a wandersick's Tech Notes

This introductory article is about Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and a major player of which, Ansible , its concepts — control node, managed host, inventory, playbook and modules — along with a quick example using an ansible command to remediate configuration drift of managed computers, so that a specified service on them is running in its desired state. Infrastructure-as-Code DevOps is not a Goal, but a never-ending process of continual improvement. —  Jez Humble It is the era of DevOps, where development (Dev) and operation (Ops) are converged and streamlined for the benefit of the business. On the infrastructure side, it is also desired that managing hosts (mostly servers and workstations) be done in a modern way to fit in the DevOps mindset where everything is defined as code to allow for agility which enables continual improvement. Comes Infrastructure-as-Code automation engines, available as command-line tools which can be leveraged for infrastructure compliance remediation. Such ...

For file server admins, this Windows batch script provisions (copies) new folders with exact permissions and content from a specified existing folder (template) based on the information inputted by a user via its command-line interface. It hopes to reduce the burden of Windows admins by handling over the task of folder provisioning to users. It uses  robocopy /MIR /COPYALL /ZB  to solve the problem where folders copied using Windows Explorer (a.k.a. File Explorer) may not retain unique permissions and inherit permissions from parent folder. Go to Download Features Accept input from user First name and last name (feel free to modify them for other use cases where appropriate) Copy a new folder using specified template folder retaining exact permissions and content using  robocopy /MIR /COPYALL  named in  LASTNAME, First Name  format according to user input Support of network-shared folder in UNC form ( \\... ) is available In other words, for drives ...

Recently, I received an email invitation about writing an article on working from home (WFH) amid coronavirus outbreak. As an IT professional who still does much work in a traditional face-to-face way, that led to my interest in the topic, resulting in a presentation I have done privately and finally this post – this article discusses a way the pandemic has changed our lives and how I personally cope with it career-wise by getting equipped with desired skills on remote-work marketplaces. Problem – Coping with Remote Work, the New Normal A wise person once said the only constant is change – have you noticed what has changed during the pandemic? Lately, people in certain parts of the world are joking weather and safety leave* will no longer be a thing due to the boom of communication technologies such as Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which turned remote work (telecommuting) into the new normal – you and I may still need to work like usual as long as the Internet is not broken. *Whi...