Scheduled Task Set ADR Disabled or Enabled SCCM ConfigMgr

When I setup a customers SCCM (ConfigMgr) site for patching I use ADR’s (Automatic Deployment Rules) to create a no hassle patching cycle each month.
This is done by automatically creating the monthly Software Update groups and then creating the deployments but NOT enabling them to the customer’s Pilot collections, Release Collections and Production Collections. This allows the customer to effectively “right click, enable” the deployment to that collection when ready.

The problem you have with this is the “Critical” security patches that are released out of the usual time period. You know the patches that cover that hole that no one noticed before release!
Anyway to get round that I create more ADR’s that run every day checking for a “Critical” Patch release. The issue with this is if left… Yep you guessed it, it will run on the monthly schedule day as well, which will just duplicate content.

So I came up with this Script to be run as a Scheduled Task by a service account just before the main ADR’s run and then later that day when they are complete.

Here is the Script:

Here is the XML for the Scheduled Task to disable the daily ADRs. You will have to change some details but this should get you going. When you want to re-enable it in the evening just change line 65 from Disable to enable:

Import IP Boundaries and Boundary Groups PowerShell SCCM ConfigMgr

This script is designed to work in harmony with the Export Sites and Subnets to CSV script I blogged about recently. The CSV file that is created by that script can then be used to import IP Subnet Boundaries and Groups with this PowerShell script.

Each Site will be Created as a Boundary Group and each Subnet listed with that Site in the CSV will be created as a IP Subnet Boundary associated to the Boundary Group.

Here is the Script:

Below is a demonstration of the Script complete:

Import Boundaries and Groups PowerShell Script output
Import Boundaries and Groups PowerShell Script output
IP Subnet Boundaries Created
IP Subnet Boundaries Created
Boundary Groups Created
Boundary Groups Created
CSV from Export Script
CSV from Export Script

WordPress not creating Thumbnails for images on AWS EC2

I swapped my blog recently to AWS (Amazon Web Services) and am loving it! I was editing on of my post and uploaded a new image and noticed that WordPress was not automatically creating Thumbnails for my images. This is a real pain as you don’t want huge images littering your site for multiple reasons.

Anyway if you are Running WordPress from AWS (Amazon Web Services) EC2 using PHP70 then all you need to do is install PHP70-gd.

To do this… Putty into your server and type:

Next reboot your server from the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Management Console and upload an image to test.

Note: If you have a different version of PHP install just change the version number 70 in this case to that version.

Note: This will only work with new images uploaded after the fix is applied.

Export Sites and Subnets PowerShell to CSV

I came across an issue the other day when setting up a primary site for a customers Regional Office. The issue was that when enabling discovery methods namely the “Active Directory Forest Discovery“. As I’m sure you are aware there is a useful tick box that can be marked to “Automatically create IP address range boundaries for IP subnets when they are discovered“. This although a usually a useful check box caused the Discovery Method to pull back EVERY subnet listed globally… about 2500)!

So to get round this I created this PowerShell Script to export the Sites required and the Subnets associated with the sites in Active Directory Sites and Subnets. This script will export the data to a CSV that can then be imported into ConfigMgr later using this script.

Note: If you run the script without Parameters and just want to enter one Site to export, just hit enter on the next line and it will then ask you for save location.

Note: As in the image at the bottom of this page the save location must include the CSV Name e.g. “C:\temp\sites.csv”

The Image below shows the script being run and the output:

Export Sites and Subnets to CSV PowerShell Script
Export Sites and Subnets to CSV PowerShell Script

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