Questions[automated](server)

I recently switched from dns-01 to http-01 callenge type for letsencrypt as I plan to sign my dns zones in the future and therefore automated zone manipulation is no longer wanted. Ever since I made this change I can no longer renew some of my zones (I assume that these zones are the ones I initially signed via dns-challenge). My older zones (from first usage - using http from the start) work just normal.

Just to clear things up I'm using the dehydrated-client from lukas2511. I added some debug output to check if there is a problem in that script - and it seems like there is not.
After requesting the challenge I receive the response:

{
  "identifier":{
    "type":"dns",
    "value":"dennisschuerholz.de"
  },
  "status":"valid",
  "expires":"2017-04-16T11:43:43Z",
  "challenges":[
    {
      "type":"http-01",
      "status":"pending",
      "uri":"https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/acme/challenge/<some foo>/133324572",
      "token":"<some token>"
    },
    {
      "type":"tls-sni-01",
      "status":"pending",
      "uri":"https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/acme/challenge/<some foo>/133324573",
      "token":"<some token>"
    },
    {
      "type":"dns-01",
      "status":"valid",
      "uri":"https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/acme/challenge/<some foo>/133324574",
      "token":"<some token>",
      "keyAuthorization":"<some bar>",
      "validationRecord":[
        {
          "Authorities":[
            "dennisschuerholz.de.\t900\tIN\tNS\tns3.schuerholz.it.",
            "dennisschuerholz.de.\t900\tIN\tNS\tns1.schuerholz.it.",
            "dennisschuerholz.de.\t900\tIN\tNS\tns2.schuerholz.it.",
            "dennisschuerholz.de.\t900\tIN\tNS\tns.schuerholz.it."
          ],
          "hostname":"dennisschuerholz.de",
          "port":"",
          "addressesResolved":null,
          "addressUsed":""
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "combinations":[[0],[2],[1]]
}

I don't really get why the dns challenge type still contains (outdated) information about the domain and if the "expires"-key has something to do with this.

If I now try to respond to the challenge the status stays at pending forever.

{
  "type":"http-01",
  "status":"pending",
  "uri":"https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/acme/challenge/<some foo>/133324572",
  "token":"<some token>"
}

It seems that I'm stuck to dns challenge type and would like to know why and how to revert it (if possible). I just used the same script and domain on the staging-path (https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/directory), that's working fine.

I'm struggling with this for the past few weeks and I hope someone has THE answer that works.

At my work we use VMWare and I've build a automated deployment of Windows server 2012R2 with Powershell, which is working great.

Most of my scripts are being executed on the VM itself and one of the functions is configuring Windows updates. I've found registry-keys for setting up Updates and Powershell is adding them into the register. The main problem is, is that those settings are not applied by the server. One of the settings is TIME and DAY.

After a couple of days fully researching, I've found out that there is an schedule task called Maintenance Configurator. I've found a way to disable that but that doesn't help (with psexec). My updates are still getting executed every day at 2AM.

Than I saw a schedule tasks with that setting. I changed that time to my desired time-windows and it executed at that time, but then it changed back to 2AM. I saw in the Action Center that the setting was still on 2AM, eventhough I've changed the schedule task manualy

How can I change this all by Powershell? I don't like the fact that the updates are being installed at 2AM, and I also don't like it that I cannot change it anywhere.

Hope someone knows how to fix

Best regards, Dave

I'm looking for a batch script to automate the upload of MULTIPLE files at a time to an external ftps site (ftps://servername.xxxx.com).The files are located in a folder on a Windows Server 2008 system.If possible the batch script also needs to check if the files don't already exist in the remote folder to avoid overwrite. Many thanks.

A client wants us to push data files to them on a daily basis using SFTP (FTP over SSH). We are a 100% Microsoft shop with no Linux admins on staff. I am looking for recommendations on how to do achieve this. I have seen different applications for automating the sending of files via SFTP, but I don't know if they are a good approach or not.

What have you found to be the easiest way to deal with this in a Microsoft Environment?

If one doesn't want to dig into sophisticated backup solutions, it is always possible to write a shell script that gathers data and compresses it. Because of privacy issues one might want to encrypt the backup archive by using a suitable tool (zip/rar with password, gpg etc).

Now when it comes to automation, the problem of revealing the password steps in which creates the following issues:

• When running the backup script from console, the password is just entered interactively.
• When running the script via cron, this is impossible.
• Hardcoding the password in the shell script is bad and ugly.

I believe this is a common situation for this problem. What is the generic or typical solution for the problem of encrypting data with a password, but in automated way?