Gabbs' Random Thoughts

Why Hire a vExpert
Steve Athanas has been VMUG president for quite some time.
He started his blog, and always has some calls for action at the end.
This blog post, is pretty cool, as he gives his insights into why he would hire someone with the vExpert designation.

VMware Tools 12.0 released
Since VMware has a separate release cycle for VMware Tools, this just got released, and will be for your Windows VMs only (you ARE using open-vm-tools for your linux distros, right?).
My first go at this version in the lab seems to be doing OK, but its a lab, and I’ve only had it running for 3 days….
William Lam’s blog post covers a new feature on Container App Discovery with VMware Tools 12.x.
VMware Tools 12.0.0 Release Notes are here.

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2022-03-07”

Will your AD Domain Controllers talk after July 12?
Most probably, so long as you have been keeping up with Windows Updates…
In short, Microsoft is making some changes to the way Domain Controllers communicate amongst themselves.
The Nov 2021, April 2022, and July 2022 Windows Updates are where these settings start to get configured.
A post with some of the details explained & lots of links.

vExperts Announced!
The 2022 VMware vExpert awards were just announced.
This is my eight year in the program!

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2022-02-21”

LockBit Linux-ESXi Locker
I’m getting sick of ransomware….
Trend Micro explains LockBit, and their recommended remediations.

vSphere 7.0.3 – Update 3c
Well, hopefully this is going to be stable, and clean up all the issues.
Available since Jan 28.
Giving it a go in the lab seemed to be good.
If you ARE running ESXi 7.0.3 U3B….Use an ISO to create a Baseline to do the upgrade, called out in VMware KB 86447.
VMware Blog post is here.
ESXi Release Notes are here.
vCenter Release Notes are here.

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2022-02-07”

Windows Servers stuck in reboot?
Another botched update causing us some unplanned work.
Windows Update, patches released on 1/11, has been causing Domain Controllers to be stuck in a reboot loop.
Fix is to remove the recent update.
This post covers the problem, and has the commands to uninstall the problematic update.

Microsoft finds macOS bug?
Never thought I would write those words in that order…
The bug has to do with the vulnerability, powerdir
Time to do those updates!
MacWorld post is here.

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2022-01-24”

VMware – CD-ROM vulnerability
This affects VMware Workstation, Fusion, and ESXi
CVE-2021-22045 works against a connected CD-ROM to a Virtual Machine
(but that’s not you, right? No one leaves a CD-ROM attached to a VM….)
This depends on the version of vSphere you are using, and is detailed out, along with the workarounds (such ad disconnect the CD-ROM) in VMware KB 87249
Very nice of them to include the PowerCLI scripts to resolve it…

VMware Visio Stencils for 2022
Because VMware can’t be bothered to release a set of Visio Icons,
Graham Barker has been releasing them annually.
Here’s a link to his blog post.

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2022-01-10”

VMware Products Expiring in 2022
vSphere (vCenter & ESXi) are going end of support Oct 15 2022.
All the vRealize products less than version 8.7 Oct 30, 2022
(Yes, I know that 8.7 isn’t out yet).
Horizon 7 on Oct 15 2022.
Here is a link to the VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix.

Log4j continues…
Many have been implementing workarounds or patches…
Continuing relevant notes….
VMware’s What You Need to Know blog post.
VMware products affected list
VMware products NOT affected list

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2021-12-27”

hmmm….
missed an update on 11-29
Not like me…but with thanksgiving, a few personal things going on…
TOTALLY understandable to me why I missed this update…

vSphere 7.0 Update 3, Update 3a, Update 3b – ALL PULLED!
So I’m starting to the vSphere Update 3.x is worse than vSphere 5.1!
Its been < 40 days.
3 separate Update 3 releases…..all pulled from the web.
WOW!
What a horrible time to be building 4 x new environments for prod.
VMware…you need to fix your QA for the benefit of us all!
VMware KB 86398 goes into this in detail.

Apache Log4j Vulernability!!!
This is going to be impactful to all of us.
A post about the vulnerability, how it works, & some temporary mitigations.
A Github repository to search for the exploit.
…and Log4Shell is another exploitation of it.
Hope those retailers out there are taking an emergency change request!
Well, here’s VMware’s list of affected products….start doing the workarounds!!!
I wonder what kind of week this will be for software vendors…..

Continue reading “Virtual Updates 2021-12-13”