HomeLab

A collection of 25 posts

vExpert

Replacing CentOS NTP servers with Photon and Chrony

One of the CentOS 8 time servers in the homelab let me down recently, so I decided to replace it with Photon OS and Chrony

UniFi

Fixed: UniFi Network Application Not Starting After Firmware Upgrade

How I managed to solve an issue with starting the UniFi Network Application after a firmware update on my homelab's UDM Pro

vExpert

Creating HTML email templates for vRealize Automation Code Stream

How to create an HTML formatted email template for use in a vRealize Automation Code Stream pipeline

HomeLab

How to get BGP working on a UniFi Dream Machine Pro

BGP isn't available natively on the UniFi Dream Machine Pro, but there is a way. This post explains how.

VMware

Cloudbase-Init with vRealize Automation and vSphere - No CD Drive!

This article explains how to use Cloudbase-Init with vRealize Automation and vSphere without requiring a CD drive in every Windows VM.

CentOS

Cloud-Init with vRealize Automation and vSphere - No CD Drive!

This article explains how to use Cloud-Init with vRealize Automation and vSphere without requiring a CD drive in every VM.

Retrospective

Personal Retrospective - February 2021

My first personal retrospective, February 2021. Includes customer work, vExpert, OCTO and more!

vRA

Automatic Deployment Names in vRA 8.x

How to make vRealize Automation (vRA) deployment names unique without having to bother users with entering one

vRA Featured

vRealize Automation (vRA) 8.3 GA

vRealize Automation 8.3 is out. There are a number of exciting changes included. These are my top picks from them.

Vault

How to Configure AWS KMS for Vault Auto-Unseal

Rather than manually unsealing Vault in the homelab every time updates are applied, it'd be preferable to have it auto-unseal using an AWS Key Management Server. This is how to setup the AWS part.

vExpert

Integrating VMware Code Stream and Packer

Not content to build vSphere templates periodically, this introduction shows how VMware Code Stream and Packer can be combined to trigger builds from Git updates.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 7) - Further plans

The final (short) post in this series. Now that vSphere templates can be built repeatably, it's time to think about the next steps to take things further.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 6) - CentOS

Having created a Windows template, in Part 6 of this series it's now time to make one for Linux using my go-to distro, CentOS 8.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 5) - Windows templates

Armed with some vSphere variables, it's now time to create a Windows template. In post 5 of this series that process is described.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 4) - vSphere variables

In part 4 of this series it's finally time to introduce some JSON. The variables that I re-use in every template for telling Packer where to provision machines.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 3) - Variables, builders and provisioners

In part 3 of this series I cover some of the configuration and terminology required to get going with builds and that will be used in the rest of the series.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 2) - Preparation

Now Packer is introduced, it's time to prepare for using it to create some vSphere templates. This is part 2 of a series.

Packer

Creating vSphere VM templates with Packer (part 1) - Introduction

Bored of hand-rolling vSphere templates? I was! This is part 1 of a series that documents creating vSphere templates using Packer.

HomeLab

My vSphere 6.7 homelab upgrade experience

vSphere 6.7 was released several months ago, and I've been meaning to upgrade my homelab for a while now. vSphere 6.5 has been pretty rock-solid, but it's time for me to keep up with the Joneses. This post covers my upgrade process and experiences. vCenter Migration My original

HomeLab

Root password expired on vCenter VCSA 6.5

I thought I'd update my homelab's primary vCenter to the latest and greatest (6.5 update 1d), when I encountered an issue with the root password. The update showed up ok in the appliance's VAMI interface and I selected to install it but an error quickly showed up: [/content/images/

certificate

Howto: Creating a CA template for VMware services

Having setup my lab's PKI infrastructure previously, one of the next steps I needed to complete was to create a template for certificates for VMware's products to use as they require certain properties to be present in the certificates used. There is a KB article [https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/

certificate

Howto: Configuring a homelab online subordinate CA

A quick recap of where I got to. I have an offline Root CA (well, it's still online because I'll need it in a minute) and I've created a website on my online subordinate CA server to host the Root CA certificate and CRL files. The purpose of the subordinate

HomeLab

Howto: Configuring a homelab offline Root CA

Self-signed SSL certificates are all well and good but they're not meant to be for the real world. The trust issues they cause can be a headache on customer projects and anything that's going in to production shouldn't be using them. For that reason, I thought it'd be better to

HomeLab

Synology DS1513+ Released

The Synology DS1512 has been a popular choice for many home labs in recent years. I hoped that the company's raft of recent product updates would reach this model eventually. Well my wish was granted as Synology have announced the DS1513+ [http://originwww.synology.com/support/news.php?lang=uk&

autolab

Get Your Homelab in the Clouds with AutoLab

Since we have a small but significant following of people who run home labs here on vSpecialist, I thought I'd mention a limited offer that may be of interest. If you're not familiar with AutoLab [http://www.labguides.com/autolab/], it's designed to produce a nested vSphere 5.1, 5.