I had a use case I wanted to investigate in regards to the new VCHA that is part of VMware vCenter Server 6.5. One thing I noticed, is when you have VCHA configured, there is no way to know which node of the HA cluster you are connecting to without being logged on.

As people have noted before William Lam’s - How to Customize Webclient Login UI

I figured since I am using the embedded SSO, I could update the login page to show any information for that particular node. In my case I updated the text to show which node you are connected to. You can see this without even logging in!

So VMware Flings have been on a roll recently. They have released what they call “VMware Content Library Assistant.” This is a java based CLI app, that connects to your vCenter and searchers for your templates and then automatically creates and uploads them.

You can find the fling at the following URL…https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vsphere-content-library-assistant)

Once you download the fling, you can just run the following command.

java -jar sphere-content-library-assistant-1.0.jar -s servername -u username -p password

In my case my java home isn’t setup on my mac so …

I have been using Ubiquiti equipment for awhile at home and I figured i would finally write a blog post about it. Ubiquiti equipment is “enterprise class” equipment for the consumer.

I figured I would create a post that goes over two ways of loading the controller. The first option will be installing it on Ubuntu on bare metal or a VM, the second option is a docker container.

If you are installing this on a bare metal or virtual machine, i suggest a debian based image. My preference is Ubuntu.

So as everyone has probably seen, vSphere 6.5 is now GA. One of the features i have been waiting for the most is vCenter HA. I have spent some time trying to get this working in my lab. Unfortunately after countless tries i was stuck. Thanks to folks in the vExpert Slack for helping me try to resolve this, but unfortunately this was a case for VMware Support.

Every time I would try to configure vCenter HA using the Advanced Wizard, I would get the following error.

So as everyone has probably seen, vSphere 6.5 is now GA. As usual right away I have upgraded the homelab and have already found a neat new feature.

When you are adding in your VMware licenses, you now have an option to Import License Keys Data…

To start you need to generate a report from my.vmware.com.

• Log in and Navigate to Download Reports

• Click on the Available Reports dropdown, and select the Product Licenses, Details and History. You will be asked which account you would like to select, and if there was a specific timeframe to select. In my case i have selected all accounts and …

I have been knee deep in migrations, so after clicking through a few times to create clustered file shares, I finally decided to script them. Here is that script I thought I would share. Thanksfully there was the NTFSSecurity module published by microsoft that makes permissions a breeze. You can get more details by viewing the module page.

Pre-Requsites

• NTFS Security Module

Link to Script

• Create-SMBShare.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

Fill in the appropriate variables, and execute the script.

I am about to start down my path of studying for my VCAP6-DCV Design Exam. I figured I would throw up the blueprint and fill in each section as applicable. Either way here is the blueprint laid out for anyone who may benefit. This is it as of 7/25/16.

Section 1 – Create a vSphere Conceptual Design

Objective 1.1 – Gather and analyze business requirements

Skills and Abilities

Existing Content from VCAP5-DCD

Today I took my VCAP6-DCV exam. This exam was announced with a two week availability in the US priced at $100.

My experience with the exam was actually pretty good. The new interface for the advanced exams is that of an HOL. You are dropped onto the desktop and have a window that slides in and out to pull up the manual and other consoles.

I would definately read up on Josh Andrew’s post about what to expect.

I have been in process in configuring traffic shaping for multiple port groups. It seems with PowerCLI 6.3 R1 there are no native Powershell Cmdlets. Luckily I stumbled across @Lucd and his PowerCLI functions to manage these settings, i have put these into a script to mass get and set the settings for all port groups of a DVS’s.

Pre-Requsites

• VMware PowerCLI

Link to Script

• Get-VMwareTrafficShapingSettings.ps1
• Set-VMwareTrafficShapingSettings.ps1

Preparing to Execute the Script

The script is pretty straight forward, just need to define a few variables seen below and then you execute …

Hello! Welcome to my First Veeam PowerShell Script! I have been working on tons of migrations using Veeam Backup and Replication and need to create re-ip rules to update the static IP assignments. Obviously the first rule of scripting if you do something more than once, automate! I was bad at this one, I originally tried and gave up so I did about 20 manually which started to become a huge headache.