Using Automox

This quarter I’m working on changing the default community homepage to include more useful information from other sources, such as the latest KB articles, new features, and other news. What sorts of things would you like to see on the homepage of the community besides the discussion topics?

Now that we have the Who’s Online indicator, it’s reminding me of how many people haven’t yet uploaded an avatar picture. To be entered in this contest, make sure you have an avatar uploaded and post the story behind your avatar in this topic. The avatar doesn’t have to be a picture of you - it can be a caricature, a pretty image, a picture of your pet anteater, etc. Get your post in by the end of the decade (Dec 31st, 2019) to be entered into the random drawing. One lucky entrant will win a collection of Automox swag. P.S. The story behind my avatar is that a coworker at Spiceworks brought me back those pink ears from a gaming convention as a present. She snapped that picture of me and it turn out to be so funny looking that I continue to use it as an avatar even though it’s 10 years and about 40 lbs ago.

Are you seeing the new severity level of High showing up in your environment? Did you have to adjust any patch policies?

January 14th Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008R2 April 14th Windows 10 1709 Enterprise / Education May 12th Windows 10 1809 Home / Professional July 14th Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 September 8th System Center Service Manager 2010 October 13th System Center Essentials 2007 System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 Exchange 2010 Office 2010 Sharepoint 2010 Project Server 2010 November 10th Windows 10 1803 Enterprise / Education December 8th Windows 10 1903 Home / Professional / Enterprise / Education From here: reddit r/sysadmin - PSA: Microsoft's End Of Lifes 2020 257 votes and 114 comments so far on Reddit

Looking for feedback on what the community is using for pre-patch or pre-worklet deployment testing. We currently automate medium and critical patching which has been worming fine, however I would like to identify a dynamic / automated way to test patches prior to deployment to validate the automated patching will succeed. Almost like a sandbox patch scenario. When we have patches fail we typically end up having to remote into the device and investigate as the Automox reporting does not provide enough feedback yet. If we could validate all patches prior to deployment we would have much greater success.

What are the sticking points and issues you run into when deploying or using Automox? This info helps us document workarounds and prioritize bug fixes.

Enhancements : Introduced the CVSS V3 scoring model (learn more here) Automatically migrated Severity patching policies that previously included Critical to automatically include High severities too (covering the same score range as was previously covered: 7-10) Updated over a million vulnerabilities where severity rating was null to a value Replaced collection of four icons on “By Severity” button with a single Shield icon, and matched colors of buttons to Severity level Added High and Unknown severity choices and renamed Other to Unknown Added High and Unknown to the Overview Report Allow multi-select of package/policy combination with batch approval or rejection Improved pagination Bug Fixes: Fixed an error so that we patch to the latest version of Google Chrome and Adobe Flash https://support.automox.com/help/archive-2017-2018-2019 Blog with more details on the new severity service: blog.automox.com Automox Feature Update: Improved Severity Classifi

What are your IT-related New Years resolutions? Get better at documenting? Learn Powershell? Here’s some other ideas if you have picked any yet: https://www.usenix.org/blog/new-years-resolutions-sysadmins

https://www.reddit.com/r/usefulscripts/ Lots of handy stuff in there, and useful for anyone creating worklets. Anyone else have any good script repositories that they use (besides Stack Exchange, of course)?

Bug Fixes Fixed a bug where the incorrect invoice date was displayed in console. Now, the date in console is the actual date the invoice was issued or paid. https://support.automox.com/help/archive-2017-2018-2019

Does anyone know how to modify permissions to install a third party app on Catalina? I have been trying to remotely install an application like ITarian Remote Control or Chrome Remote Desktop however Catalina either doesn’t permit the installation at all, or will not allow the application to start once installed due to security and privacy controls. I’ve read for something like Chrome Remote Desktop that the following is required, which would need to be scripted somehow: In System Preferences/Security & Privacy, make sure check both “sh” options under “Screen Record” and also “Accessibility” Any thoughts?

We just added in another Discourse (our community platform) plugin. This one provides tooltip previews of topics. Just hover your cursor over a topic subject line and it will pop up a preview with the first couple sentences like so:

Since this is Friday the 13th, it’s especially important to not touch anything Are you on the ROF bandwagon?

Several servers stuck on a reboot cycle after Windows Update last night (Tuesday - Wednesday). This appears to be a combination of 2019-12 Security Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows Server 2012 for x64-based Systems (KB4530691) and 2019-12 Servicing Stack Update for Windows Server 2012 for x64-based Systems (KB4532920) The solution is to boot the server in safe mode and allow the update to fail. This can take a long time. I think that the way to avoid this is to manually install 2019-12 Servicing Stack Update for Windows Server 2012 for x64-based Systems (KB4532920) before the rollup, but I am still testing this. I don’t imagine this will impact too many users, but hopefully the above helps someone.

Bug Fixes: Fixed an error where Next Patch Window is ‘unscheduled’ when a policy is scheduled Fixed an error to ensure that patch policies take effect at the proper scheduled time https://support.automox.com/help/archive-2017-2018-2019

Enhancements Mac and Windows 3rd party application support for Zoom Improved numeric semantic versioning across multiple areas of the product Enhanced the way we record customer titles to increase report accuracy https://support.automox.com/help/archive-2017-2018-2019

This one you have to work here to acquire, so start applying! Our model is @DanK doing his best Blue Steel IMG_94193024×4032 2.54 MB IMG_80743024×4032 2.68 MB IMG_96793024×4032 2.69 MB IMG_38903024×4032 3.6 MB

Patch Tuesday is here! Celebrate by reading up on what’s new today in the patch world: blog.automox.com December 2019 Patch Tuesday Index For the latest Patch Updates from Microsoft and third-party vendors, bookmark the Automox December 2019 Patch Tuesday Index, updated live throughout the day. And remember to sign up for the webinar on Thursday: go.automox.com Webinar: Automating Patch Tuesday: December 2019 Join Richard Melick for a review of December's Microsoft Patch Tuesday and third-party security patches and learn tips for automatically protecting your infrastructure from these vulnerabilities.

I’ve enabled the reply by email feature, which means you can now reply directly to notification emails, either to reply to a topic or a private message. When you click the reply in your email client, you’ll now see that the return email address has this format: automox+3v1a7v7ss7qto2gp58qevdg9op6aloi1@discoursehosting.net The alphanumeric portion after the + is how the inbound email notifies the community which topic or post to reply to. Don’t worry, it also checks to make sure the email address you are replying from is the same email address that the notification was sent to, as an additional layer of security. The email polling interval is 5 minutes, so it can take up to 5 minutes for your post to show up after you send the email.

I’ve added a new plugin to the community that shows who is currently here on the site. You’ll see it right below the All Categories dropdown:

Printers Projectors DNS Password resets Patching Backups 0 voters

Bug Fixes Fixed a bug where some Device Details pages were not loading properly. https://support.automox.com/help/archive-2017-2018-2019

Looks like OpenText wants to extend its portfolio: TechCrunch OpenText buys data security firm Carbonite for $1.42B – TechCrunch Carbonite has agreed to a $1.42 billion purchase by OpenText, an enterprise information management giant, ending weeks of speculation about the anticipated buyout. The deal marks a 78% premium on Carbonite’s share price on September 5, when it was... Anyone here a Carbonite customer?

Include a couple that helped you in your career, and a couple that helped you in life in general. For me for career I’d have to go with: amazon.com The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christina J. Hogan, Strata R. Chalup 4.4 out of 5 stars, and amazon.com Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity 4.4 out of 5 stars, ISBN: 978-0670899241, Viking, January 8, 2001, $13.49 For general life: Taught me to manage money better: amazon.com How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously*: Based on the Proven Principles and Techniques of Debtors Anonymous 4.6 out of 5 stars, ISBN: 978-0553382020, Bantam, May 8, 2012, $14.20 This one is technically a business book, but it helped me in other areas of life too

Bugs Fixed an issue that returned messages larger than the maximum allowed in the Automox Console. https://support.automox.com/help/archive-2017-2018-2019