Day Two Operations: Hardening Three Windows Domain Controllers (and Finding a Clock That Answered to Nobody)

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:57:03 +0200

In the last post three HP boxes became a Windows Server 2025 domain: AD, DNS, DHCP failover, Group Policy, BitLocker, Storage Spaces. That was day one: everything installed, everything green, everything “works”.

This post is about day two, the part where you stop admiring the green checkmarks and start asking uncomfortable questions. What time is it, according to whom? Which services are running that nobody asked for? What happens if a server simply doesn’t boot tomorrow? Spoiler: one of those questions had a very funny answer.

Optimized Samba Configuration on Debian 13 for Linux Homelabs

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:41:20 +0100

Samba is an open-source implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol suite and allows Linux systems

to share files and directories over the network in a standardized way.

Originally designed for interoperability with Windows systems, Samba has long since become a

reliable and efficient file server solution for Linux-to-Linux environments as well.

In homelabs and small server setups, Samba is often used to provide centralized storage,

simple access control, and predictable network file sharing without introducing additional

CIFS – apt-upgrade.me – Homelab, Linux & DevSecOps

Day Two Operations: Hardening Three Windows Domain Controllers (and Finding a Clock That Answered to Nobody)

Optimized Samba Configuration on Debian 13 for Linux Homelabs