Vyatta Community Edition, Open Source Router

I’ve been running multiple subnets in my lab, and been dealing with the pain of having to VPN into each separate subnet when needing to make a change, test something, or deploy something.  It’s been a learning experience and I’ve configured both OpenVPN and ISA Server 2006 VPN’s and successfully bounced around the various networks …

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Tutorial: Creating A MOSS Development Environment Part IV – Configuring MOSS

Ok, this is the last entry in this series of tutorials for setting up a MOSS development environment.  In the prior posts, we installed SQL Server, installed MOSS, installed VS.NET and some other supporting products, and in this post, we’ll configure MOSS.  The plan for this configuration is to go through the basic farm configuration …

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Battery Life Sank on Macbook Pro (2012) After Upgrading Hardware (?)

I recently purchased a new 2012 Macbook Pro, not the retina model, and have been loving it.  After a month or so of use, I decided to upgrade both the RAM and the hard drive because I wanted to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the machine that I could without paying the premiums …

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Error 1923. Service VMware VirtualCenter Server (vpxd) could not be installed.

My vSphere 5 Upgrade – Notes and Lessons

With the release of VMware vSphere 5, I decided to upgrade my lab from 4.1.  The process was pretty painless for the most part, but I thought I would right a few notes about the experience and a couple of things I did to help my scenario along. I upgraded 3 vSphere 4 (ESXi) hosts …

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Download OSX Again

Download OSX Lion Again After It Has Been Installed

This is just a quick note on how to redownload OSX Lion.  I had a hard time finding this, maybe it’s common knowledge for everyone else, but… There are tons of articles out there on how to create a bootable disk, or USB stick, etc., but all of them require you to have the original …

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Vyatta Community Edition, Open Source RouterTutorial: Creating A MOSS Development Environment Part IV – Configuring MOSSBattery Life Sank on Macbook Pro (2012) After Upgrading Hardware (?)My vSphere 5 Upgrade – Notes and LessonsDownload OSX Lion Again After It Has Been Installed

Apr 20 2011

Squeezing Maximum Performance Out Of Your Iomega IX4-200D as a vSphere Storage Target

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Infrastructure, Storage, VMware

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April 20, 2011

I’ve been using a few Iomega StorCenter IX4-200D’s as storage targets for vSphere 4 ESXi and have been a little disappointed at the performance.  This disappointment really only comes when VMs are booting, I’m using Storage VMotion, or consolidating snapshots.  For the price point, it’s still a great piece of equipment and I can honestly say that I’ve had 17+ active VMs running off the unit with no problem once the VMs are up and running.  Keep in mind this is a lab implementation and those VMs weren’t under heavy utilization.

I’ll keep this post updated with anything else I come up with or that is submitted in comments.

Edited 10/23/2011 - No longer recommending use of NFS as a vSphere target on this unit.

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2011/04/20/squeezing-maximum-performance-out-of-your-iomega-ix4-200d-as-a-vsphere-storage-target/

Feb 08 2011

Using the Iomega IX4-200D as a Storage Target for vSphere (ESX and ESXi) Lessons Learned

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Infrastructure, Storage, VMware

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February 8, 2011

StorCenter_ix4_200d_hi_328x188

I’ve been using an Iomega IX4-200D as a storage target for vSphere and have to say that for the most part it works well.  I’ve used it both as an iSCSI target and as NFS storage.

You can and should expect it to suffer typical storage performance issues.  It runs on 4 hard drives, mine in a RAID 5 array which is not the most performant, but best in case of disk failure and who wants to lose VMs.  It’s still a limited set of spindles to work with and keeping that in mind will save you troubles down the road.

At one point, I had 17 VMs running on a single IX4-200D.

Still interested?  Keep reading…

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2011/02/08/using-the-iomega-ix4-200d-as-a-storage-target-for-vsphere-esx-and-esxi-lessons-learned/

Jan 04 2011

Remove iSCSI Drive Lock From Iomega IX4 Series NAS and vSphere Without Rebooting Either

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Infrastructure, Storage, VMware

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January 4, 2011

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Is your Iomega NAS iSCSI drive locked by vSphere and you don’t want to reboot?  This works with vSphere 4.1 (using ESXi but should be the same for ESX versions), and an Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d (firmware 2.1.38.22294).  If you encounter issues with another version, please let me know.

I’ve had some trouble off and on with iSCSI on my Iomega IX4 series NAS.  The trouble exists around removing the iSCSI target from vSphere but not releasing the hold on the NAS typically requiring a reboot of both the NAS and the host to remove the lock.  As I don’t like taking my host(s) or NAS down, through a little experimentation, I’ve come up with the steps necessary to remove the target allowing for the editing or deleting of the iSCSI drive on the NAS.  While something is connected to it, the IX4 will not allow editing or deletion.  This also works for removing a single target drive while vSphere is still pointing to other targets on the NAS.

Let’s get to it!

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2011/01/04/remove-iscsi-drive-lock-from-iomega-ix4-series-nas-and-vsphere-without-rebooting-either/

Aug 11 2010

Vyatta Blocking Email Download of Attachments

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Infrastructure, Networking, Security

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August 11, 2010

I check my site logs pretty often to find out how people are arriving at this blog and have seen an increase in traffic that points to an exchange I had with a visitor about Vyatta blocking email attachment downloads.  I wanted to post this quick entry so that people looking for a quick fix could get to this without running through the complete conversation on the other post: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2009/11/02/vyatta-firewall-basics-and-configuration/

Here’s the quick and dirty solution:

Problem:  Vyatta is blocking download of email attachments.  This solution only applies if your implementation is using the web proxy and squidguard URL filtering.

Solution:  Use the following command to get Vyatta to allow IP addresses to be called directly.

set service webproxy url-filtering squidguard allow-ipaddr-url

or

set service webproxy url-filtering squidguard rule XX allow-ipaddr-url

Keep reading for more info on the issue…

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/08/11/vyatta-blocking-email-download-of-attachments/

Aug 09 2010

Create a Router with Front Firewall using Vyatta on VMware Workstation

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Infrastructure, Networking, Security

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August 9, 2010

Vyatta is a powerful enterprise class software router that has some really incredible features.  It has a CLI (command line interface) as well as a web interface.  I’ve gotten a few requests about configuring it as a front system but until now have only really worked with Vyatta as a pure routing appliance internal to my network.  It has been my traffic cop between my lab subnet, user subnet, and server subnet but now I’ll try to configure it as a front end based on an exchange I had on another thread.

This should be able to give you some examples with getting started using Vyatta as a front firewall.

If you don’t have the software, you can download a free version, called Vyatta Core, from Vyatta’s website.  You have to register, but don’t worry, they won’t spam you and they have extensive documentation on the product that you can pull down after registering.  It’s an excellent resource to learn and practice your routing skills, especially since you can stand up the product on random hardware or in a virtual machine.  Vyatta even has downloads specific to VMware implementations.  Check it out and come back if you’re interested in seeing this post through.  http://www.vyatta.com.

And now for the good part.

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/08/09/create-a-router-with-front-firewall-using-vyatta-on-vmware-workstation/

Jul 23 2010

ESXi Going Forward, Is It Really All Doom and Gloom?

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Infrastructure, VMware

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July 23, 2010

ESXi vs. ESX – warning, this is a rant! :)

I recently participated in a discussion thread on LinkedIn in the VMware Certified Professionals group that got to be a little lively.  In this discussion, outside of the original poster’s question, a side discussion began on ESXi vs. ESX and all the trouble that it entails.  One poster in particular, a former VMware TSE (tech support engineer), really preached doom and gloom about the product’s future with the announced phase out of ESX and transition and continuation of ESXi as the VMware flagship product.

I personally have mixed feelings about the decision.  I love ESX and have been working with the product for years now.  I like the accessibility and control that the service console provides and thus far have been willing to tolerate the overhead of the Console Operating System (COS) and some of the associated problems as a trade-off for the control that it provides.  Apparently there are people that are far more upset about this decision by the powers-that-be at VMware than I am though, and in one case the former TSE even said that he would look forward to seeing people ‘crumble’ when they have problems with ESXi and no console access.  As I’m running this blog, and try to provide information and help to people at their fingertips, I would never wish ill on my fellow techies or the organizations that employ them.  Well maybe a few… <grin>.

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/07/23/esxi-going-forward-is-it-really-all-doom-and-gloom/

Jun 26 2010

Windows Home Server “Vail” Public Preview Installation Failure on vSphere

Categories:

VMware, Windows

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June 26, 2010

I decided to sign up for Microsoft Connect and download the Windows Home Server “Vail” public preview and install it in my lab vSphere lab.  I recently picked up an Iomega ix4-200 and had some extra space so I wanted to try to streaming media and backup functionality.

After Windows (Server 2008 R2) installed, and the WHS configuration wizard started running, it would error out at 36% or 37% consistently.  It would post an error, and instruct me to reboot and contact the vendor if the error continued.  Hmm… contacting Microsoft about a beta, yehrite, and I’m impatient so I didn’t feel like posting on the forums and trying to wait for a response what would likely be a dance of posting log files etc.  I so I went into reinstall / reboot hell.

After numerous reboots, rebuilds, and a successful VMware Workstation deployment (yes I actually wondered if Microsoft put something in the bits to keep it from being installed on VMware… hahah), I tracked down the issue.  In the installation guide it says to use a hard drive that has a minimum of 160GB of space.  I made a drive that had exactly 160GB.  This was the problem.  The successful workstation VM I created had a hard drive of 165GB.  I went back and increased the size of the vSphere VM to 165GB and voila!  Success.  Hopefully this saves someone some time and trouble with virtualizing WHS “Vail”.

Good luck!

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/06/26/windows-home-server-vail-public-preview-installation-failure-on-vsphere/

Jun 24 2010

Enable Jumbo Frame Support in vSphere Using PowerCLI in 30 Seconds. :)

Categories:

Infrastructure, PowerCLI, PowerShell, VMware

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June 24, 2010

This applies to virtual switches that have already been created.

I was trying to do this earlier this evening and found a few articles that talked about various methods to enable jumbo frame support on a vSwitch.  After reading some of the ‘hacks’ that are being used, I decided to dig into PowerCLI.  Amazingly enough, the solution is so simple that maybe it’ll get some of the people working with vSphere to move into PowerCLI further.  Here’s the 30 second or less solution to the issue.  As I wrote above, this applies for a vSwitch that’s already been created, but you can create a vSwitch with all the specifications you need from PowerCLI as well just the New-VirtualSwitch commandlet.

> $vs = Get-VirtualSwitch –name vSwitchX
> Set-VirtualSwitch –VirtualSwitch $vs –mtu 9000

> Get-VirtualSwitch –name vSwitchX

If you’re not familiar with PowerShell, get familiar with it. :) It’s an excellent product and is expandable so many IT products are moving toward a PowerShell interface for its ease of use.

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/06/24/enable-jumbo-frame-support-in-vsphere-using-powercli-in-30-seconds/

May 18 2010

Creating an Activated Windows Server 2008 R2 VMware Template using Microsoft Sysprep

Categories:

Infrastructure, VMware, Windows

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May 18, 2010

EDIT: 2011/04/14 – I’m working on another method of doing this since it appears that this only works sporadically or no longer works as written. I will update this post if I can figure out where the disconnect / issues are.

I’ve been experimenting with creating a good Windows Server 2008 R2 template for VMware vSphere 4 and wondered just how many times Microsoft would allow an activation on the same MSDN license key (Multiple Activation) for the OS.  I often deploy multiple servers at a time and am always fearful of activating since I don’t want the key to be shut off.  Typically I only run these servers for short periods of time so not activating is no big deal, however in longer running projects I often have no choice but to either activate or destroy and redeploy.  With information that I’ve come across on the Internet, I’ve managed to consolidate a method that does not break the Windows Server 2008 activation, while still sysprep’ing and generating a new SID.

sysprep-007

This process can be used for other virtualized environments as well I’m sure, but in this case I created it for VMware vSphere.

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/05/18/creating-an-activated-windows-server-2008-r2-vmware-template-using-microsoft-sysprep/

Apr 21 2010

SSL Sniffing – How Safe Is Your Information?

Categories:

Infrastructure, Security

by

April 21, 2010

Some firewalls now have a new feature (or not so new), unbeknownst to most web users:  The little lock in your browser that shows that you are using a secure connection is not what it used to be.

When you make a secure connection to a web site, your bank for example, and you see the little lock appear, that is an indicator that your browser is connecting to and exchanging information with a server through a secure, certificate based channel.  Behind the scenes, some encryption keys are exchanged and the information that you are transmitting and that is being transmitted back to you is encrypted and not easily readable by others.  That perception of safety is the basis of all financial, as well as other, transactions on the Internet and you as the consumer believe when you see that lock, your information is safe.

There’s a lot that happens and can happen in between you and the server that you’re communicating with.  To illustrate what I’m talking about, here is a simplified diagram of a typical network configuration.  Using the example of a bank:

sslsniffing001

You can click the image above to enlarge it.  Your computer connects to your bank through firewalls.  The close firewall protects your network and the firewall on the bank’s end protects their network.  The is typically a certificate installed on the bank’s firewall and server that allow you to establish a secure connection to that server.

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Permanent link to this article: http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/04/21/ssl-sniffing-how-safe-is-your-information/

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