How to install VMware Tools on FreeBSD (OpnSense)

Posted on April 7, 2021

Recently I needed subnets in my nested lab to discover VMware Tanzu. I chose OpnSense, a pretty recent fork of PFSense based on FreeBSD that seems to be popular. I installed the VMware Tools like I do on all my VMs so I figured I’d write a short piece on... [Read More]

How to use PostgreSQL database for Horizon 8 (2103) events

Posted on March 25, 2021

VMware released Horizon 8 (2103) on the 23rd of March 2021. While previous versions only allowed Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle for the events database, this latest version introduces support for PostgreSQL. The benefits of using Postgres is that it is free, lightweight and very easy to configure. We are... [Read More]

How to update to vSphere 7.0 Update 2

Posted on March 19, 2021

VMware recently released vSphere 7.0 Update 2. It delivers a number of really interesting features and improvements in terms of performance and vSphere LifeCycle management. Among the main features we find : · Nvidia backed AI & Developer Ready Infrastructure · Enhanced security footprint · Simplified operations with vLCM ·... [Read More]

vCenter 7 update 1c: Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion (XVM)

Posted on February 19, 2021

Migrating virtual machines across vCenter instances has been a thing for several years now but it wasn’t a straightforward process at first. After a while the Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility fling was released in order to simplify the process and remove the need for enhanced linked mode. Advanced... [Read More]

vSphere 7 clustered VMDK - RDM-free WSFC !

Posted on February 10, 2021

Background The end of the raw device mapping tyrannie on Windows Server Failover Clusters (WSFC) is nigh! If you managed virtual environments that contain Windows Clusters, you probably know that these are a different kind of beast compared to your usual virtual machines equipped with thick and thick virtual... [Read More]

Perennially reserved disks in the vSphere client UI

Posted on January 25, 2021

In 2018 I wrote a blog for Vembu about how LUNs used as RDMs by Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) can significantly slow down the boot time of your vSphere hosts. This is due to the active node of the Windows cluster holding a lock on the LUN and... [Read More]

vSphere 7.0 and the memory greed

Posted on November 18, 2020

As I was fooling around with esxcli in my lab I decided to upgrade a 6.7u3 host to 7.0u1. Note that it is a simple vSphere host in workstation to which I allocated a mere 4GB of RAM because I only needed the minimum. I connected the ISO > upgraded... [Read More]

Enabling LDAPS on vCenter identity source

Posted on May 7, 2020

Most environments used to use the Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) as an identity source for vCenter. However with Microsoft tightening the screw on LDAP signing and VMware deprecating IWA in versions 7 and above, many will have to bite the bullet and move to LDAPS. It’s not a big deal... [Read More]