Latest Posts

vRO and using Input Forms

If you have a vCenter license then you are entitled to use vRealize Orchestrator in Standalone mode. vRO is a great entry point into automation and creating workflows. I’ve used vRO workflows previously, but not for a while, and wanted to check out the new HTML5 interface that is available with the latest releases. I’m using v7.6 in my lab at the moment but will be transferring to v8 shortly as I try and get more familiar with the vRealize suite and automation in general. Anyway, I wanted to touch on the use of input forms. vRO has a bunch...

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Windows 2008 End of Support – VM report

So hopefully everyone has already long dealt with the upcoming end of support date for Windows 2008 as detailed by MS here right? Paying for extended support might be an option at this late stage but good to know exactly what you are dealing with. I have used the following powercli code to query all vCenters for a report on 2008/2008r2 VMs to identify any stragglers or virtual servers that app owners have been too busy to update or mitigate. Change the variables to suit your environment and comment out the filter (highlighted lines below) if you want to use...

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Documentation – vSphere Clusters

I have put this function together for the purpose of documenting cluster settings.  Used it a fair bit to gather information on environments that I have come accross that have not been well documented.  In can be used as is but I’m fiddling around with it to produce some further information so likely to be updated in the near future. Hopefully of some use – connect to vCenter from POWERCLI and run the function. get-clusterdetails  

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Documentation – ESXi Host vMotion IPs

I’ve recently had to audit and document several vSphere environments.  Multiple hosts had been configured manually and there were some mistakes in the IP settings.  I put together this POWERCLI function to report back on these settings and will now use it for documentation moving forward.  Hopefully of some use to others too. Connect to a host or vCenter and give it a go.  

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Managing ESXi Hosts with AD Credentials

As part of a security hardening exercise or indeed just because, it may be desirable to change the root account of your ESXi hosts to a complex password, bung it in a safe and let you admins connect via their AD credentials. To start with, join your ESXi hosts to your AD domain.  I have pre-created computer objects in my test environment. I have also created an ESX Admins AD security group which by default allows its members admin access to an ESXi host once it has been joined to the domain. To join the domain run the following powercli...

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Documentation – ESXi Host Hardware and Build Details

I don’t know many people that enjoy writing documentation but it is a nessesary evil and can give you the opportunity to be creative with how you produce it. Often I will need to document a point in time install for ESXi hosts so have put together the below PowerCLI function to obtain some hardware and build information back.  Running Get-HostDetails after connecting to a host or vCenter There are loads of good examples available but this works well for me. Output as below

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Blocking AD Logon Scripts

When starting a PoC or new VDI deployment, in terms of group policy, I want to isolate the new environment as much as possible.  I don’t want any existing user and computer settings applying.  Often, the project will involve optimization in this area (in this case the introduction of User Management products such as Citrix WEM or VMware UPM). I will block policy at the VDI OU level and create a loopback policy (REPLACE) so only settings from one place are applying.  I may well have to tackle enforced policy here too. However, this does not take login scripts defined...

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Deploy VMs using Templates, customisation specs and POWERCLI

Who doesn’t love a bit of automation these days, I certainly like to use code snippets and shortcuts whenever I can.  Recently I’ve been deploying some VMs in my homelab and thought I would share some of the POWERCLI I use. I have a Windows 2016 template stored in vCenter that I have recently patched and tweaked to my satisfaction and deploy that with a temporary customization spec to deploy and do the initial config (IP settings and domain join). The key commands to use here to get the IP settings are Get-OScustomizationNicMapping Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping Only started playing with these recently...

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Enable Flash Based Web Consoles in Windows 2019

Enable Flash Based Web Consoles in Windows 2016/2019 I first posted this short blog on the excellent Define Tomorrow website here.  I thought it handy to update it for Windows Server 2019. I thought I would do a quick post as I come across this frequently. Windows 2016/2019 has flash player available, but it is not enabled by default. Especially frustrating as many of the vmware consoles I use are still flash based. There are security concerns around installing flash player on a server, so I tend to limit this to lab environments, but it is a good to know....

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Horizon View 7.X – Branding the Logon Page

I’ve blogged about this for previous versions of Horizon over on Define Tomorrow and with version 7.7 now GA I thought I would put all of the information together and hopefully simplify the process by removing some peripheral information. The original post can be found here I think it is a nice visual to add some simple branding to the default Horizon landing and portal pages and it is relatively straightforward to accomplish. Let’s start with the default screens and elements. Landing Page HTML Portal Page I’ve marked the images we are going to change in red and the text...

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