Using telnet as a tool for troubleshooting network port connections

Note that you may need to enable telnet on your workstation (see this Article: How to enable telnet for troubleshooting when CMD reports: “‘telnet’ is not recognized as an internal or external command”)

Once you have telnet enabled, follow these steps:

  1. Open a command prompt
  2. Type in “telnet <IP ADDRESS OF SERVER PC> <PORT>” and press enter.
  3. For example, you would type “telnet 123.45.67.89 1521”
  4. If a blank screen appears then the port is open, and the test is successful.
  5. If you receive a connecting… message or an error message then something is blocking that port.  It could be the Windows firewall, a third party firewall like your anti-virus software, or an institutional hardware firewall between the workstation and the server.

Source: Using telnet as a tool for troubleshooting connection problems on hosted Voyager servers – Ex Libris Knowledge Center

AD Explorer – Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs

Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object’s schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.

AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explore it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer’s comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

AD Explorer screenshot

Source: AD Explorer – Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs

Useful Windows Defender exclusions to speed up development environment

If you work as a developer with tools such as Angular, Java, Node, Git etc. here are some useful exclusions to add to Windows Defender. It will speed your development computer up.
(In windows 10: search for “defender” -> “Virus & threat protection …” -> “Exclusions” -> Add or remove exclusions).

Node.js:
Process:
node.exe

Folders:
%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\npm
%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache

Your projects/repos folder:
C:\Repos

IDEs:
File: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
Folder: C:\Program Files\JetBrains\WebStorm 2018.3.4

Various tools/processes:
Process: java.exe
Process: git.exe
Process: SourceTree.exe

There might be improvements depending on which type of exclusions that is most efficient. E.g. folder exclusion instead of a single exe file etc.

Warning! This means the above processes, folders and files are no longer under protection. Use at own risk. 

Adding exclusions using powershell:
Start powershell as administrator.
Enter this:

Add-MpPreference -ExclusionProcess node.exe
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionProcess git.exe
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionProcess SourceTree.exe
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionProcess SourceTree.exe
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionProcess devenv.exe
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionProcess Code.exe
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath C:\Repos
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\npm
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019"
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "C:\Program Files\JetBrains\WebStorm 2019.3.3"

More info regarding exclusions:

You can exclude certain files, folders, processes, and process-opened files from Windows Defender Antivirus scans. Such exclusions apply to scheduled scanson-demand scans, and always-on real-time protection and monitoring. Exclusions for process-opened files only apply to real-time protection.

When you add a process to the process exclusion list, Windows Defender Antivirus won’t scan files opened by that process, no matter where the files are located. The process itself, however, will be scanned unless it has also been added to the file exclusion list.

The process exclusions only apply to always-on real-time protection and monitoring. They don’t apply to scheduled or on-demand scans.

From: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-defender-antivirus/configure-exclusions-windows-defender-antivirus

 

 

Setup Virtual Machine for testing browser Microsoft Edge version 18

I needed to test a locally developed website in old legacy browser Microsoft Edge version 18. My system is Windows 10 using Oracle VM VirtualBox software.

Here is how to setup the Virtual Machine for accessing an Angular website on the “localhost” hostname. The website also makes requests to a localhost Java based REST API. E.g. upon entering http://localhost:4200 in the VM it should work the same as in the host OS.

Download Edge Virtual Machine

VirtualBox software: Oracle VM VirtualBox software
Edge Image: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/
Use the “Virtualbox” VM image.
Direct link:
https://az792536.vo.msecnd.net/vms/VMBuild_20190311/VirtualBox/MSEdge/MSEdge.Win10.VirtualBox.zip
The VM password is: Passw0rd!

Make Angular development server available as “localhost” in the VM

Setup network:
In Oracle VM VirtualBox -> Settings -> network -> Attached to: “NAT”

Advanced -> port forwarding:
Name:”Angular server”, Protocol: TCP, Host port: 4200, Guest port: 4200
(dont set host and guest IP)

The above makes the Angular web development server (ng serve) available on http://localhost:4200 in the VM.

Make a Java Spring backend API available as “localhost” in the VM

(In the VM environment)
Add to the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file:

10.0.2.2 outer

The above config tells the VM OS to expose all requests of 10.0.2.2 to the “outer” hosting machine.

(In the VM environment)
Start an elevated cmd and enter this:

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=127.0.0.1 listenport=8081 connectaddress=10.0.2.2 connectport=8081

The above command will forward all requests for localhost:8081 to 10.0.2.2:8081 (which the hosts file made available for the “outer” host OS).

Official Microsoft Edge Preview builds available (based on Chromium)

Microsoft has just unveiled official preview builds of the upcoming Microsoft Edge web browser that is based on Chromium. Interested users can head over to the Microsoft Edge Insider website to download Beta, Dev, and Canary builds of the upcoming version of Microsoft Edge for Windows 10.

Source: Official Microsoft Edge Preview builds available – gHacks Tech News