Category Archives: Virtualization

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 | 2 Comments

Updating VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1

Posted on April 29, 2024 by brian.wuchner

I recently upgraded a nested lab from VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.1.0 to 5.1.1. A few lessons were learned along the way, and I’m going to document those below. Step 0 – Validate the environment My VCF lab had been … Continue reading →

Posted in Lab Infrastructure, Virtualization | Leave a comment

TinyCore 15 x64 Virtual Machine – very small VM for testing

Posted on April 1, 2024 by brian.wuchner

I recently made a post about building a new TinyCore 15 virtual machine for testing. As with past VM builds of this distribution, I used the x86 CorePlus ISO image. I had someone ask me why I didn’t use the … Continue reading →

Posted in Virtualization | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Lab Infrastructure, Scripting, Virtualization | Leave a comment

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 | 2 Comments