Category Archives: Lab Infrastructure

Why Crash-Consistent VM Backups Aren’t Always Enough

Posted on December 30, 2025 by brian.wuchner

In lab and small-scale environments, it’s common to rely almost entirely on VM-level backups. That’s exactly how my lab is built: a single virtual machine runs several services I depend on regularly, and it’s protected by a daily, CBT-enabled backup … Continue reading →

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Did You Know VMCA Can Issue Certificates for Other Services?

Posted on September 18, 2025 by brian.wuchner

VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) is used within vSphere to secure connections between vCenter Server and ESXi hosts, but what if we need certificates for other systems? In a previous post, I used group policy to add the VMCA Root CA … Continue reading →

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Simplifying Certificate Trust in Multi-Lab Environments

Posted on September 14, 2025 by brian.wuchner

In my lab I have a jump box that I typically use for management. It is joined to active directory and automatically trusts my primary CA root certificate. This CA issued the Machine SSL certificate for my vCenter Server, so … Continue reading →

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Simulating vCenter Server Connection Failures with iptables

Posted on September 1, 2025 by brian.wuchner

I was recently testing an application and wanted to see how it would behave if its connection to vCenter Server was interrupted. Would the process auto-recover? Would I need to restart a service? To find out, I simulated a connection … Continue reading →

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Blocking Internet Access in a vCenter Lab with Selective Proxy Access

Posted on August 29, 2025 by brian.wuchner

While troubleshooting a vCenter issue, I needed to replicate an environment where the vCenter Server had no internet access. This scenario is often seen in production but can be tricky to reproduce in a lab. This post will outline how … Continue reading →

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