Helpful Windows IT commands

A short cut to open CMD or POWERSHELL as administrator

A short cut to open a CMD prompt or POWERSHELL prompt as administrator, is to 'search' for either CMD or Powershell and then press CTRL SHIFT ENTER which will open it as administrator

OR as PowerShell

Zero out your harddrive

This will write out zero's to the free space on your Windows 11 box.  This could take a couple of hours but will run in the background.

cipher /w:c

Automatically download and update all my applicable applications on my computer

winget upgrade -all

It will start to do updates of apps on your machine.  Very useful.

Scan for problems on windows 11 and attempt automatic repair of discovered issues.  

sfc /scannow

Another tool to look for possible issues.  This looks for specific windows updates and images and makes sure they are working

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Super detailed battery report of your laptop

powercfg /batteryreport

Show all the MAC addresses on your machine

getmac

Show all the apps installed on your computer

wmic product get name

Anyone forget about this one?  Cruise a machine that you have access to on your network

net use \\NameOfComputer\c$

pathping

Factory Reset VTech VCS754

This has been a fantastic phone.  Its best feature is that it works as a PC based speaker phone right to your computer via USB.  It's awesome.

Factory Resetting VTech VCS754
To perform a factory reset on the VTech ErisStation VCS754, follow these steps:

1. Unplug the data network cable from the VCS754 transformer.
2. Unplug the power adapter from the VCS754 and wait for 2 minutes.
3. Re-plug the power adapter to power up the VCS754 with only the power cable.
4. Press the MENU button.
5. Press the keys: 0, 6, #.
6. Scroll to "Factory default" in the menu.
7. Press "SELECT" to reboot the VCS754

Asterisk FreeBPX fail2ban whitelist and status

Here's some asterisk fail2ban info 

List Banned IPs in Fail2Ban

Fail2Ban stores a list of all the IPs currently banned from connecting to your server. Run the following command to see all active jails on your server:

sudo fail2ban-client status

The one you are probably interested in is "asterisk-iptables"

sudo fail2ban-client status asterisk-iptables

Here you'll see that 192.168.0.101 is banned.  This was a phone that I couldn't make register.

Unban Specific IP in Fail2Ban

This command will let you unban an IP.  In my example i'm going to unban 192.168.0.101 from the asterisk-iptables ban.

sudo fail2ban-client set asterisk-iptables unbanip 192.168.0.101

Now you see that the "banned IP list" is blank.

Whitelist Specific IP in Fail2Ban

sudo nano -l /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

2. look for ignoreIP.  There should be one in there already of 127.0.0.1/8
3. Add a space and then add the additional IP(s) that you want

ignoreip = 127.0.0.1/8 192.168.0.101 192.168.0.102

1. Save the file and then reload Fail2Ban.

sudo systemctl reload fail2ban

You can check the fail2ban status

sudo systemctl status fail2ban

Polycom Phones with FreePBX Asterisk

 I'm using PJSIP asterisk FreePBX deployment.  Heres the configs

In a VVX 500 series phone, heres what I have:  (my pbx is 192.168.0.113)

For a Polycom SoundStation IP 6000 here's what I have

In my FreePBX gui, its pretty standard.  Extension number and password.  Nothing else changed in the GUI

What I DID have to do, was modify my fail2Ban.  I had the system sometimes banning the IP of the phones.  So I put them in a white list

Editing the Fail2Ban Configuration File

Open jail.local using a text editor like nano or vim:

sudo nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

Whitelisting an IP Address

In the jail.local file, look for the [DEFAULT] section. To whitelist an IP address, add it to the ignoreip line. If the line doesn’t exist, you can create it.

For example, to whitelist the IP 123.45.67.89, you would add:

[DEFAULT]

ignoreip = 123.45.67.89 192.168.0.101 192.168.0.102

You can also add multiple IPs, separated by space, or use CIDR notation for a range of addresses.

After adding the IP addresses to the whitelist, save the file and exit the editor. In nano, this is done by pressing CTRL + X, then Y to confirm, and Enter to save.

Restarting Fail2Ban

For the changes to take effect, you need to restart the Fail2Ban service. This can be done with the following command:

sudo systemctl restart fail2ban 

FreePBX GUI with Callcentric (PJSIP)

This let me make calls to/from Callcentric with FreePBX.

In CallCentric, add an 'extension'.  In my example I created extension 108, so my callcentric ID looks like 1777xxxxxxx108.  Your callcentric ID will be a bit different, but similar.

Replace 1777xxxxxxx108 with your Callcentric 1777 number.

1> Add PJSIP trunk in FreePBX GUI

2> Under "GENERAL" tab

Trunk Name: CallCentric
Outbound CallerID: 1777xxxxxxx108 (OR a DID you have with Callcentric)

3> Under "PJSIP SETTINGS" tab

Username: 1777xxxxxxx108 
AUTH username (IGNORE)

Secret: (Your Callcentric password for your 1777xxxxxxx108 extension)

SIP Server: sip.callcentric.net

SIP SERVER PORT 5060

4> Under "ADVANCED" tab

Contact User: 1777xxxxxxx108
From Domain: sip.callcentric.net
From User: 1777xxxxxxx108
Match (Permit): 199.87.144.0/21,204.11.192.0/22        (This limits the IPS that can work for some additional security)
Send RPID/PAI: Both

5> Create an inbound route

Description = Callcentric and your number

DID Number = Callcentric extension

SET DESTINATION = whatever location you want the call to go to when it rings.  I'm testing with "Speaking Clock"