Posts

 In order to replace our VMware SSL Certifactes, we need to create a web certificate template that we can then reuse to deploy all of the individual service certificates like vCenter, SSO, Update Manager, vCenter Orchestrator, etc. This certificate will be issued on the vCenter Server and requested in a later process. In part one of this series, we installed a certificate authority. In part two of this series, we deployed client authentication certificates to all our workstations and servers. ...

Home Lab SSL Certificates aren’t exactly a high priority for most people, but they are something you might want to play with before you get into a production environment. In part one of this series, I went over installing an Enterprise Root CA just to get us up and running. Again, be aware that for a production environment you should use an Offline Root CA and a Subordinate CA, but we’re in a lab and don’t need the additional layer of security. ...

If you would like to setup SSL certificates for your home lab, this guide should get you to a minimal installation. The goal of this post is to show you a basic way to setup certificates and should not be followed verbatim if you are planning a production deployment. For one thing, this post uses an Enterprise Root Certificate Authority and in a production environment you really should have an offline Root CA and an online Subordinate CA for security purposes. ...

I thought it was necessary to get this post out. I’ve heard numerous people say that they’ve tried to install VMware’s vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) but for one reason or another it just didn’t seem to work. I myself recently installed this and had issues, but somehow got it to install correctly on the third try. If you’ve had trouble configuring the vCAC appliance then look for the tip below. ...

There are a few Linux commands that vSphere Administrators should know for basic troubleshooting purposes and I wanted to take a second to review them in case you’ve typically been a Windows Administrator (like me). First, traversing the Linux file system is pretty similar to going through Windows directories from the command line. change directories Windows : CD C:dirname Linux : cd /dirname Show files and folders Windows : dir ...

VMtools is one of those nagging little pieces of software that always seems to be a pain to update. Back in my System Administration days, I commonly needed to report on which VMs had different versions of VMtools, and I have to admit, this was a more difficult property to find from my PowerCLI toolkit. Take a look at the old way of finding my VMtools versions through PowerCLI. ...

There are a ton of features now that VMware has that may require either an SSD or a Non-SSD to be available in your ESXi host. Host Caching requires an SSD and Partner products like PernixData also require an SSD to be available on the host. VMware’s Virtual SAN (VSAN) currently require both an SSD and a Non-SSD to be available. I’ve seen that many people want to try out these products in a lab environment, but don’t want to go out and buy another disk just to familiarize themselves with the product. In these cases, you can fool ESXi into thinking there is a device of the type you want. This can be done by using the esxcli commands on the host as documented here on VMware’s site. ...

After a long day of working with Microsoft’s IPAM feature, I found that it might be possible to deploy my virtual servers with a static IP Address without going to look up an IP from an Excel spreadsheet or some other log. OK, let’s address the elephant in the room first. I know that there is this thing called DHCP and that I can already automatically assign an IP addresss, but with that solution, my IP Address could change from time to time. Typically, I create a DHCP Scope for servers that I’m just testing out, or need some dummy VMs with IP Addresses. This way I don’t have to worry about looking up stuff before deploying a VM that I’m going to destroy again shortly afterwards. I also use DHCP for PC’s, where I almost never care about the IP Address. ...

If you’ve been in a situation where you need to test connectivity, you’ve probably used the ping command. But what do you do when you’re trying to test connectivity from an ESXi host? Luckily there is a command called vmkping that will allow you to test from the host. The first thing that you need to do is to SSH into your ESXi host. Turn the SSH Service on from the Configuration –> Security Profile Tab. Then you can use your favorite ssh client and remote into your host. ...

VMware just announced their 2.0 version of Log Insight last week and for a logging product, it’s pretty cool. Let’s face it, most of us don’t get up every morning and rush to our computer to check out the newest logging software on the market, but VMware Log Insight is still neat. Installation The VMware Log Insight 2.0 product was shockingly easy to install for log management system. In my experience, logging software makes you jump through so many hoops that you need to be a Parkour Ninja to do successfully, and some of which I would consider to be a " Cold Butter IT Solution", but not in this case. The install comes in the form of an OVA and I won’t go through that process, but it’s very simple. ...