The BIOS for VMs in VMware Fusion 5 does not seem to let you boot a USB disk, which say, is handy for configuring ESXi after you have installed it to a USB key, but before dropping said key into your homelab. Inconvenient at best… to get around this: Download Plop Boot Manager from here
-> Continue reading Boot USB Drive in Fusion 5
Due to the VCP-IAAS being a relatively new exam with very few presenters available, we may move it to another time. In it’s stead, we’ve lined up a number of really good presenters around VMware and Cloud Security. Our schedule: Presenter Date Edward Haletky (@texiwill) 10/3/2012 “GS” Gurusimran Khalsa (@gurusimran) 10/17/2012 Maqsood Siddiqui 10/24/2012 Rob
-> Continue reading #vBrownBag Security Month!
First, if you haven’t installed Sublime Text, I would suggest you go here and do that now. It’s a great text editor, with all manner of excellent features. However, it does not ship with PowerShell syntax highlighting by default. To add it, do the following: Download the ZIP from here: https://github.com/SublimeText/PowerShell Extract the zip into
-> Continue reading Editing PowerShell in Sublime Text
Having spent some time on the road last week at both the DC and Chicago VMUGs, I collected a number of USB keys from the various booths. Not wanting them to go to waste (most were >2GB) I threw them together in a small Nexenta Powered SAN. GhettoSAN Setup Installed Nexenta in a VM under
-> Continue reading Ghetto SAN (USB Keys of Doom)
First, thank you to the VMUG organization and the respective VMUGs for making this happen. I hope the content was good and useful to y’all. Please drop a line if you have questions, need to know more, or need help getting started. Below are the slides and links from the session: Links: vCO Links https://vbrownbag.comm/vcenter-orchestrator/
-> Continue reading VMUG Follow-Up: DC & Chicago (Automate the Planet!)
This one is also going to be a bit text heavy. The tl;dr version – Choose the right automation tool for the job. In preparation for a few upcoming VMUGs on automation, and the vScience conference in November (you really should sign up, here) I’m putting out a few posts on Automation / Orchestration to
-> Continue reading #vSensei – Automation Weapons Selection
Whoops. It’s been a while since I’ve posted the Follow-Ups for these. Here is the Video for our VCP-IAAS intro and the slide decks for both the intro & Section 1.1. #vBrownBag VCP-IAAS Intro Video Slides #vBrownBag VCP-IAAS Objective 1.1 Slides Video The video for this one is undergoing editing… will post when it’s done.
Wow… so much going on. So much, that I’ve neglected to post this until now. However, if you are in the DC or Schaumburg (Chicago) area, I will be in town next week to hang out at your VMUG. Details Potomac Regional VMUG User Conference Date: 9/26 Register: http://dcvmug.com/ Chicago VMUG User Conference Date: 9/27
-> Continue reading At a VMUG Near You! – 9/26 & 9/27/12
Wow… so much going on. So much, that I’ve neglected to post this until now. However, if you are in the DC or Schaumburg (Chicago) area, I will be in town next week to hang out at your VMUG. Details Potomac Regional VMUG User Conference Date: 9/26 Register: http://dcvmug.com/ Chicago VMUG User Conference Date: 9/27
-> Continue reading At a VMUG Near You! – 9/26 & 9/27/12
“In the ghetto, we use one vCenter vApp to migrate another vCenter vApp to Distributed vSwitches” Or something like that. The background, was I needed to move some hosts and VMs in my home lab to vDS to take advantage of their awesomeness along side vCloud Director. However, as my primary vCenter lived on those
-> Continue reading Migrate to Distributed vSwitches with the vCenter vApp
Will you be at VMworld Barcelona? Did you have a session rejected from the VMworld Call for Papers? Do you have something technical you want to share? Heck, did you just want to come and do a quick chat with other folks in the VMware community? Now is the time to get your voice heard
-> Continue reading #vBrownBag Call For Speakers – Barcelona
One of the toughest challenges for any weekly podcast is having a steady line-up of guests. We’d like to widen our circle of regular presenters, and would love to have YOU present! The #vBrownBag US podcast airs from 7:30 to 8:30PM Central. Please visit for the #vBrownBag Presenter Guidelines more information. Please complete the form
-> Continue reading #vBrownBag US: Call for presenters
Having spent the last few days in Chef training, I needed to get a few notes out here. Concepts Framework to solve business problems Infrastructure as code programmatically describe and manage infrastructure version controlled infrastructure simplified rebuilds Say what to change/configure, not how. Relationships This diagram is taken from the Opscode wiki and explains how
-> Continue reading Learning Chef
We were originally planning on taking a month off. However, we’re quite energized coming off from VMworld US, have a good amount of content (security month, VCP-IAAS, and “Sack Lunches” (more on that some other time (nested parens FTW))), that we just needed to keep going. Here’s the details for the new series: #vBrownBag VCP-IAAS
-> Continue reading #vBrownBag US Restart (VCP-IAAS)
Couldn’t make it to the show, but still wanted the #vBrownBag USB Key of awesomeness? Click the Big Green Arrow to pull down the file. Warning: it’s nearly 4GB in size. It will take a while to download. In that file, is everything that was on the USB keys. Update: This needs an MD5 check
-> Continue reading #vBrownBag – VMworld 2012 Materials
Spotted this in @scott_lowe’s twitter feed: Good presentation by @MirantisIT on #OpenStack architecture and information flow: slideshare.net/mirantis/opens… (via @aarondelp) Presentation is here. Long, but worth it: OpenStack in Action from Mirantis
Having stumbled on the new /etc/resolv.conf methods of Ubuntu 12.04 a number of times, I hope this is useful for you as well. The contents of /etc/resolv.conf in Ubuntu are now controlled by “dns-nameservers #.#.#.#” in your /etc/network/interfaces file, like this: # The primary network interfaceauto eth0iface eth0 inet static address 10.0.191.100 netmask 255.255.255.0 network
-> Continue reading Ubuntu 12.04, DNS, and Static IPs
Having stumbled on the new /etc/resolv.conf methods of Ubuntu 12.04 a number of times, I hope this is useful for you as well. The contents of /etc/resolv.conf in Ubuntu are now controlled by “dns-nameservers #.#.#.#” in your /etc/network/interfaces file, like this: # The primary network interfaceauto eth0iface eth0 inet static address 10.0.191.100 netmask 255.255.255.0 network
-> Continue reading Ubuntu 12.04, DNS, and Static IPs
This one is a bit text heavy, and is in advance of some of my upcoming VMUG visits. It should hopefully cover some content that one cannot fit into an hour session, that is demo heavy on Orchestrator. Process is Good Do you have an “operations manual”? One of those big dusty D ring binders,
-> Continue reading #vSensei Say: Automation make shovel *hit Faster
There are going to be plenty of posts around all of the various parties and announcements that happened at the show. Rather than go down that typical path, I’ll just highlight a few of my personal favorite moments of the week: Everything related to the vBrownBags – Assembly, Distribution, #NotSupported, and Live Streaming, and most
-> Continue reading VMworld Wrap-Up