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  • Hello Hugo

    calendar Dec 19, 2021  · edit Dec 20, 2021 · 3 min read · meta hugo  ·
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    Hello Hugo

    Oops, I did it again. It wasn't all that long ago that I migrated this blog from Hashnode to a Jekyll site published via GitHub Pages. Well, a few weeks ago I learned a bit about another static site generator called Hugo, and I just had to give it a try. And I came away from my little experiment quite impressed! While …


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  • Fixing 403 error on SaltStack Config 8.6 integrated with vRA and vIDM

    calendar Nov 5, 2021 · 4 min read · vmware vra lcm salt openssl certs  ·
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    Fixing 403 error on SaltStack Config 8.6 integrated with vRA and vIDM

    I've been wanting to learn a bit more about SaltStack Config so I recently deployed SSC 8.6 to my environment (using vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager to do so as described here). I selected the option to integrate with my pre-existing vRA and vIDM instances so that I wouldn't have to manage authentication directly …


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  • Cloud-hosted WireGuard VPN for remote homelab access

    calendar Oct 28, 2021 · 21 min read · linux gcp cloud wireguard vpn homelab tasker automation networking security  ·
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    Cloud-hosted WireGuard VPN for remote homelab access

    For a while now, I've been using an OpenVPN Access Server virtual appliance for remotely accessing my homelab. That's worked fine but it comes with a lot of overhead. It also requires maintaining an SSL certificate and forwarding three ports through my home router, in addition to managing a fairly complex software …


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  • Run scripts in guest OS with vRA ABX Actions

    calendar Sep 3, 2021  · edit Sep 20, 2021 · 17 min read · vra abx powershell vmware  ·
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    Run scripts in guest OS with vRA ABX Actions

    Thus far in my vRealize Automation project, I've primarily been handing the payload over to vRealize Orchestrator to do the heavy lifting on the back end. This approach works really well for complex multi-part workflows (like when generating unique hostnames), but it may be overkill for more linear tasks (such as just …


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  • Notes on vRA HA with NSX-ALB

    calendar Aug 25, 2021 · 7 min read · nsx cluster vra availability networking  ·
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    This is going to be a pretty quick recap of the steps I recently took to convert a single-node instance of vRealize Automation 8.4.2 into a 3-node High-Availability vRA cluster behind a standalone NSX Advanced Load Balancer (without NSX being deployed in the environment). No screenshots or specific details since I ran …


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  • Free serverless URL shortener on Google Cloud Run

    calendar Aug 20, 2021  · edit Feb 3, 2022 · 4 min read · gcp cloud serverless  ·
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    Intro I've been using short.io with a custom domain to keep track of and share messy links for a few months now. That approach has worked very well, but it's also seriously overkill for my needs. I don't need (nor want) tracking metrics to know anything about when those links get clicked, and short.io doesn't provide …


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  • Creating static records in Microsoft DNS from vRealize Automation

    calendar Aug 13, 2021  · edit Jan 18, 2022 · 13 min read · vmware vra vro javascript powershell automation  ·
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    Creating static records in Microsoft DNS from vRealize Automation

    One of the requirements for my vRA deployments is the ability to automatically create a static A records for non-domain-joined systems so that users can connect without needing to know the IP address. The organization uses Microsoft DNS servers to provide resolution on the internal domain. At first glance, this …


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  • Recreating Hashnode Series (Categories) in Jekyll on GitHub Pages

    calendar Jul 24, 2021 · 10 min read · meta jekyll  ·
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    Recreating Hashnode Series (Categories) in Jekyll on GitHub Pages

    I recently migrated this site from Hashnode to GitHub Pages, and I'm really getting into the flexibility and control that managing the content through Jekyll provides. So, naturally, after finalizing the move I got to work recreating Hashnode's "Series" feature, which lets you group posts together and …


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  • Joining VMs to Active Directory in site-specific OUs with vRA8

    calendar Jul 21, 2021 · 7 min read · vmware vra abx activedirectory automation windows  ·
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    Joining VMs to Active Directory in site-specific OUs with vRA8

    Connecting a deployed Windows VM to an Active Directory domain is pretty easy; just apply an appropriately-configured customization spec and vCenter will take care of it for you. Of course, you'll likely then need to move the newly-created computer object to the correct Organizational Unit so that it gets all the right …


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  • Virtually Potato migrated to GitHub Pages!

    calendar Jul 20, 2021 · 4 min read · linux meta chromeos crostini jekyll  ·
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    Virtually Potato migrated to GitHub Pages!

    After a bit less than a year of hosting my little technical blog with Hashnode, I spent a few days migrating the content over to a new format hosted with GitHub Pages. So long, Hashnode Hashnode served me well for the most part, but it was never really a great fit for me. Hashnode's focus is on developer content, and …


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  • Script to update image embed links in Markdown files

    calendar Jul 19, 2021 · 2 min read · linux shell regex jekyll meta  ·
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    I'm preparing to migrate this blog thingy from Hashnode (which has been great!) to a GitHub Pages site with Jekyll so that I can write posts locally and then just do a git push to publish them - and get some more practice using git in the process. Of course, I've written some admittedly-great content here and I don't …


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  • Federated Matrix Server (Synapse) on Oracle Cloud's Free Tier

    calendar Jun 28, 2021  · edit Sep 17, 2021 · 16 min read · docker linux cloud containers chat  ·
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    Federated Matrix Server (Synapse) on Oracle Cloud's Free Tier

    I've heard a lot lately about how generous Oracle Cloud's free tier is, particularly when compared with the free offerings from other public cloud providers. Signing up for an account was fairly straight-forward, though I did have to wait a few hours for an actual human to call me on an actual telephone to verify my …


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  • Adding VM Notes and Custom Attributes with vRA8

    calendar Jun 1, 2021 · 5 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
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    Adding VM Notes and Custom Attributes with vRA8

    In past posts, I started by creating a basic deployment infrastructure in Cloud Assembly and using tags to group those resources. I then wrote an integration to let vRA8 use phpIPAM for static address assignments. I implemented a vRO workflow for generating unique VM names which fit an organization's established naming …


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  • AdGuard Home in Docker on Photon OS

    calendar May 27, 2021 · 7 min read · docker vmware containers networking security  ·
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    AdGuard Home in Docker on Photon OS

    I was recently introduced to AdGuard Home by way of its very slick Home Assistant Add-On. Compared to the relatively-complicated Pi-hole setup that I had implemented several months back, AdGuard Home was much simpler to deploy (particularly since I basically just had to click the "Install" button from the …


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  • vRA8 Automatic Deployment Naming - Another Take

    calendar May 20, 2021 · 3 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
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    vRA8 Automatic Deployment Naming - Another Take

    A few days ago, I shared how I combined a Service Broker Custom Form with a vRO action to automatically generate a unique and descriptive deployment name based on user inputs. That approach works fine but while testing some other components I realized that calling that action each time a user makes a selection isn't …


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John Bowdre

Wrangler of imaginary computers.
VMware vExpert
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Featured Posts

  • VMware Tanzu Community Edition Kubernetes Platform in a Homelab
  • Secure Networking Made Simple with Tailscale
  • Burn an ISO to USB with the Chromebook Recovery Utility
  • Setting up Linux on a new Lenovo Chromebook Duet (bonus arm64 complications!)

Recent Posts

  • Removing and Recreating vCLS VMs
  • Gitea: Ultralight Self-Hosted Git Server
  • Getting Started with the vRealize Automation REST API
  • ESXi ARM Edition on the Quartz64 SBC
  • Download Web Folder Contents with Powershell (wget -r replacement)
  • Active Directory authentication in Tanzu Community Edition

Series

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Tags

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