Hancock’s VMware Half Hour
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The Home of Hancock’s VMware Half Hour
September 3rd, 2024Part 53: HOW NOT TO: Compromise your VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, 8.0 by adding to Microsoft Active Directory
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour I will show you HOW NOT TO: Compromise your VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, 8.0 by adding to Microsoft Active Directory. I will demonstrate the exposure, and discuss how to avoid it.
In this video demonstration the ESXi servers are ESXi ARM 7.0, but the same functionality has been built into ESXi since 5.1.
On the 29th July 2024, Microsoft discovered a vulnerability in ESXi hypervisors being exploited by several ransomware operators to obtain full administrative permissions on domain-joined ESXi hypervisors.
this publication is here – https://www.microsoft.com/
VMware vExperts – Christian Mohn wrote about it here – VMware vSphere CVE-2024-37085 – A Nothing Burger
and Bob Plankers goes into more detail here – Thoughts on CVE-2024-37085 & VMSA-2024-0013
Please have a read of these publications.
Broadcom have issued updates and fixes to vSphere 7.0 and 8.0, and VCF 4.x and 5.x only. There is no security update for 6.7.
Part 52: HOW TO: Fix Synchronous Exception at 0x00000000XXXXXXX on VMware vSphere Hypervisor 7.0 (ESXi 7.0 ARM) on a Raspberry Pi 4
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour I will show you HOW TO: Fix Synchronous Exception at 0x00000000XXXXXXX on VMware vSphere Hypervisor 7.0 (ESXi 7.0 ARM) on a Raspberry Pi 4.
It has been well documented that the Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI Firmware Image can cause this fault which renders the UEFI boot image corrupt. See here https://github.com/pftf/RP
The UEFI firmware imaged used in the lab in this video is v1.37, it is debated as too whether this has been fixed in later releases v1.37, some suggest rolling back to v1.33 !
For the sake of continuity I’ve included previous EE Videos and Articles I’ve created here
Part 51. HOW TO: Update the VMware vSphere Hypervisor 7.0 ARM Edition (ESXi 7.0 ARM edition) from v1.12 to v1.15 on a Raspberry Pi 4
October 19th, 2024On the 15 December 2023, VMware by Broadcom released 1.15, Build Number: 22949429 of the VMware vSphere Hypervisor 7.0 ARM Edition
see here – ESXi-Arm Fling 1.15 Refresh
I’ve written previous articles on installing VMware vSphere Hypervisor 7.0 ARM Edition here for your reference
In this video I’m going to show you HOW TO: Update the VMware vSphere Hypervisor 7.0 ARM Edition (ESXi 7.0 ARM edition) from v1.12 Build 7.0.0-1.12.21447677to v1.15 Build 22949429 on a Raspberry Pi 4, the method used is based on this article and video
Part 25: HOW TO: Update VMware ESXi 7.0U2 to ESXi 7.0U2a in 5 easy steps.
Part 17: HOW TO: Update VMware ESXi 7.0U2 to ESXi 7.0U2a in 5 easy steps.
A list of all the articles and videos can be found here on GitHub – CodheadClub/AwesomeResourc
The Sychronous Excepetion at 0x0000000037101434 in the UEFI BOOT Firmware v1.34 is still an issue today, which has not been fixed. These are messages received on Twitter from the Engineers which have worked on ESXi ARM. v1.35 is the latest UEFI firmware available from here
Andrei Warkentin (@WhatAintInside)
“yeah this is a long-standing SD card corruption bug ????… never quite identified, maybe some command needs ti be done on the way out to flush internal card buffers before the loss of power?”
Cyprien Laplace (@cypou)
I think you only need to replace the “RPI_EFI.fd” file from the boot partition. I forgot this bug existed, as all my Pis download the UEFI files using tftp.
(thus no corruption possible, but no change can be saved either)
Part 50. HOW TO: Deploy and Configure Zerto to migrate workloads between Cloud and On-Prem VMware vSphere infrastructure with limited downtime
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Deploy and Configure Zerto to migrate workloads between Cloud and On-Prem VMware vSphere infrastructure with limited downtime.
Zerto is a commercial application which offers continuous data protection. It’s available as a trail and download here
It offers far better data protection than VMware Converter which has been discussed in this video, it does not have any issues in synchronising and replicating workloads based on UEFI Secure Boot Windows Servers.
VMware vCenter Converter 6.4.0 Standalone download
This video is based on an article I wrote for Experts Exchange over 10 years ago. So join me for hints and tips of how we create a P2V migration to VMware vSphere. In this video I will show you how we can make changes on the source, and these will be replicated to the destination virtual machine, using the Synchronize option, later we will “cutover” workloads from the source to destination, with limited impact on service.
Part 49. HOW TO: Synchronize changes when completing a P2V or V2V with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.4
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Synchronize changes when completing a P2V or V2V with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.4.
VMware vCenter Converter 6.4.0 Standalone download
This video is based on an article I wrote for Experts Exchange over 10 years ago. So join me for hints and tips of how we create a P2V migration to VMware vSphere. In this video I will show you how we can make changes on the source, and these will be replicated to the destination virtual machine, using the Synchronize option, later we will “cutover” workloads from the source to destination, with limited impact on service.
Part 48. HOW TO: Add a VMware vSphere vSAN license to a VMware vSphere vSAN Cluster
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Add a VMware vSphere vSAN license to a VMware vSphere vSAN Cluster.
The storage devices we are using in this video are the Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X Series 375GB, 2.5in PCIe x4, 3D XPoint™, but this procedure can be use to add any compatible storage devices in ESXi to a vSAN datastore.
This video follows on from the follow video in this series
If you are creating a design for VMware vSphere vSAN for a Production environment, please ensure you read the VMware Cloud Foundation Design Guide 01 JUN 2023 – this should be regarded as The Bible!
References
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH INTEL OPTANE? – Mr vSAN – Simon Todd
VMware vSAN 8.0 U1 Express Storage Architecture Deep Dive
VMware vSAN 7.0 U3 Deep Dive Paperback – 5 May 2022
VMware vSphere vSAN Licensing Guide
Part 47: HOW TO: Perform storage performance tests on VMware vSphere vSAN, using the VMware Hyper-converged Infrastructure Benchmark fling (HCIBench)
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Perform storage performance tests on VMware vSphere vSAN, using the VMware Hyper-converged Infrastructure Benchmark fling (HCIBench).
HCIBench is a storage performance testing automation tool that simplifies and accelerates customer Proof of Concept (POC) performance testing in a consistent and controlled way. VMware vSAN Community Forum provides support for HCIBench.
The storage devices we are using in this video are the Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X Series 375GB, 2.5in PCIe x4, 3D XPoint™, but this procedure can be use to add any compatible storage devices in ESXi to a vSAN datastore.
Benchmarks obtained in this video
FIO Benchmarks
This video follows on from the follow video in this series
If you are creating a design for VMware vSphere vSAN for a Production environment, please ensure you read the VMware Cloud Foundation Design Guide 01 JUN 2023 – this should be regarded as The Bible!
References
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH INTEL OPTANE? – Mr vSAN – Simon Todd
VMware vSAN 8.0 U1 Express Storage Architecture Deep Dive
VMware vSAN 7.0 U3 Deep Dive Paperback – 5 May 2022
Part 46: HOW TO: Create, Configure and Deploy VMware vSphere vCenter Server 7.0 High Availability (VCHA)
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Create, Configure and Deploy VMware vSphere vCenter Server 7.0 High Availability (VCHA).
VMware vCenter Server High Availability (HA) protects vCenter Server against host and hardware failures. The active-passive architecture of the solution can also help you reduce downtime significantly when you patch vCenter Server. It is included as a free function within vCenter Server, no additional licensing is required for the additional Passive and Witness nodes.
vCenter Server HA does require an isolated “cluster heartbeat network”, as demonstrated in this video
Part 45: HOW TO: Create a new Distributed and VMKernel Portgroups on a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch for the vSphere Cluster for use with vCenter Server HA
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Create a new Distributed and VMKernel Portgroups on a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch for the vSphere Cluster for use with vCenter Server HA.
I created a video here, which shows you how to create a vDS for VMware vSphere.
HOW TO: Create, Configure and Deploy VMware vCenter Server High Availability (HA)
Part 44. HOW TO: Use the vCenter Server 7.0.3 vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) to backup the database and configuration of your vCenter Server
October 19th, 2024
In this video presentation which is part of the Hancock’s VMware Half Hour HOW TO Video Series I will show you HOW TO: Use the vCenter Server 7.0.3 vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) to backup the database and configuration of your vCenter Server.
It is important once you have created a vDS to ensure you keep regular backups, if the need arises you need to restore vCenter Server.
I created a video here, which shows you how to create a vDS for VMware vSphere.
HOW TO: Create a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) for use with VMware vSphere vSAN for the VMware vSphere vSAN Cluster.
HOW TO: Export and Backup the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) configuration of a VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS)
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