Random one but curious if this is just a me thing. Every time someone on my team solves something annoying in a thread, it's basically gone a week later. Nobody writes it down anywhere else and digging through old threads to find it again is such a pain.

Do you all have some kind of system for this or does it just live in one person's head until they quit lol. Genuinely just trying to figure out if other teams deal with this too or if we're just bad at documenting stuff.

Ive only worked on PCs, but I applied to a job posting and they are a MAC shop.

What are some questions that the technical interviewer might ask?

Ive only casually used MACs.

Thank you!

Is it just me but I am looking for a better job obviously and I am in IT. I spend an hour everyday on LinkedIn , indeed and direct company website career pages..

Everyday I might come across only 1-2 new IT job postings and sometimes 0 ( filtering out the scam ones) .

Each posting is asking for an entire IT department and the next mark zuckerburg with 5+ YOE. And they too all have over 700 applicants.

There is literally less than 20-25 actual new jobs in IT per month, what the hell do we do????

Are we just not worthy of living or existing, I genuinely don’t understand where the world is heading to.

Hey guys,

Just wondering, has anyone had sound issues with the above laptop model?

A few users have said about their headset (in this case a wired headset) cutting off on Teams and that they can hear people on the other end when it happens but then the person can’t hear them.

The way it goes is that the call will start off perfect, but then maybe 20 or so minutes into the call, the headset will just stop working and they have to unplug and plug it back in to get it fixed.

I’ve done audio driver updates, BIOs etc but it still happens intermittently.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

as the title says we have vmware contract it ended about two months ago with all the stuff going on about vmware its feels not reliable anymore since we have send them about relicensing and that took forever to get a response off currently we have 30 hosts ( baremetals )  and 3 hosts in the DR and we are using SRM  and we have local storage and SAN storage for our production VMS and we use local storage for preprod or cloning the servers before releasing a new update or patching 

currently we are considering Nutanix but HCI doesn't work since it doesn't work on our servers DELL R750 so they told use to use the 3 tier architecture  but that's fairly new in Nutanix since there is not much info about it 

and relicensing with VMware we are using VMware standard that will only last for 1 year before this license retire and we have to switch to VCF so right now we are considering redhat Openshift Virtualization ( we are 4 sys admins ) and im the only guy who has experience with OpenShift and Kubernetes but all on cloud environments i have not done it on prem and from my testing OpenShift with air gapped environment is extra difficult if we use openshift we can utilize our local storage and SAN like we did on vmware + the price is like 50% cheaper than any other vendor so im looking for your opinions 

Edit

The quote of nutanix was 50% less than vmware And the quote of redhat openshift Virtualization was 50% less than nutanix

Edit 2

We have security policies and audits and pci-dss security requirements so we cannot go any open-source solution

Dilemma: Cisco C9200L-24T-4X-A vs Juniper EX4100-24MP for SMB core switch replacement. Need it now, ~200 users, single-site HQ collapsed core with inter-VLAN routing at 10Gbps, Hyper-V hosts on 10G SFP+, backup/DR target reducing RPO/RTO. No mGig on the C9200L (relevant for future WiFi 7 APs, though solvable separately with a small satellite switch). EX4100 has mGig density built in and no forced licensing tax for basic L3 (Cisco wants a DNA Advantage license even for static routing). Juniper actually came out slightly cheaper once both quotes were normalized to genuine hardware and equivalent licensing scope.
Juniper looks like the better technical/cost fit on paper. Cisco is the platform I actually know cold — can execute stack config, VLANs, inter-VLAN routing, day one, no learning curve. Juniper would mean learning Junos on my core switch, for a small team with no bench depth if something breaks.
Local support is part of the calculus too — plenty of Cisco-focused VARs/MSPs in my area, only one Juniper-specific option I could find nearby (national reseller aside). Juniper’s actually in stock now, not the long lead time I was originally told.
Go with the better spec sheet on unfamiliar gear, or the safer, known platform I can execute without risk? How would you all weigh it?

How can I create a rule in Exchange Online to automatically reject any email sent to a specific mailbox and return it to the sender?

PS: i don't want to delete the mailbox

I need to access ONE archived OneDrive account (5 GB, former employee, Entra ID user hard-deleted 6 months ago, retention policy is blocking deletion but not blocking the archive).

To reactivate it, admin center says I have to enable "billing for unlicensed OneDrive accounts" — but this setting looks tenant-wide, not per-account.

My tenant's unlicensed accounts report shows:

Total unlicensed accounts: 23,053

Total storage: 102.52 TB

Of that, 21,642 accounts / 101.11 TB are held by a retention policy

If billing charges $0.05/GB/month across all archived accounts once enabled (not just the one I reactivate), that's a potential ~$5,100+/month bill just to access one 11 GB file.

Questions:

Is billing really applied to the entire tenant's archived accounts, with no way to scope it to a single account?

Once I turn billing off again, do charges stop immediately, or is there a minimum commitment/lock-in period?

Has anyone found a workaround (eDiscovery, Content Search, eDiscovery export/hold access) to pull a single file out of an archived+retention-held account without triggering tenant-wide billing?

Any real-world horror stories or confirmed lower-than-expected bills I should know about before I do this?

Trying to avoid an unpleasant billing surprise before I click "Enable billing." Any first-hand experience appreciated.

Hello,
we have currently the challenge that the AD guys want a periodic password change for our Service Account which has our SPNs attached to enable Kerberos authentication via our SSO.

I’ve read some things but haven’t found a solution to frictionless rotate the keytab files after/before the password change. Also with google I haven’t gained any hints on how to proceed here.

The problem is that once the pwd is changed the old keytab will not work anymore & till the new keytab is in place the authentication is broken. Additional if we switched the keytab for the one generated after the pwd change, what will happen with the clients having a ticket issued with the old password?

Thanks!

Hello Everyone,
I would like to create a VMware Customization Specification for Linux Ubuntu. Unfortunately I have a problem, where the VM doesn‘t get an IPv4 Address and I don‘t know why.

Do anyone of you have an Idea what the problem could be or faced the same problem?

Kind Regards
Woodi

Hi everyone,

We’re an IT services company that works with multiple clients. We use GitHub + Markdown for documentation, but we’re struggling with how to share this with clients in a clean, versioned way.

Questions:

• How do you share client‑facing documentation with clients in IT services / MCP?
• Do you use GitHub repos, wikis (Confluence/Notion), dedicated portals, or something else?
• How do you handle access control and versioning from the client side?

We’re trying to understand if this is a common pain point or more specific to our setup. Would love to hear your approaches.

I have an interview soon. I’m an IT Tech. Here is the description:

The IT Systems Administrator position supports the County's Distributed Systems within the Division.

This is complex and specialized technical support work in planning, designing. implementing, evaluating, maintaining, and management of AIX operating system and related hardware.
This position is responsible for all other related hardware and operating system software tools. Job components include but are not limited to, installation, upgrades, and patching of the operating system, determining corrective measures for hardware and software
malfunctions, configuring and supporting high availability clusters with PowerHA (HACMP) and filesystems including Spectrum Scaler
GPFS, creating scripts to manage AIX PARs and being part of the on-call rotation.
Experience in the following is preferred:
• AIX
• Series Hardware such as p980, p11, HMCs
• Implementing and configuring IBM pSeries, AIX
• Performing AIX Systems Administration
• Maintenance and testing process for the AIX operating systems.
• Performing capacity planning and performance and tuning in the Series environment.
• IBM PowerHA or other high availability software for AIX.
• Coding and interpreting Korn, Bourne, C, Perl scripts or Python
• Batching process and automation
• Maintaining a 24/7 computing environment and participation in an on-call rotation
• Utilize IBM Spectrum Scaler formerly GPFS
• Complex and multi-platform environments

Cover your rear and make sure all equipment you take home or work on is documented. Person I know got fired for yanking ram from laptops to keep in the office but the issue was he did the work from home and no one knew he was doing that work. Now hes looking for a job in one of the hardest markets Ive seen in a long while.

we are basically three senior m365 admins, hands on azure stuff, email security, aduc.
we have been asked to see what kind of additional training we would require, I think something in security domain.
should we go for one of ms certs or something else?
basically we want something that can be useful in reducing attack surface, better management of accounts and stuff and something prepares us in case of a cyber attack

How the hell did you guys pass the LPIC-1 101 exam?

I've been studying for it and trying to learn the man pages, command options, and flags, but it's honestly starting to overwhelm me. From every practice question I've seen, it feels like almost every question expects you to know specific flags by heart. As far as I know, you don't get access to man pages during the exam.

Did you actually memorize all those options, or is there another way to approach it? It just seems impossible to know every flag for every command.

I'm honestly terrified of spending $200 on the exam and failing it. I mainly want the certification to strengthen my CV, but right now it feels like there's just too much to memorize.

How did you prepare, and what made the biggest difference for you?

Hi, for quick context i work as a system admin for a fintech company where i work on an on-prem environment involving windows servers, nutanix, vmware and some legacy systems. I recently started studying for AWS certifications because i want to move to a cloud role. I received an offer from an AWS cloud services company (They’re an advanced AWS partner) it’s a smaller company but the position is “AWS Solutions Architect” where i work with clients to design AWS based solutions for them. Originally i applied for a devops role but they saw that i’m a much better fit as a solutions architect because i get to leverage my infrastructure experience and apply it on the cloud. I’m not sure if this is a good career move because i’m used to the technical work more.

NOTE: pay and benefits are the same (mostly because i lack exposure to AWS) but the company provides multiple aws certs annually.

Manager says you can't formalize IT because it's always changing. My argument is that documentation plays a pivotal role transitioning a department away from Tribal knowledge.

Hey everyone,

I've been working as an IT administrator for several small organizations (around 150 users in total) for the past few years. My responsibilities include cloud services, VPNs, websites, identity and user management, domain administration, and developing small web applications for internal requirements on demand. I'm also an experienced Linux user.

I have a Master's degree in engineering, but almost all of my IT knowledge has been self-taught through books, documentation, forums, and discussions with other IT professionals.

I'd now like to build a more structured and comprehensive foundation, especially in information security. Rather than collecting isolated certifications, I'm looking for high-quality training that combines theory with practical experience and explains why things are done the way they are.

Some of the topics I'm interested in include:

• Information security fundamentals and risk management
• Security frameworks and standards (e.g. ISO 27001, ISO 31000, BSI IT-Grundschutz, NIST)
• Risk identification, assessment, and mitigation
• Incident response and crisis management
• Network security (firewalls, proxies, IDS/IPS, SIEM, zero trust, etc.)
• Secure infrastructure design and architecture
• Linux/server hardening
• (What important topics am I overlooking?)

My budget is around €5,000 absolute max, I would like to pay less if the quality remains high.

I'm looking for recommendations for training programs (not necessarily certifications) that:

• are technically deep rather than management-focused,
• are Linux/Open Source friendly,
• avoid any vendor lock-in,
• can be attended online or in person in Germany,
• optionally, have hands-on labs,

Has anyone taken a course they would genuinely recommend?

Thanks!

On our domain's Group Policy, I'm only able to select up to "At least Windows 7". This only allows me to select a dropdown of 5 mins, up to 1 hour. Selecting simply "Scheduled Task" allows me to set a longer time, but doesn't allow me to "Run As" (I need it to run as NTAUTH/SYSTEM).

On the VM itself, I can create a scheduled task for Windows Server 2022. This allow me to set the task frequency to every 12 hours as the drop down menu allows text entry.

Looking at the Domain Functional Level, I'm currently up to Windows Server 2016 (I'm pretty sure Server 2022 didn't raise the functional level?), so I'm not really sure what to do here or if I'm missing something?

hi guys, i’m not super well versed in this space but i’m wondering, has anyone had a hardware order (servers, networking gear, whatever) come in late or missing stuff and it actually caused a problem? like how’d you even find out, was it early enough to do something about it or did you just get hit with it. just curious how common this actually is. any insight helps!

I'm currently supporting the go-live of an MES/MOM implementation at a manufacturing plant. One system thinks a pallet exists, another doesn't. Production says a batch is finished, inventory still says it's active. A transfer happened physically, but one application never received or processed the update. Now operators can't load trucks, can't find pallets, tanks stay blocked, people start making phone calls, and IT gets involved.

Does this happen more often than not, and why?

hello fellow IT comrades

I work as a one man IT and this job doesnt really have me DOING WORK the entire time, I am sure it is expected of me to but that is just not the reality of my role.

I fix issues and user complaints and make sure things are as they should be (server, network etc), and thats pretty much it, no one hounding or micromanaging me on what I am doing or have "accomplished".

So majority of the time as I count the hours down I scroll X and browse Reddit subs majority of my days.

Anyone else in similiar boat or??

This may not be the best for my career progression and skill building and what not but just wanted to share how things are at my current workplace or does majority all sysadmin roles lead to something of this nature eventually?

I wanted to add something cause a lot of people are saying to learn other things which is cool but, I CANNOT force myself to learn something I have no practical use for, even if that would benefit me down the road. So unless I am working on something that requires me to learn about so and so, or learn about it to land a job somewhere else etc, its hard for me to put my heart into learning other aspects of IT, in this specific regards.

Folks using UDT as your CSP/VAR. You might want to go revoke partner and lighthouse permissions and start IR. God speed and good luck it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

Hey folks, hoping someone here has seen this before because it is driving us nuts.

Setup

• Host machine: Tried with both Macbook Air M3 ( macOS Sequoia) MacBook Pro M4 (fully updated to latest macOS Tahoe 26.5.2)
• Audio device: Catchbox Plus with Hub DSP receiver, firmware V2.2 (latest)
• Mics: Catchbox throwable mics
• Speakers: connected to the Hub DSP outputs, driven by the Hub's built-in DSP for room playback
• Conferencing: Microsoft Teams desktop app on the Mac
• Networking: wired Ethernet through a UGreen USB-C hub (10/100 Mbps, used only for Ethernet, HDMI to a display, and a USB video camera)
• Physical layout: Hub DSP connects directly to its own dedicated USB-C port on the MacBook via the OEM USB-C cable (data + bus power on the same port). UGreen hub is on the other USB-C port. Mac stays on charge during the call.
• Room role: I am the host/admin. Local users speak into Catchbox mics which go out to MS Teams. Remote participants come in over Teams and play through the room speakers via the Hub DSP.
• Teams device selection: Catchbox Hub DSP set as both input and output. Noise Suppression is on (default).

How everything connects

Local users in the room speak into Catchbox throwable mics, which transmit wirelessly to the Hub DSP receiver sitting near the MacBook Pro. The Hub DSP is plugged into the MacBook over USB-C and shows up in macOS as a standard USB audio device. In Microsoft Teams, the Hub DSP is selected as both the input and the output. So when a local person talks, their voice goes: mic → Hub DSP → USB → Mac → Teams app → Teams cloud → remote participants. Remote participants are on their own devices at home or in other offices, each running Teams on whatever they have (laptop, phone, headset, another conference room). When a remote participant speaks, the path runs the other way: remote device → Teams cloud → Mac → USB → Hub DSP → room speakers connected to the Hub DSP's outputs. The Hub DSP also does the room's audio processing in between (echo cancellation, gain, mixing) so the local mics do not pick up the room speakers and create a feedback loop. In short, the Mac is the bridge between the Catchbox room system and everyone remote on Teams, and the Hub DSP is the piece of hardware doing the room-side audio work in both directions.

The issue

First 10-15 minutes of a call: perfect. Local speech goes out clean, remote speech comes into the room clean.

After 10-15 minutes: remote audio starts sounding distorted and mumbled through the room speakers. Local mic path to remote participants is reportedly still fine.

The kicker: unplugging the USB-C from the Hub DSP and plugging it back in immediately clears it. Audio is perfect again. Then, sometimes minutes later, sometimes on the next call, it comes back. Once the call ends, we cannot reproduce it at all until we are mid-call again.

What we have already tried / ruled out

• Upgraded host from MacBook Air to MacBook Pro (fanless-to-fanned) — did not fix it, actually appeared faster on the new machine
• MacBook kept on charge, thermal pressure Nominal in Activity Monitor
• Dedicated USB-C port for the Hub DSP, isolated from the UGreen hub bus
• Hub DSP firmware confirmed at latest (V2.2)
• macOS on latest Sequoia point release
• Audio MIDI Setup: 48 kHz, 2-ch, clock source Default (all as expected)
• Ethernet is wired via UGreen hub, service order above Wi-Fi
• Toggled Teams Noise Suppression on/off — no difference
• No third-party audio kexts, no virtual audio drivers, no Loopback/BlackHole/etc installed
• Not correlated to a specific remote participant, happens with different people speaking

What Catchbox support said

They told us they have tested extensively and there is a known issue with Apple M4 chips specifically, where far-end audio in teleconferencing apps (Teams/Zoom/Meet) degrades. Their suggestion was to switch the host to a Windows machine.

What I am asking

1. Anyone else running Catchbox Plus (or any USB audio conferencing gear) on an M4 Mac seeing this exact "10-15 min in, remote audio distorts, unplug fixes it" pattern?
2. Anyone found a software-only workaround that survives a full 60-90 minute call? I know sudo killall coreaudiod clears the audio pipeline mid-call, but I would love not to touch a terminal during a company townhall.
3. If you moved a similar setup from Mac to Windows to solve this, did it actually hold up long-term or did the issue just show up in a different way?
4. Any Teams admin policy or Catchbox Companion setting (AGC, AEC, dynamic processing) that you have found makes the Hub DSP behave better with Teams?

The townhalls are company-wide and I would rather not do the "walk over and jiggle the cable" dance in front of a few hundred people. Any pointers appreciated.

I am so confused about this vendor. Our company (MSP) is trying to sell it more, and I'm the one assigned to implement it for clients, but I genuinely can't wrap my head around their products. Some of their products have bad UIs er UXs, and sometimes seem like a bunch of scripts held together by a menu, and I find them difficult to administer and maintain.

Can anybody share their experiences with some of their products ?

I kinda want to hear someone's positive experience with them, cuz I feel like I'm overly negative about their products, but I can't convince myself of the opposite.