Lau's Lounge

Deploy Microsoft Defender Log Collector using Docker Compose

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Overview

I always prefer using Docker Compose instead of Docker commands since compose files are self-documenting. That’s why it drives me crazy when someone–especially large companies–only give documentation in docker commands. Microsoft does this when you attempt to deploy an on-prem connector for Defender for Cloud Apps. Here’s how to use a docker compose file instead.

Process

During setup, Microsoft will give you a command to run like this:

(echo $TOKEN) | docker run --name $COLLECTOR_NAME$ -p 514:514/udp -p 21:21 -p 20000-20099:20000-20099 -e "PUBLICIP='192.168.x.x'" -e "PROXY=" -e "SYSLOG=true" -e "CONSOLE=XXXX.us3.portal.cloudappsecurity.com" -e "COLLECTOR=COLLECTOR_NAME" --security-opt apparmor:unconfined --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN --restart unless-stopped -a stdin -i mcr.microsoft.com/mcas/logcollector starter

IPv6 Address Assignment

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 03:14:00 -0500

IPv6 address assignment is one of those things that was supposed to make things easier, but in practice confuses many people (myself included!) This blog post does an excellent job going through how it works and how we got here.

https://lpar.ath0.com/posts/2026/02/ipv6-address-assignment/

Setup DDNS with Porkbun

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Overview

Lately I have been using Porkbun for hosting some of my domains. Porkbun is a great registrar, but they do not have as much support from the market on dynamic DNS (DDNS) updating. Here is how I was able to get DDNS working for IPv4 and IPv6 on my Porkbun domains.

Note: Many DDNS applications have a Docker version. If you are wanting to update IPv6, I do not recommend you use the Docker version as the docker container will likely not be able to see the host’s IPv6 address.

Type clipboard contents on macOS

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0600

With all of the Windows 11 shenanigans of late, I’ve found myself needing to perform bitlocker recovery more often than I would like.

For those of you needing to take something from your clipboard and have it typed out instead of pasted–like for a recovery key into a Windows VM–here is an Automator script which will save you some time. I found this in a GitHub Gist¹ so here it is for postarity:

Making the CloudFree Smart Bulb Warmer

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 03:20:00 -0600

I own a couple of the CloudFree Smart Bulbs¹ that I use with HomeAssistant and the awesome Adaptive Lighting² custom component. This trifecta makes it so the lights in my home automatically adjust to emulate the sun throughout the day. If you have HomeAssistant and haven’t set this up yet, stop reading this and go set it up!

My only complaint about these lights is that the warmest they say they go is 2000k, which is not quite warm enough for my tastes. Luckily, since these bulbs come running Tasmota, there is a workaround we can put into place ourselves! Since the bulb has RGB LEDs in it, we can tell the bulb to fall back to the red LEDs when the bulb is set to its warmest levels.

Repairing the Windows Bootloader

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 09:13:45 -0600

Overview

Because I have a complete and utter disregard for my own free time, I’ve found myself moving Windows partitions around several times in the past month. There are two really fun things about this:

Moving Windows partitions is 99% sure to break your bootloader
Most search results for my windows pc won't boot please fix are either out of date or trying to sell you shareware Luckily, EFI systems are pretty straight forward in how you get from power button to OS. Basically, when you start your PC it will look for an EFI partition containing boot files. The EFI partition is typically a standard fat32 partition with a special boot flag on it. The boot files can get a little complex, but they’re basically pointers to the actual OS to boot. Knowing this (or if you’re skimming the article because you hate reading), here are the prerequisites:

Prerequisites

Your PC must be running in UEFI (not BIOS), which means your disks are GPT partitioned.
You have an EFI partition you want to use already formatted and set with the boot flag.

Danger Will Robinson

These instructions only apply to GPT disks and a UEFI system. If you do this while running MBR/BIOS… I have no idea what will happen. We’re going to be messing with disks here, so be careful and don’t blame me if something gets messed up.

Linux on a 2022 Dell Latitude 5530

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 03:16:00 -0600

For my work, I’ve recently switch to using a Dell Latitude 5530 laptop with an Intel 12th gen processor. All-in-all it is a great machine and I’ve been enjoying using it. Along with the switch to this hardware came a switch to using Windows full-time from my macOS/Linux background. Windows has come a long way, and I have actually been enjoying using it! However, I recently caved and installed Linux on the machine in a second drive so I could continue ~~making things hard on myself~~ living in both worlds.

Missing Emojis in KDE

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 09:20:53 -0600

I’ve recently switched back to KDE after an extended stint on GNOME. I love the polish and workflow of GNOME, but the Plasma desktop is so packed with power-user features that it can be hard to stay away for long.

Of course, what I mean by power-user features is their excellent emoji support. Just like on macOS, Plasma has a button combo, super+., which will bring up a searchable emoji picker. Added in 2019, One quick keystroke and you’re greeted with this:

Enhancing SSH

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A recent episode of Linux Unplugged was talking about using certificates for SSH auth, and got me thinking about enhancing my usage of SSH. I stumbled upon this page with some good recommendations from the infosec folks at Mozilla:

https://infosec.mozilla.org/guidelines/openssh

Fixing Windows Hello for Business Pin Error 0x80090016

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Background

I’ve recently been deploying a new enterprise setup for my company. Part of this process involves configuring device registration with an Azure Hybrid Active Directory. We also decided to use Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA).

While setting up one of the machines I ran into the above screen while trying to setup Windows Hello for Business, AKA a pin for the user I was logging in as. The proves to be a problem as most businesses will restrict what resources you’re allowed to access when a pin isn’t configured.

Memory backings in Linux Virtualization

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Background

When diving into high-performance virtualization, memory is often an area of focus. In this article, I will attempt to explain simply why memory is a concern, and the various ways that are available to you to fix it. This way, you may pick which solution fits your needs.

Memory management is a key responsibility of your operating system (OS). Your OS takes the memory in your system and divides it up into pages. As programs request memory, your OS assigns pages to said programs.

Libvirt Parameters

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When browsing through other peoples’ setups, you’ll find a huge range of flags people set. Here’s a list of what I find important, along with what they do. The table on contents will be organized by levels to represent where each config option should go. Note that there are many more flags to explore, should you be so inclined¹.

domain

memory

currentMemory

memoryBacking

hugepages

Specifying huge pages

cputune

os

features

acpi

apic

hyperv

relaxed

vapic

spinlocks

vpindex

runtime

synic

stimer

reset

vendor_id

frequencies

reenlightenment

tlbflush

kvm

hidden

vmport

ipapic

cpu

topology

feature

Here’s the libvirt XML reference for some light reading ↩︎

Libvirt/QEMU reference guide

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Over the past few months I’ve gotten into experimenting with PCI Passthrough using Linux virtualization. The basic premise is that, instead of dual-booting Linux with Windows for gaming, we can run Windows in a VM and passthrough necessary hardware (storage, graphics card) to achieve near-native performance.

I’ve learned a lot from this experimentation. There are lots of helpful people in this community, but there are also a lot of differing configurations and no one place to look all of the various settings up. With this in mind, I aim to pool all of the information I’ve learned, to help people with their virtualization journeys.

Ghosting in the Job Market

Tue, 07 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This is less of a rant and more some observations I’ve noticed. In the past year I’ve had the opportunity to talk to people who are hiring and people who are seeking jobs. Often, each group would be frustrated with the other.

A term you’ll hear a lot in modern dating is ghosting. For those who aren’t familiar, ghosting is defined as “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication”.¹ However, it’s clear that the practice of ghosting isn’t limited to modern dating. It’s becoming more common for employees and employers alike to practice ghosting.

Repairing GRUB on KDE Neon

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Background

I recently capped off about two weeks of nasty computer trouble with being unable to get KDE Neon to boot on it’s own. GRUB would boot into it’s recovery shell, and I would have to use pesky command line trickery¹ to get my system running.

Now, normally this is a quick fix. A little GRUB housekeeping and update-grub should do the trick. However, the strangest things were happening. No matter my changes, nothing was taking. Always back to the recovery shell for me. I scrapped every inch of my file system, tried all the forum posts, but nothing was working.

Renewing Let's Encrypt Wildcard Certificates

Fri, 28 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Let’s Encrypt is a service known for how easy it is to enable SSL on websites (which you must know if you’re reading this article about renewing!). Earlier this year Let’s Encrypt added support for wildcard certificates, and with the added complexity of supporting multiple subdomains on one certificate came added complexity to renew these certificates.

The other day I encountered what looks like a common error when trying to renew one of my wildcard certificates. On running certbot renew I got this error:

Welcome to my site!

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes (rarely) I run across a problem I’m able to fix myself. When I encounter one of these you better believe I’ll publish it here.

Also, I just need to make sure Jekyll is working with GitLab Pages properly. shakes fist at sky

About me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to my website! My name is Chase Christiansen and I work in the IT/E-Commerce space.

I graduated from the University of Saint Thomas, Minnesota in May of 2018 with my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science. After school I spent a little time traveling, several years working as a Software Developer and Sysadmin, and am now leading IT and E-Commerce for a company in the Twin Cities.