For Members:
For Everybody:
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| Updated: October 23, 2024 |
Our Favorite Sysadmin Tools
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| DNS diagnostics |
| IntoDNS - https://www.intodns.com/ |
| See if there are any very common problems with your DNS configuration. Always the first step I recommend for diving into domain configurations. |
| Mailserver / MX diagnostics |
| Port 25 Verifier - NO URL! |
| Just send an email over to check-auth@verifier.port25.com and you'll instantly receive a report back about your SPF/DKIM configuration and SpamAssassin scoring. This helped me verify my DKIM/SPF configurations were being signed correctly. One of my favorites. All interactions with them is via direct email. Since it all takes place over SMTP, this lets you know bi-directional flows are also certainly working. |
| mxtoolbox.com - https://mxtoolbox.com/ |
| Web based reporting tool you can run any DNS record through and get a quick multi-point inspection |
| mail-tester.com - https://www.mail-tester.com/ |
| 3 free uses per 24 hours. Web based, and email based, they create a dynamic receiving address for you to send an email to, and you can view the report via the web to see. These tools will help you get clarity on any email deliverability configuration problems. Recommend skimming their FAQ first. |
| Ping/network diagnostics |
| Ping.PE - https://ping.pe |
| This gem of a utility will ping from many different nodes in parallel, allowing you to verify routes are working from multiple vantage points at the same time. |
| Subnet Online - https://subnetonline.com/pages/ipv6-network-tools/online-ipv6-ping.php |
| Lets you ping any IPv6 address from the web to test your connection. Also has a lot of other available subnet calculators and utilities, such as web based traceroute. Helpful when you're trying to test bringing up a new network interface on IPv6 |
| Whois/Lookup Utilities |
| ICANN WHOIS Lookup - https://lookup.icann.org/en |
| View the WHOIS registration data of any domain from ICANN's WHOIS portal - free/utility / public service |
| Domaintools WHOIS - https://whois.domaintools.com/ |
| View the WHOIS registration data of any domain, limited free features, also commercial features available such as detailed hosting history and WHOIS history. |
| domainr.com WHOIS - http://domainr.com |
| This does work, though as a heads up, they are trying to upsell you domains based on your search, so it does have a commercial vibe to it |
| Word To The Wise Tools - https://tools.wordtothewise.com/ |
| Look up specific types of DNS records in isolation (A/AAAA/PTR/MX/TXT/NS/CAA/SOA at the time of this writing). Also SMTP analysis tools for checking DKIM/SPF/DMARC under "authentication" tab, web based allowing you to inspect each one in isolation, I found this a little more tedious to use then the others, however it does let you directly control what record is being looked up and it does seem to work. |
| The CIDR Report - http://www.cidr-report.org/ |
| Web based IP/ASN/BGP analysis tools for looking up ASN numbers |
| Personal Cloud |
| Proxmox - https://www.proxmox.com/en/ |
| Proxmox lets you boot any .ISO file into its own virtual container via a web interface running on your own hardware - including (but not by any means limited to) booting any of the projects listed below. Truly a swiss army knife of functionality for prototyping, and production |
| Nextcloud - https://nextcloud.com/ |
| Nextcloud lets you synchronize your files and calendars to your own hosted system |
| UnRAID - https://unraid.net/ |
| Unraid can turn a PC into a dedicated NAS/fileserver for you, based on Linux |
| TrueNAS - https://www.truenas.com/ |
| TrueNAS can also turn a PC into a dedicated NAS/fileserver for you, based on BSD |
| Opensource Routers |
| PFSense - https://www.pfsense.org/ |
| PFSense lets you turn your own hardware into a router, mature product based on FreeBSD. Preloaded routers also available |
| DD-WRT - https://dd-wrt.com/ |
| DD-WRT is firmware that you can load onto many different existing hardware routers |
| OpenWRT - https://openwrt.org/ |
| OpenWRT also is a popular firmware that you can load onto many different existing hardware routers |
| Opensource VPN Deployments |
| Wireguard - https://www.wireguard.com/ |
| Wireguard is quickly becoming one of the most popular pieces of software for your own VPN/tunnel. A favorite of this is your IP can change, and it will maintain its connection without disconnecting you |
| OpenVPN - https://openvpn.net/ |
| OpenVPN Community Edition, while older and more established then Wireguard has an excellent track record of providing a stable VPN link |
| Malware Identification Services |
| Process Explorer - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer |
| For Windows, now owned by Microsoft, lets you see all processes running on your computer, their entire run path, whether they are signed binaries or not, strings dump of them, active threads, etc. Very powerful utility for finding what is running on your computer, and taking resources, it's like windows task manager on steroids. |
| Jotti's Online Malware Scan - http://virusscan.jotti.org/ |
| This site allows you to upload your suspicious file, and it will run it through 14 different popular virus scanners live for you. |
| VirusTotal - https://www.virustotal.com/ |
| VirusTotal (now owned by Google) allows you to upload your suspicious file, and it will run it through 20+ different virus scanners. It is a bit slower then Jotti, however it gives you more scan results, and does utilize several non-free virus scanners. |
| Hybrid Analysis Sandbox - https://hybrid-analysis.com/ |
| HybridAnalysis (operated by CrowdStrike) runs your file in a sandbox and lets you see what it actually does |
| Any Run Sandbox - https://app.any.run/ |
| AnyRun Analysis also runs your file in a sandbox and lets you see what it actually does |
| URLScan.IO Web URL Scanner - https://urlscan.io/ |
| Scan any URL for possible usage insights |
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