Tag: vmware

How to get rid of Certificate Errors on ESXi hosts

Recently I have been spending a lot of time on the VMware Community forums just reading posts and helping out where I can. One of the threads that I helped out with had to do with how you can get rid of the pesky SSL Certificate error message you get every time connect to an ESXi host. 
To resolve this issue you will need to add the Root Certificate for the ESXi host (the Certificate of the server who issued the certificate for the ESXi host) into the Trusted Certificate Authority Folder on your machine. 
To start you need to go to the web page for the ESXi host 
You will notice a few thing, first of all, I used an ESXi 6.0 host that I had in my lab and secondly you will see the RED background color in the address bar. You will need to click on the Certificate Error message as seen in the next picture.
From there you will get this pop up message
Click on View certificates to see the Client Certificate which is assigned to the host. You will then this the Certificate popup.

You will need to click on Certificate Path to see the CA

From here you will see all the Certificates in the Chain, in this case there are only 2

Click on the root certificate ( the one on the top of the chain) and click the View Certificates button to be able to see the certificate attributes. 

A new Certificate window will open and you can click the Install Certificate Button to install it on your machine

This will open the Certificate Import Wizard.

You will need to click the Local Machine radio button and click next.

Select the Place all certificates in the following store

 Click the Browse button to select where the certificate should be saved.

Select Trusted Root Certification Authorities and click OK

Click Next to Continue

Click Finish to exit the Wizard

You will then get this pop-up message, click OK to continue.

Click OK again

and click OK one more time

 Then close out your Web Browser, reopen it and go back to the web page and you will no longer have red bar going across the screen.

 I hope you find this helpful, I have a few more articles in the pipeline and I am working on getting out soon.

RVTools – A VMware Admin’s best friend

Today I would like to talk about one of my favorite tools that I use both internally and with my clients.

RVTools – https://www.robware.net/rvtools/

RVTools is a free utility that you can use to discover what is going on with your VMware Environment. All you have to do it install the client on your machine and in a few minutes you are able to log into your vSphere Environment (using your normal vSphere Credentials) and it will give you a read out of your entire environment.

From the login Screen the look and feel is very reminiscent of the old C# vSphere Client used back in 5.x and 6.0 days.

Once you log in you are presented with the vInfo tab which is a summary of everything going on with the vSphere/ESXi host you Connected to.

Along the top you will see a series to tabs that will drill down into the various components of your environment such as the ones seen below

I am only going to cover a few of these features, but I encourage you to try it out for your self.

 vCD will show you what Virtual Machine has a CD Drive installed on it, if it is connected, and what .ISO is currently connected to it. So ,.for instance, if you have a Virtual Machine that will not vMotion, you could use this tool to see if it is attached to a .ISO that is on Local Storage.

vSnapshot will show you all the Virtual Machines that have snapshots associated with it. It will report back to you the name of the Virtual Machine, the name of the Snapshot, the Date/Time it was taken, and the File Name of the snapshot.

And Lastly we will touch on the vHealth tab. This tab will give you advice on things that you may not realize is going on in your environment such as inconsistent naming, Host logs not being stored on persistent storage, VMware tools being out of date, and Zombies (Files that exist on Datastores, but are not in inventory).

On a final note that I forgot to mention, If you go up into the file menu you are able to export everything you see in the tool to a .CSV which can become very handy for documenting your environment. 
I hope you find this post useful and if you do download this product, please consider donating to it’s creator. Without tools like this it would make all of our jobs much harder. 

Free VMware Training is available

Last night while searching the twitter-verse I saw this twitter post from VMware:

Got some free time? Advance your career with some free #VMware self-paced eLearning (40+ courses): https://t.co/J89cSiwIFR pic.twitter.com/n0pHvYV7yI

— VMware (@VMware) January 27, 2019

You can obtain this free training here or by following the link in the tweet above.

I hope you find post helpful, please check back for more content in the coming days.

After a Second read through…..

If you have read my previous post about this book found here you will know how much I liked this book. HOWEVER due to issues with needed to upgrade my VCP 6.0 to VCP 6.5 I needed to take a step back from my pursuit of the VCAP-DCD 6.5. Now that that is done with that,  I am now preparing again to sit for the exam. My first order of business was to reread this book again as I felt that it would be a better launching off point.

Like I said in my last review I really did like the book and how it was written. But on a second read through I found more mistakes than I did on my first go around. I have to say I am very disappointed in PACKT Publishing for allowing so many errors to make it to print. I am finding this more and more now with books that I read. It is as if they are more concerned with pushing the book out the door than actually putting out a quality product. Aside from spelling mistakes, there were a few instances with the book where a Diagram is supposed to be a certain color (which the author points out) but the picture is in Black and White, or the beginning of the chapter diagrams that are supposed to have a bold box around the section you are working on which is gray scale.

I used to see this a lot with Microsoft Press books back in the day. Which in my opinion was nothing more and a Sales Advertisement for other Microsoft Products.

As stated in my previous post, I do like that the publisher has a email link were you can send your issues to. I will definitely be using that to lodge my complaints and I will post an update if I get any feedback.

I still feel that this book is very well written and contains a lot of great information if you want to learn more about VMware Datacenter Design and I would still encourage you to pick it up if you are in the market for that.

How to Change VM from BIOS to UEFI

I just had a question on the VMWare Community about how to change a VM from BIOS to UEFI.

I found that if you go into Edit Settings > Click on the VM Options Tab and you should see this

I hope this is helpful for anyone who needs this information in the future. 

Cloud Credibility…

In my quest to gain more knowledge of the VMware Community I stumbled  upon the Cloud Credibility Program.

https://www.cloudcredibility.com/dashboard

It is setup as a game where you acquire points for completing tasks suck as following a group on twitter, or reading a blog post written by a vExpert. While some of the tasks are simple and easy, others can take a while to complete as they require a group or have a certain time restriction on it.

If you are interesting in learning more and getting involved I recommend checking it out.

Samsung and VMware working together to make….. a TV?

So this one passed by my desk this morning and I found rather interesting https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-introduces-remote-access-enabling-user-control-over-peripheral-connected-devices-through-its-smart-tvs

In short they are using VMware Horizon Desktop to allow remote connections to your PC via a Samsung Smart TV. Aside from Samsung talking about their partnership with VMware on this project it definitely makes me wonder what else they have up their sleeve.

Hopefully there will be more information released at CES 2019 so Stay tuned.

VCP 6.5 Certified

I meant to post this sooner, like 2 months ago as this happened back in October, but I passed my VCP 6.5 Upgrade Exam.

Since then I have been working on the VCAP 6.5 – Data Center Design Exam. I am hoping to sit for it in the New Year!

Review of VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V6.5]

I had the opportunity to attend the VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V6.5]  which I took as a Live On-line class. The class was 3 days long and I took the class so I could sit for the VCAP 6.5 Data Center Design Certification. I am still in the process of studying for the exam and hope to sit for it within the next few months. I will probably have a few more reviews to do of some of the study material I used and hopefully I will be able to turn that into a Study Guide of my own that I will be able to share. 

The class began like any other with introductions and an overview of the class and course material. They even had a section to cover where I could get coffee .and find the restroom (which I found humorous since I took the class in my dining room, so hopefully I am well acquainted with were to find these services in my home). 

My class mates consisted of mostly VMware Employees (TAMs and Systems Engineers) and a few Sysadmins from Partners or clients of varying levels of experience with vSphere. In all I feel like I was in a good group. There was a great deal of discussions had on various topics in the materials and it was interesting to see everyone’s take on things based on their personal experiences. 

Our instructor was very knowledgeable and although at the time I took this class I don’t believe he sat for the exam himself he did have the VCAP – DCD 6.0. 

The modules themselves were very similar to a book I had ready called VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook. Which made me feel better for spending the money on this book before I took this class. Pretty much everything that was covered in the book was also covered in class which made it more of a review for me than anything else.

What was interesting about this class is that all the modules and the labs built off of each other. Meaning if you made a mistake on module 2 it would effect your results in module 7 which can be very frustrating if you do not double check your work. At the end of each day we had somewhere between 45 minutes to 3 hours of homework (labs) that we had to complete (otherwise you would not be able to complete the final lab).

At the end of the class you are presented with you own design which you should have been able to create by doing the labs, however VMware is also nice enough to give you the answers (the real design) for you to study for the exam. I would definitely suggest attending this class if you are going to pursue certification  or if you want to get a greater understanding of vSphere Design.

A new beginning….

Yesterday I was named the Partner VMUG Leader for the Philadelphia VMware User Group.

I look forward to serving the local VMUG Community and hope to assist in making it stronger and more active.

To find out more about VMUG you can check it out here:

https://www.vmug.com/

While you are there you should also check out the VMUG Advantage program which provides an amazing opportunity for people looking to gain experience with VMware products but with the EVAL-Experience and discounts on VMware Classes and Exams. Find out more here.

https://www.vmug.com/Join/VMUG-Advantage-Membership