VMware vCenter RDU (Reduced Downtime Upgrade (or Update)) is a relatively new feature that allows you to update your vCenter to the next version with limited downtime, just like the name indicates. It works similarly to the process for upgrading from vCenter 7 to vCenter 8, which is also very similar to doing a fresh…
I am very excited about VMware Explore this year, as it will be my first time at VMware Explore and the first large tech conference I’ve attended in person. VMware Explore is a conference about VMware products that VMware (technically Broadcom now) organizes. It used to be known as VMworld, but in 2022, it was…
When using VMware vCenter, you may only occasionally need a configuration backup of each VMware ESXi host. However, there are some situations where having a config backup of each ESXi host is nice to have. I didn’t want to back up each ESXi host manually, as it doesn’t scale well. Instead, I created a PowerShell…
At some point, you will need to expand your TrueNAS Zvol. In this post, I will cover step-by-step how to increase the size of your Zvol on TrueNAS, specifically TrueNAS Core or TrueNAS Enterprise. The Process
If you have been using the UniFi controller for a very long time, there’s a chance you are running an older version of MongoDB. When Ubiquiti released version 8.1 of the UniFi network application server, they finally bumped up the supported MongoDB version from 4.4 to 7.0. The MongoDB upgrade path only supports jumping one…
When you self-host the UniFi Controller or the UniFi Network Application server, it’s a good idea to take a backup before making major changes. Backups are always a good thing to have. In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to take a settings only backup of the UniFi Network Application server. The Process
I recently encountered a strange issue with Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon) that resulted in a black screen presenting to the VDI users when they logged in. When you search for this issue, you will find a lot of information about various solutions to the blank screen issue. However, none of them solved the problem…
Windows Autopilot uses several mechanisms to function. A common one is the device’s hardware hash, also called the hardware ID. There are several ways to gather the hardware ID from a device to use in Windows Autopilot. In this post, I will show step-by-step how to get the hardware ID from a system with PowerShell…
Inspecting TLS/SSL traffic on corporate networks is very common, as over 80% of all web traffic is encrypted. If you aren’t performing TLS/SSL traffic inspection, you are potentially leaving your network exposed. The simple act of inspecting SSL connections helps reduce your attack surface. SSL inspection can make it harder to establish malicious outbound connections,…
Certificate chain issues are extremely widespread and more common than you think. You start to see how many websites have broken certificate chains when you start performing SSL inspection on a network. If you want to read more about certificate chains, my post Certificate Chain goes into more detail. My website, thedxt.ca, has a server…
