparing Powershell environment...","Checking/preparing module NuGet...")
PrepareModule("NuGet")
ShowProgress("Preparing Powershell environment...","Checking/preparing module AzureAD...")
PrepareModule("AzureAD")

''
'Setting up hard match...'
''

'Connect to AzureAD:'
Connect-AzureAD

''
'Turn off AZ/AD Sync...'
''

Set-ADSyncScheduler -SyncCycleEnabled $false

"Now get original Azure ImmutableID for $AzureUPN ..."
$AzureUser = Get-AzureADUser -SearchString $AzureUPN
$OriginalAzureImmutableID = $AzureUser.ImmutableID
"Extracted Azure ImmutableID: $OriginalAzureImmutableID"
""
""
"And now extract AD GUID for $ADUPN ..."
ldifde -f export.txt -r "(Userprincipalname=$ADUPN)" -l *
$ADGUID = (-split (type export.txt | select-string "ObjectGUID"))[1]

''
"Extracted AD GUID: $ADGUID"
""
""
'Set AD GUID as Azure ImmutableID...'
Set-AzureADuser -ObjectID $AzureUser.ObjectID -ImmutableID $ADGUID

''
'New Azure ImmutableID retrieved as confirmation:'
$AzureUser = Get-AzureADUser -SearchString $AzureUPN
$AzureUser.ImmutableID

''
'Finally, turn on AZ/AD Sync again...'

Set-ADSyncScheduler -SyncCycleEnabled $true

'Done!'

Gets rid of all custom names, and while doing so, gets rid of a lot of external references which may prevent you from deleting Links.

Something relatively new. Very interesting changes from some Microsoft documentation, searchable here. Performance improvements have been visible in general behavior of all machines tested for this so far. On some, reported CPU speed does still change over time. BIOS changes are likely to assist as well.

The lines below work in administrative Powershell. They report the current power scheme and create a new one for the new settings. To revert, just go into Power in the Control Panel and reselect your original power scheme.

$oldpower = powercfg -getactivescheme
$oldname = $oldpower[58..100] -join ""
$oldname = $oldname.Substring(0,$oldname.Length-1)
"Current power scheme name:  $oldname"
"Creating power scheme:  CPU Special"

$newpower = powercfg -duplicatescheme scheme_current
$newpower = ($newpower[19..54] -join "")
powercfg -changename $newpower "CPU Special"
powercfg -setactive $newpower

# Makes maximum CPU speeds available, by default they're not
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFBOOSTMODE 2
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFBOOSTMODE1 2
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTHRESHOLD 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTHRESHOLD1 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTIME 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTIME1 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFDECTHRESHOLD 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFDECTHRESHOLD1 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTPERF 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTPERF1 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFAUTONOMOUS 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFDUTYCYCLING 0

# Sets overall throttles to maximum
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMAX 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMAX1 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMIN 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMIN1 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor HETEROCLASS1INITIALPERF 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor HETEROCLASS0FLOORPERF 100

# Turns off CPU core controls, tells OS to just use them all.
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPMAXCORES 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPMINCORES 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor DISTRIBUTEUTIL 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPDISTRIBUTION 0

# Minimizes CPU spinup time, and maximizes spindown time, just in case
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPINCREASETIME 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPDECREASETIME 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPHEADROOM 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPCONCURRENCY 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTUNPARK 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTUNPARK1 0

# Sets energy savings preference to zero
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFEPP 0

# Commits all above changes to current power plan
powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Some detail can be had here and here.

These changes are disrecommended for cooling-poor laptops. And one might want to watch the temperatures of poorly built desktops and even some poorly built servers, too.

A version of the above which alters the original power scheme, and runs in administrative CMD, is below. The below is not very easily reversible.

REM Makes maximum CPU speeds available, by default they're not
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFBOOSTMODE 2
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFBOOSTMODE1 2
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTHRESHOLD 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTHRESHOLD1 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTIME 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFINCTIME1 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFDECTHRESHOLD 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFDECTHRESHOLD1 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTPERF 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTPERF1 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFAUTONOMOUS 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFDUTYCYCLING 0

REM Sets overall throttles to maximum
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMAX 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMAX1 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMIN 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMIN1 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor HETEROCLASS1INITIALPERF 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor HETEROCLASS0FLOORPERF 100

REM Turns off CPU core controls, tells OS to just use them all.
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPMAXCORES 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPMINCORES 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor DISTRIBUTEUTIL 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPDISTRIBUTION 0

REM Minimizes CPU spinup time, and maximizes spindown time, just in case
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPINCREASETIME 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPDECREASETIME 100
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPHEADROOM 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPCONCURRENCY 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTUNPARK 0
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor LATENCYHINTUNPARK1 0

REM Sets energy savings preference to zero
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFEPP 0

REM Commits all above changes to current power plan
powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Sometimes IPv6 networking goes haywire, on a PC, server, or even a whole network. Machines are there, ping may happen or not, but one, some, or all of them just insist on using oddball IPv6 IPs to connect to each other, even though nothing has been changed voluntarily. Given that even after all these years there still are no useful IPv6 blacklists on the Internet, and given the excellent methods in place to use IPv4, we see no need for IPv6 at this time.

But Microsoft does insist on using IPv6 inside its operating systems, so we must keep it running; disabling v6 does harm in a Microsoft environment. The following is Microsoft’s recommendation to instruct Windows to prefer IPv4, which does eliminate the above issue. One adds a DWORD here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\

named DisabledComponents. Hex value 20, binary 32. Then reboot.

A quick way to do the registry add, in administrative CMD:

REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters /v DisabledComponents /t REG_DWORD  /d 32

Still you’ll need to reboot to get it to take effect.

The info is from this reference.

HPE must be growing a sense of humor. This thing really works well:

https://partsurfer.hpe.com/Search.aspx