How Do You Get a Memory Dump of a Specific Process in Windows?

Problem scenario
You want to generate and retrieve a memory dump of a specific process on a Windows server. How to you take or get a memory dump of a given process?

Solution
1. Launch Task Manager as Administrator. Search for Task Manager and right click it and go to "Run as Administrator"

2. Go to "Create dump file"

3. You'll see a window that says "Dumping process" and that the file has been created. The window should say the exact location. The file will be a .DMP file.

(These directions were tested on Windows Server 2019 Datacenter. They should work for other versions of Windows too.)

How Do You Get the Internet and/or NIC on Your Windows Workstation to Work?

Problem scenario
You rebooted your Windows laptop. You are not getting any network. The internet is unreachable. The NIC's lights are off. What should you do?

Possible Solution #1
Use WiFi. Completely bypass your network interface port.

Possible Solution #2
1. Reboot your computer.
2. Press Esc to enter the Startup Menu.
3. Go to F10 BIOS Setup.
4. When prompted "Log in as guest user?", choose "Yes".
5. Go to the Advanced tab at the top
6. Go down to "Boot Options"
7. Make sure the "PXE Internal IPV6 NIC Boot" option is checked.
8. Exit and save the changes when prompted.
9. Reboot.
(You may need to boot once to "Notebook Ethernet IPv6" in the timed splash screen "Express Boot Options" -- even if it is just for 5 seconds and there is no indication such a boot was successful; you just reboot after seeing the text message about "PXE Internal IPv6 Nic Boot" for five seconds.)

What Is The Most Important Exercise in Weight Training?

Question
In the context of weight lifting (or resistance training), what single exercise is the most important?

Answer
The squat (according to page 7 of Starting Strength). Page 19 says "There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat."

The power clean could be more important according to Bill Starr (in The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football, based on what page 177 of Starting Strength says).

With long hours at the keyboard, your lower back may need strengthening. Squats can contribute to a strong lower back. We think more than one exercise is necessary to healthfully and safely enable long hours of sitting.

How Do You Troubleshoot SSH Connection Timed Out?

Problem scenario
You are trying to use SSH, but you get a "connection timed out" error. What should you do?

Possible solution #1
Can you try to ping the hostname or IP address? Are you connected to a necessary VPN? Perhaps the endpoint is down or not reachable from the network you are on.

Possible solution #2
Is there a router that was recently configured? Has a firewall rule been turned on? Is there an email about such a maintenance window or configuration change that you forgot about? Can you use the nmap command to see if port 22 is open to the destination?

Possible solution #3
Run the command again with the -v flag. This will provide more verbose output to show the underlying problem.

Does a “Sell Short” Button Do What a Regular “Sell” Button Would Do?

Problem scenario
You are trying to sell a stock. You see an option for "Sell Short", but no "Sell" button. You want to do a regular sell as a trade. You don't want to try to "short" a stock. What should you do?

Possible Solution
It is good to be observant because a "Sell Short" option is different from a regular sale of stock. Are you in the right account? Sometimes the regular "sell" button is not available because you are in a different account. Did your online brokerage account set up more than one account? Are you trying to sell more shares of the stock than you currently own? Check the quantity of the stock and the stock's symbol. You may have confused a detail such as the account number, the quantity of the stock, or the stock's symbol.

What Do You Do when You Cannot Send an Email due To “Error when communicating with server”?

Problem scenario
You have a web-based email account, and you cannot send an email. You cannot save a draft of the email. You get "Error when communicating with server" in red. What should you do?

Solution
Delete the images/graphics of the original email or in your message. This usually happens when the sender had graphic intensive content, and you are trying to respond.

Use just text -- not HTML. Delete pictures etc. If you can delete the original message, that may be best. Now try to send or save the draft.

How Do You Troubleshoot a Linux Script Not Redirecting the Output to a File?

Problem scenario
You have a Bash script with a task that is supposed to redirect the output to a file. The command produces output when you manually run it. But the output is not getting to the file. What could be wrong?

Possible Solution
If the output of the automation has a message and the OS is Linux, the command may or may not work. The output can make it seem like the is working, but really the command is not working. Can you manually run the command and then run a subsequent command of echo $? with no quotes? If the echo $? returns a 0, then it is output (and the previous command worked). If it returns a non-zero, the output you see is an error message (and the previous command failed).

Here is an example. This command

ls nameOfFile.txt > destination.log

would not send anything to destination.log if the nameOfFile.txt was not in the current working directory. Yes, you would see output. But since the file wasn't there, the "ls nameOfFile.txt" command failed.

This would redirect the output or the error or both:

ls foobar > destination.log 2>&1

How Do You Run Snyk Scans as Part of Azure DevOps Pipelines?

Problem scenario
You know that many sources recommend you scan IaC code as part of modern security recommended practices. (Page 293 of Terraform: Up & Running, 2nd Edition by Yevgeniy Brikman (O'Reilly), Copyright 2019, 978-1-492-04690-5 recommends using Snyk.) You tried to create a new pipeline in Azure DevOps. You tried to add a Snyk task. But you were not able to. Why in Azure DevOps do you not see a Snyk option for a task to add to a pipeline?

Solution
Root cause
You have not installed the Visual Studio Marketplace Item for Snyk yet.

Procedures

  1. Log into the Azure Portal.
  2. Go here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Snyk.snyk-security-scan
  3. Click "Get it free"
  4. Choose your Azure DevOps organization. Click "Install".
  5. Click "Proceed to Organization"
  6. Now you can run Snyk scans as tasks in your pipelines.

How Do You Troubleshoot “‘configure’ was unable to find any version of the GTK libraries on your system.”?

Problem scenario
You are running the "configure" script on a RHEL server. You get this error:

"'configure' was unable to find any version of the GTK libraries on your system."

What should you do?

Solution
Run this:

sudo yum -y install gtk2-devel