Author: Shahrouz

Setup SFTP on Ubuntu Server

Shahrouz

Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is a secure method for transferring files over a network. Unlike traditional FTP, which sends data in plain text, SFTP utilizes the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol to encrypt both the authentication information and the data being transferred. This encryption ensures that sensitive data remains protected during transit, making SFTP a preferred choice for secure file transfers in various environments.

Having an SFTP server is important in a VMware environment for secure and reliable file-based backups. Components like vCenter server, NSX manager, and SDDC manager use SFTP for file-based backups. SFTP also allows for centralized backup management and remote storage, enhancing disaster recovery capabilities by safeguarding data off-site and enabling quick restoration.

In this blog post, I’ll explain step-by-step how to setup SFTP service on an Ubuntu server.

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NSX SSL Certificate Replacement – Part 2

Shahrouz

In Part 1 of NSX SSL Certificate Replacement, the process of certificate template preparation and request has been explained. This blog post will teach you how to import and replace the generated certificate into NSX Manager. It is essential to verify the imported certificate before replacing it. I want to point out that if you are using a Virtual IP for your NSX management cluster, you should have generated the SSL certificate for the management cluster’s Virtual IP address.

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NSX SSL Certificate Replacement – Part 1

Shahrouz

NSX 4 installation comes with an out-of-the-box self-signed SSL certificate. For security and compliance reasons, most customers want to replace the default self-signed certificates with CA-signed certificates. In this two-part blog post, I’ll explain how to prepare your certificate infrastructure, request the certificate, and finally replace the SSL certificate. There are some very useful guides, like this one from VMware, but I will explain the whole certificate replacement process in the following blog posts.

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Continue reading “NSX SSL Certificate Replacement – Part 1” →

GRUB Root Password – NSX Installation

Shahrouz

Since the release of NSX-T 3.2, I have had questions about an option in the installation wizard of the NSX Manager OVA appliance regarding the GRUB root password, and in this post, I want to address it. If you wanted to recover a lost or forgotten password for the root account of the NSX Manager appliance, you had to reboot the appliance and force the boot process to enter the GRUB menu.

But to be able to do that, when everything was under control and you had the root’s password, you needed to log in to NSX managers with root and configure the GRUB Hidden Timeout. There was also a default password configured which we could use or change together with the hidden timeout configuration.

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General Availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4

Shahrouz

On Feb 10th, 2022, VMware released VCF 4.4 with a new set of features and of course new software components in the Bill of Material(BoM). This new release brings a lot of new enhancements around lifecycle management, security, and NVIDIA AI Enterprise suite capabilities for AI/ML workloads. Before going into the details of new features, let’s look at the VCF 4.4 BoM. VMware vSphere 7.0 U3c, vSAN U3c, and NSX-T 3.1.3.5 are included in this software packaging. Besides the base SDDC software base, VCF 4.4 supports vRealize Suite 8.6.2 and Workspace ONE Access 3.3.6. So as you might expect the software releases packaged with VCF 4.4 are pretty up to date and more importantly Apache log4j is updated to 2.16 or 2.17 which addresses Log4j vulnerability.

Now let’s look at the highlights of new features and capabilities on VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4

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Top 25 Virtualization Blogs!

Shahrouz

We are super excited to announce that vElements.net has been selected among the top 25 Virtualization blogs by Feedspot. During the past three years, we have been working hard to publish technical articles to assist the community.

This selection at Feedspot is based on the following criteria:

  • Google reputation and Google search ranking
  • Influence and popularity on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites
  • Quality and consistency of posts
  • Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review

We really appreciate the support we get from the community and it gives us the energy to continue this journey!

What’s New in NSX-T 3.2

Shahrouz

After a long wait, VMware finally announced NSX-T 3.2 on November 7th, 2021! There was a lot of buzz around this release for the past 2-3 months. In this article, we will look at the new features of this release. The new capabilities are grouped into three major areas; Security, Advanced Networking, and Simplified Operations, which I will list as the most significant enhancements in this article.

When we look at the new features and capabilities list, security enhancements are very bold. So let’s start with the security features and continue with networking and operations enhancements.

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vRealize Log Insight Upgrade Error

Shahrouz

Upgrading vRealize Log Insight is a pretty straightforward process. You need to download the upgrade PAK file from VMware website. Then under the Administration section of the vRLI dashboard, under Management click on Cluster, and on the right panel, select Upgrade Cluster. You might have a standard non-cluster vRLI environment but doesn’t matter the upgrade process goes the same path both for standard and cluster environments. Then you just feed the wizard with the downloaded PAK file and then start the upgrade process. Super easy huh?!

It should go that easy, but as you know, when working in the field things always don’t go as planned!

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vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager – P1 Introduction & Deployment

Shahrouz

If you are using vRealize Suite’s solutions like vRealize Operation, vRealize Automation, or vRealize Log Insight, then vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager(vRSLCM) comes in handy into day to day operations. This product automates the deployment, configuration, and upgrade of the vRealize Suite. If you plan to deploy any of vRealize products or even automate the Day 2 operations like certificate replacement, then vRSLCM is a go-to tool for your use case. It is also worth mentioning that some products like vRelaize Automation(vRA) use this solution as a built-in tool for the deployment process. It is recommended to deploy vRSLCM first and then deploy and other vRealize Suite products due to ease of installation and configuration orchestration. But if you already deployed any of the suite’s products, you can also add them into vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.

In this blog post and following video tutorial, I show you how to deploy vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager with Easy Installer and lay the foundation for the rest of vRealize Suite products deployment. The license for this product is included in any edition of the vRealize Suite licensing package.

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HCX Enhancement for Azure VMware Solution

Shahrouz

Earlier this month, VMware released a new version of HCX, the powerful multi-cloud migration solution. With the help of HCX, you can easily migrate your virtual workloads between private clouds and, more importantly, to public cloud environments like Azure VMware Solution(AVS). Additionally, when HCX is being used in conjunction with public cloud SDDCs like AVS, cloud migrations would be as easy as running a vMotion internally inside your data center. Sounds great, isn’t it!

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It is also important to note that many enterprises are using only site-to-site VPN as the connectivity method for on-prem to public cloud infrastructure. Because of this, formal support of HCX over VPN underlay has been asked by many organizations and customers.

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