Category Archives: Scripting

How to Build an Ubuntu 24.04 Template using Packer and vCenter Server Customization Specifications

Posted on May 3, 2024 by brian.wuchner

I’ve heard from several people who have highly recommended Packer (https://packer.io) to create standardized images, and with the recent release of Ubuntu 24.04 I decided now would be a good time to build a new template to try it out. … Continue reading →

Posted in Lab Infrastructure, Scripting, Virtualization | 3 Comments

Fine-Tuning Updates: Targeted Host Remediation with vSphere Lifecycle Manager

Posted on March 26, 2024 by brian.wuchner

In vSphere 7.0 functionality was introduced to be able to manage a cluster of ESXi hosts with a single image. In addition to being a bit easier to configure than the prior Update Manager Baselines, this feature also integrates with … Continue reading →

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TinyCore 15 Virtual Machine – very small VM for testing

Posted on February 23, 2024 by brian.wuchner

For several years I’ve been using a couple of very small TinyCore Linux virtual machines for testing in my lab. These run very well in nested infrastructure and have a package to support open-vm-tools so you can interact with them … Continue reading →

Posted in Lab Infrastructure, Scripting, Virtualization | 3 Comments

vSphere ESXi Host Certificate Status Alarm bulk resolution

Posted on February 15, 2024 by brian.wuchner

In the vSphere UI, some hosts will occasionally trigger an alarm of “ESXi Host Certificate Status”. VMware Skyline has a finding for this issue as well — vSphere-HostCertStatusAlarm. The resolution is typically straightforward, right click the host > certificates > … Continue reading →

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Testing Syslog from the command line

Posted on February 15, 2024 by brian.wuchner

From time to time it is helpful to be able to send a syslog message to confirm that things are working correctly — firewall ports are open, nothing is filtering out the traffic in line, including a timestamp in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Scripting | 1 Comment