In this blog I will be installing Microsoft SQL 2014 in a Standalone configuration. I needed to setup a SQL server for my home lab so thought i’d document the installation process.
With the release of vSphere 6.0 Update 2 I needed to update my hosts! VMware Update Manager [VUM] makes updating and patching your environment very easy. It can also be used to upgrade VMTools and VMHardware versions on your virtual machines. In this post I will be installing VUM on Windows Server 2012 R2 VM using the SQL Express database and attaching it to my VCSA 6.0 U2 appliance. Once installed then I will use VUM to update my environment!
Requirements:
In this post i’ll go through how to upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance [VCSA] 6 to Update 2. To read about all the new features Update 2 adds check out my post VMware vSphere 6.0 Update 2 is available!
There are two sets of instructions, one if you already upgraded your VCSA to Update 1 and the other is if you are still running the initial 6.0.0 release. When scrolling down I made each upgrade type a super large header so you shouldn’t miss it!
In my environment I have the Platform Services Controller [PSC] embedded with the VCSA. If you deployed an external PSC separately from vCenter then this post will still work for you! The upgrade procedure is the exact same on both the vCenter and PSC just upgrade the PSC first before vCenter. To upgrade the PSC scroll down and use the second update method.
If you already have your VCSA updated to 6.0 Update 1 then the upgrade is super simple! Log into the appliance Management User Interface [MUI] by opening a web browser and entering the following:
HTTPS://<fqdn or ip>:5480Login with your root username and password.
It’s finally here! VMware vSphere Update 2 released on March 16th, 2016 and is available for download. With it comes many new features and of course bug fixes.
Download VMware vCenter Server 6.0 U2
Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services [AD CS] provides a platform for issuing and managing public key infrastructure [PKI] certificates. On top of securing application and HTTP traffic the certificates that AD CS provides can be used for authentication of computer, user, or device accounts on a network.
In this post I will be setting up a single AD CS server on my domain and configuring group policy to auto enroll my servers. For an enterprise environment you will deploy subordinate CA’s and shut down your root CA for security. For more information about this setup click here: PKI Design Options
Open Server Manager and click Manage -> Add Roles and Features:
Click Next:
Microsoft Web Application Proxy [WAP] is a new service added in Windows Server 2012 R2 that allows you to access web applications from outside your network. WAP functions as a reverse proxy and an Active Directory Federation Services [AD FS] proxy to pre-authenticate user access.
vBoring Blog Series:
Open Server Manager and click Manage -> Add Roles and Features:
In this post I will be installing and configuring the Active Directory Federation Services [AD FS] server role. AD FS is able to provide Single-Sign-On [SSO] capabilities to multiple web application using a single Active Directory account.
vBoring Blog Series:
Open Server Manager and click Manage -> Add Roles and Features:
Click Next:
Windows Server Update Service [WSUS] is a server role that serves as a repository for Microsoft product updates on your network. Instead of every computer on your network downloading updates directly from Microsoft you can deploy a WSUS server so the updates are downloaded once and distributed to your environment from the WSUS server.
In this post I will be deploying WSUS Server 2012 R2 in a domain environment, using the Windows Internal Database (WID), and using Group Policy to have my computers connect to WSUS instead of Microsoft Updates.
This past weekend I decided to do some rewiring of my home lab and accidentally pulled the power to the host that my VCSA was running on. While booting my VCSA 6 was booting back up I received the following error:
fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root file system is currently mounted ready-only. To remount it read-write do:
bash# mount -n -o remount,rw
While deploying a virtual machine from template I received an error when guest customization was running: Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for components [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup]. Per VMware KB 2008221 a ‘wrong product key‘ could cause this. Coincidentally I created and used a brand new Guest Customization for this deployment. Turned out I used a Server 2012 Datacenter KMS key instead of the Server 2012 R2 Datacenter KMS key (Microsoft KMS Keys). I deleted the VM and redeployed after correcting the Guest Customization thus solving the problem!