I recently put this together for a customer of mine and figured I'd put it here for archival purposes and maybe some of you can use it as a full walkthrough of replacing vCenter, PSC, and ESXi host certificates with custom (non-VMCA) certificates from an external CA. Nothing in here is new or revolutionary, but … Continue reading Custom Certificate Replacement Guide
Category: ESXi
How To: Upgrade vCSA 6.0 to vCSA 6.5
Today marks the release of vSphere 6.5 and with that, a new vCenter Server Appliance that is worth paying attention to. Beyond the traditional boost of configuration maximums and security, this version comes loaded with features that have been requested over the past few years. Some highlights include: Built-in migration tool to go from vCenter … Continue reading How To: Upgrade vCSA 6.0 to vCSA 6.5
Quick Script: Syslog Server Updater
Recently deployed a new syslog server and needed a script to update the ~20+ ESXi hosts as fast as possible. This is pretty cut and dry in terms of what happens... prompts for vCenter and Syslog addresses, then it updates the Syslog Server field on each host associated with that vCenter as well as allowing … Continue reading Quick Script: Syslog Server Updater
The heavens parted and then… ESXi Heartbleed patch!
Better late than never, yea? Quick Saturday post, here is how to get your host up to date real quick via SSH, generate new certs, and change the root password. Better safe than sorry, friends. Note: This is only for ESXi 5.5 Update 1! If you are not running 5.5u1, replace ESXi-5.5.0-20140404001-standard with ESXi-5.5.0-20140401020s-standard. This … Continue reading The heavens parted and then… ESXi Heartbleed patch!
Centralized rsyslog with ESXi 5.x hosts
One of the most important things in any environment is the syslog server. A centralized host to keep all the debug, runtime, and access information to be sent to your Kibana/Logstash or Splunk implementations will make any sysadmins life easier. The walk-through below sets up a central server running rsyslog, accepting logs on 514 from … Continue reading Centralized rsyslog with ESXi 5.x hosts